Title: Shrine of the Morning Mist

Director: Yuji Moriyama

Japanese Production Studio: Chaos Project & Miko Committee

Type: (TV)

Number of Episodes: 26 (about 11 ½ minutes long each)

Vintage: 2002

US Licensing Company: Media Blasters

Genre: Magical Girl, School Comedy

 

General Summary:

 

Yuzu Hieda and Tadahiro Amatsu are childhood friends. However because Tadahiro traveled around they were unable to see each other very often. It just so happens that Tadahiro will be living with Yuzu and going to the same High School starting the new semester. Tadahiro is special because hidden in his left eye is a dark secret that haunts him throughout the series. A dark masked sorcerer named Ayatara Miramune and his summoned demons are after Tadahiro for unknown reasons. Yuzu will be recruiting several other girls to help her on her quest to combat these evil demons using various priestess abilities that they will acquire from training from Yuzu’s elder sister Kurako. Can they successfully keep these demons at bay? Or will they falter? You will have to watch Shrine of the Morning Mist to find out!

 

Art and Animation:

 

First I should mention that the art used in SotMM (Shrine of the Morning Mist for short) is rather unique. I have not seen this type of style before, but I do find it quite good. As far as animation is concerned it’s fantastic! Throughout SotMM there are quite a few battles and the crispness is very nice. The battles throughout the show are intense and are a solid plus for the show.

 

Character Development and Storyline

 

The characters are well developed, the center of the characters are both Yuzu and Amatsu with of course the other priestess who are later recruited. What happens in the very beginning, first episode is really the backbone of the relationship between Yuzu and Tadahiro. This show in many respects is a mix of Azumanga Daioh school comedy mixed with fantasy elements and therefore should be judged accordingly. The show as a whole is very light, even the bad guys shouldn’t be taken very seriously early in the show. Some may consider this bad, but this is the charm surrounding the series. However, even with the comical elements a story can be found. I should mention that the story does not truly begin to take place till about the 8^th episode. This may seem like a long time but in actuality its not, because you have to remember that each episode in this series is only about 11 minutes long! The pacing of the show is good, it may be a bit slow at start but the show begins to take a more rapid pace later on. Even though throughout the series there are slow parts its good because it reminds the viewer not to take the series too seriously. The ending of the series is good, some may say it was a bit to be expected but how they went about actually coming to the conclusion was interesting.

 

Final Summary

 

In the end I don’t regret watching this series at all. It reminded me of why I liked school comedy’s so much and the fantasy element was a great touch. I really liked the fighting scenes; it was cool seeing the priestess fight using a various array of magical items in there fight to battle the demons and visually it was great as well. If I were to list my only compliant of the series is that the various moves the priestess use should have been more, for the majority of the series they repeat the same attack which does slightly diminish my outlook on the series. But even so the small amount of attacks they use don’t get boring at all. I will repeat, this series has a high content of comical elements mixed with fighting demons and it does it fairly well too. If however you are expecting to find a serious series then look elsewhere.

 

Rating:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(This review/pictures made by EternityOfPain)