April 11th, 2019 
AstroNerdBoy The Helpful Fox Senko-san 01
Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san 01
世話やきキツネの仙狐さん episode 01
Spoiler Summary/Synopsis
Nakano is an overworked salaryman. A divine kitsune (humanoid fox entity) named Senko is dispatched to help him. Late one night, the exhausted Nakano comes home to find Senko in his tiny apartment, cooking dinner. Because she has the appearance of a 12 year old girl with fox ears and tail, Nakano thinks she might be a cosplayer. But because he doesn’t want to be arrested for having a little girl in his apartment, he throws her out.
Senko phases through the door and pretends to be depressed that Nakano doesn’t want the meal she’s prepared. He agrees to eat it. During the meal, she introduces herself, stating she’s 800-years old. Her only desire is to pamper Nakano. Plus, she hints at owing Nakano’s family a favor. When she asks Nakano about what he desires, he only wants to fluff her tail. So she reluctantly agrees to it.
After he finishes fluffing her tail, which is apparently very sensitive, Nakano feels bad for losing himself in the moment. Senko reminds him of her great age. For her, it is a joy to be able to pamper the hard working Nakano. She offers her lap as a pillow for him. Nakano lays down and falls asleep, apparently dreaming of his childhood at his grandma’s place. When Nakano awakens, he feels refreshed. Senko promises lots more pampering, but restricts the fluffing of her tail to once a day.
Thoughts/Review
Having read the source manga series, I was keen to see the anime adaptation. The Helpful Fox Senko-san 01 is pretty nice, but for some reason, I didn’t quite get the same feeling as I did when I read the manga.
Loli-babaa
When I first started reading the Senko-san manga, I was introduced to the term “loli-babaa”. I can’t tell if the term originated out of Japan or not. For those unaware, it basically means an elderly lady (Obabaa) who has the body of a young, “loli” girl (lolita).
Apparently, the loli-babaa fetish is all about having one’s cake and eating it to. And as was joked about in The Helpful Fox Senko-san 01, an adult with a female stranger in his house who looks 12 could land one in jail. But if said loli girl is actually 800 years old, and a demigod of sorts, well…😉
Changes from the Source Manga
The basic story premise laid out in The Helpful Fox Senko-san 01 is the same as the source manga. However, 30 pages cannot fill out an entire episode, so some padding was done in the episode. Most notably, the flashback stuff of what appears to be a young Nakano and his grandma are not part of the source manga. But I suspect that this plotline will be continued by the anime. Call it years of anime watching experience. 😉
The weird thing is that in the flashbacks, the boy is called Kuroto. I don’t remember Nakano being addressed as such. Indeed, when he introduces himself to the young lady next door, its just “Nakano” and no other name. I do seem to remember Nakano having some kind of dream where there’s a man that resembles him wearing traditional Japanese garb. This man is with Senk0-san. I kinda suspect that Kuroto is an ancestor of Nakano, or Kuroto reincarnated as Nakano. We’ll see though. (Some are assuming the MC is Kuroto.)
The Anime Adaptation
As to the anime adaptation, Doga Kobo does a great job visually with The Helpful Fox Senko-san 01. I really felt they captured Rimukoro-sensei’s art style perfectly and brought it to life.
As to the story, I’ll reserve judgement. My natural preference when it comes to anime adaptations of source manga (or light novels) is to have a very light touch and be as faithful to the source material as possible. Titles like Love Hina or the original Fruits Basket anime show that when the adaptation of the source material really strays from it, the result pales when compared to said source material.
It may be because I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in ages, but watching The Helpful Fox Senko-san 01 didn’t have the same effect on me as I had when I read the manga. Then again, maybe I’m thinking of more current chapters. It has been a while since the original chapter came out. Still, I guess I was hoping for a heart-warming feeling seeing a guy who’s lewdest act is merely fluffing Senko-san’s tail. Oh well.
FUNimation
Considering that FUNimation long ago abandoned Japanese honorifics in their subtitles, I was stunned that their official English title for the series properly used “Senko-san” in it.
Oddly enough, of the two times that Nakano addressed Senko-san, the first time FUNimation lost the “san” and the second time, they just changed it to “you.” So I don’t know what the heck that means for the subtitles. Its possible they left “san” in the title, but when it comes to the actual subtitles, they are going to give me the big, middle finger. We’ll see.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
In the end, The Helpful Fox Senko-san 01 was enjoyable enough, even though it didn’t give me the warm fuzzies the manga chapters have been giving me of late. However, I intend to episode-blog the series.
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Anything else you’re checking out this season? I was expecting Fruits Basket, you gonna review it?
Absolutely! Episode 1 was posted last week. I’m actually working on episode 2 now. Just hoping that bloody offshore doesn’t interfere with me like they did last week. 😅
Oh! I almost forgot–Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin is on the block. I’ve seen four of the OVAs for that series (I think). Not sure if this TV series is something totally new, or just taking the 6-part OVA and turning it into a TV series. If its the latter, I will likely not blog about that.
Man, I totally didn’t see the review for the first episode. Must have overlooked it.
If you like shonen action with a slight horror tinge I can recommend Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) this season. It’s a good story and ufotable is doing the adaptation, so you know it’s gonna look great.
I’ll be checking out “Carole & Tuesday” and “Kono Oto Tomare!”. Both music shows. Kono Oto seems to be about a koto (Japanese zither) club. Carole & Tuesday is directed by Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Kids on the Slople). Since Netflix grabbed C&T I’ll have to resort to watching fansubs – who has the patience to wait half a year to watch a show?
I won’t have time to episode blog anything else, but I’ll put those titles on my list.
Starting get feeling animes their producing of manga are getting lamer as time goes in comparison to the source materials. That’s sad.
To be honest, now that I’m more versed in source manga, I think many anime adaptations are rather poor in comparison. My feeling is that whomever ultimately writes (and I suppose directs) the anime wants to put their own stamp on things. There is a theory that states that a faithful adaptation of source material will be boring to viewers who’ve read said source material. Thus things need to be changed a bit to make it “fresh” without removing the core element of the story.
Personally, I disagree with this philosophy. For the most part, I feel that adaptations should be as faithful as possible. Obviously, some tweaks in the adaptation story may be required for legitimate reasons, and I don’t have a problem with those. But I dislike massive changes to the source material, ’cause “reasons.”
Once in a blue moon, the adaptation is actually better than the source material. Planetes springs to mind. The anime really fleshed out the source material quite well, though there were a few changes that were inferior in the anime.