Anyamaru Tantei Kiruminzoo!!

For many of use, turning into animals has been a dream. What it would be like to lay around, have fun all day long and escape life's worries. For Riko, Rimu, and Nagisa, along with Ken, it is not a dream, but rather a reality for them.

Our story starts off with twins Riko and Rimu finding a little pocket toy after chasing a cat in their house. It turns out that the pocket toy is a kirumin, and it allows them to transform into animals, namely Riko into a cat and Rimu in a rabbit. They then get their older sister, Nagisa, into it, and then they start their adventures as animal detectives. They later drag in their two friends, Inomata Ken and Kijima Tamao into their activities and the kids have fun trying to solve mysteries with animals.

Now, I'll admit to being all over this anime but had to wait for it to be subbed. I will admit the story might not have been that strong, but the story was at least cute. While cutesy, it does tend to be overly so cute and might be a bit redundant, it got more serious as the anime went on, even to the point of question moral ethics. By the end of it, I felt dissapoint and wished that they could have extended the story, and explained some more of the stuff that was explained early on. 

The art for this anime was it's strong point. It's overly cute and fluffy, and well done. The transformation scenes were well done, and the sound effects made it even more cute. The "costume mode" was well done, but the transformation sequences, like all "magical girl" series (I'm using this term lightly here), took too damn long. But the animations for it were amazingly pretty, and well animated, and I'll give them credit for keeping up the art over a 50 episode series.

The characters could be looked at as strong or weak, depending on your point of view. We have the stereotypical stubborn hothead, Riko, and also Ken could fall into this catagory as well. We have the overly shy, potential "library girl," Rimu. Along with that, we have the level headed Nagisa, who serves as the voice of reason in most cases when she isn't being pushed to the side by her younger sisters, and then we have Tamao who serves as the tech and brains of the group. As a side character who appears way too often, we have Kanon, who is able to turn into a bat and who also has her own set of ideals. The characters are bearable, but I will admit, they really grate my nerves due to the fact they barely change until the last few episodes.


Overall. I'll admit it was worth the wait for this thing to get subbed. It might not be everyones cup of tea for various reasons such as too cutesy or too long, but if you can make it past that, then you potentially have found your self a diamond among anime.