Omamori Himari begins with Yuto Amakawa suddenly under attack from demons or ayakashi after a charm his grandparents gave him stops working on his 16th birthday. Himari bounces to the rescue (literally bounces – the bust sizes rarely drop below double G). Yuto discovers she is a demon cat (with his cat allergies as ample warning) charged with protecting him until he develops his demon slaying powers. His grandparents and parents died before they could tell him about their great family lineage as demon slayers to Yuto’s misfortune. Himari claims to have spent much of Yuto’s childhood with him, but Yuto has little memory of that childhood. Himari moves in with Yuto and the sexual comedic hijinks begin much to the irritation of Yuto’s neighbor and friend Rinko Kuzaki. Over the course of the anime, women and female demons continually move in with Yuto to protect him or learn about him.
The too ample breasts and sexual situations (Yuto is prudish and easily embarrassed unlike every female exempting Rinko) unnecessarily detract from the character and story development. Yuto is a pacifist that wishes humans and ayakashi to live together; reality forces itself upon his ideals with demons who enjoy killing for the sake of killing. Himari is interesting. She has the usual protector mentality common to anime but is torn between the human world and her demon nature. Demon cats are ferocious killers of humans and other ayakashi. Every time she fights to protect Yuto she risks falling into her demon nature and losing what makes her Himari. She is very similar to Inuyasha with this conflict. Of course she is a cat, bakeneko, instead of a dog demon. The back story of the demon slayer families also wasn’t fleshed out as much as it could have been.
The animation was pretty good; although too much time was spent on certain….uh…physics. The fight scenes are where Omarmori Himari shines. While it wasn’t bones quality, the fights are better animated than the first season of Inuyasha. The characters and clothing move fluidly with very few of the cheap action lines common in action anime. Again, the “up-skirts” frames in these action scenes got tired quickly. They were too contrived.Cup size seemed to denote power with how every heroine or strong foe filled the screen.
Omamori Himari had a fair bit of potential. It was refreshing to see such strong female characters take roles that are normally reserved for males. But it fell flat with how these women turned to mush when they tried to seduce Yuto and squabbled over him. Far too much time was spent on sexual comedy and awkward situations; time better served fleshing out story-lines and characters. Sexual comedy has its place in a larger story, but it fails miserably when it is contrived and used too often. I found Himari more interesting than Inuyasha with her internal conflicts, but the Inuyasha series is far more enjoyable and watchable. It just failed to reach into its full potential to be more than a 13 year old boy’s wet dream.
If you can look around the nudity and sexuality, this show has enjoyable moments and interesting characters. My final verdict: it’s one to skip. Stick to Inuyasha if you enjoy fantasy action anime.
