URAHARA First Impressions
This is a show I was not planning on starting but picked up due to a friend’s recommendation. I’ll be honest here, I have no idea where this show is going, but I’ve been enjoying the ride so far. The story revolves around 3 girls who set up a pop-up fashion shop in Harajuku when suddenly aliens attack and they get special alien powers to defend their home.
The art is my favorite part of this show. It’s got a very sketch-like quality to it. Colors are very bright and colorful and very much adds to the cutesy nature of the show. Literally, when the girls take out an enemy, the enemy gets transformed into cute food. If you’re a fan of the bright and bubbly, give this show a shot even just for the art. Though, sometimes the show likes to just not include backgrounds in some scenes so characters are sometimes disconnected from the setting.
So far, I really only like one of the characters, Rito. She’s got a rather plain personality and a very serious case of resting-bitch-face. She appears to be the leader of the trio and is the one that’s most willing to jump forward in order to defend her city. Kotoko’s got a nice bubbly and analytical personality but she almost literally does nothing in combat. Mari had some drastic change to character between episode 2 and 3 where she never wanted to fire her weapon to being super confident with handling it.
The story is rather… not at all there. So far we know of the scoopers coming to earth to steal culture. Misa and Ebifuruya were captured, but escaped, from the scoopers and delivered the powers to the trio. This is all we know of what’s going on. Harajuku is in a bubble generated from the magical floating crepe the girls created and their job is to defend the city from any scooper attacks. Confused yet? Yeah, that’s how I feel about this show right now. Episode 3 foreshadowed some potential conflicts so it may be a lot more interesting down the road.
The show initially gave me vibes similar to Punchline, a show I enjoyed in the past, so I gave it the 3 episode test. I’ll keep going due to the foreshadowing in the last episode catching my attention but I am still unsure if I would actually like where it goes. Rito’s voice actress is making her debut with this role and she’s doing a great job so far; I was unable to even tell it was her first voice acting gig.
The show isn’t for everyone. But if you like the art style, enjoyed Punchline, or just want to watch some silly nonsense this show would be worth the watch. I’ll keep up with it, at least through midseason, and if you’re still unsure check back around then to see if I actually enjoyed it. Let me know what you thought of Urahara in the comments!