Anime Review: Princess Jellyfish

This anime that I watched awhile ago, I marathoned. I came across it randomly and wonderfully on Netflix. Another thing, I can watch Netflix now, which means I’ll be watching more anime….probably. Right now I’m finishing Physcho-Pass and I just got to the part where she (spoiler statement) and then that (spoiler) chick kills (spoiler) and the (spoiler spoiler spoiler) just (spoiler)! Gosh I was so mad and sad. It was emotionally wrecking.

Anyway, but this is about the cutest anime I've seen in awhile. KUREGEHIME!!! (Princess Jellyfish) In this I’ll go over both the manga and the anime. I’ve seen the entire anime, and picked up in the manga where the anime left off finishing up to the recent chapters.

Oh, isn't that dress and girl so pretty
and feminine? Yeah, she and it are.

So this anime’s genre is josei. Which translates to lady. Basically the josei genre is like shoujo but more realistic and aimed at more mature audiences with more realistic relationships between characters. After discovering josei, I found my favorite genre of anime ever. Kuregehime is an anime about jellyfish, otaku(hermit) lifestyles, dresses and pure relationships with people.

Written by the mangaka Akiko Higashimura, who won an award for this manga, it was turned into an anime and licensed by Funimation (also dubbed, but I prefer sub for a more realistic Kuranosuke) and Kaze UK. Consisting of 11 episodes and 77 chapters, but still ongoing and maybe going to be reaching an end soon.

The anime starts off with a girl who is dangerously venturing out into the outside city world. On a WEEKEND!! She eventually fails and returns to her apartment complex with her fellow female otakus. (known as the Amars because of where they live) They each have their own unique interests. In their cute little apartment complex these six girls avoid the stylish people and the opposite sex. Our most focused girl, Tsukimi, is obsessed with Jellyfish. She draws them all the time, knows all the facts, and remembers her mother with them. Her mother who said she make her a wedding dress that looks like one type of jellyfish’s pretty frills and tentacles. When Tsukimi is out one night she sees a spotted jellyfish in a tank with another jellyfish in the store. Tsukimi flips out because she knows that the spotted jellyfish will die if it stays there. Sucking up her weariness of people in general, she shouts out why the owner should separate them, forcing herself in the store and ultimately being forced back out. That is until a super stylish girl comes and helps her out. They take the jellyfish back to the house, and Tsukimi, thanking her, tries to get her to leave before her housemates freeze in their protective self otaku mode (turn to stone) because they fear the stylsih. Tsukimi, unable to prevent her prying manner, just let’s it happens. And you wouldn’t believe what happens when she wakes up the next morning. Well you might, but I won’t tell.

I know this isn't official art, but this is pretty much the first episode.
Courtesy of Elixirmy on DeviantArt.

For the characters, I say she did a good job on them. They developed and over time you can see them changing. More so in the manga because it’s goes on longer than the anime and they face more problems. (I’ll explain anime vs. manga a little later) Even the side characters you see change and move through things. That is manga wise. In the anime, nobody really changes except Tsukimi. At least drastically. The Amars slowly do get more used to males and the idea of stylish people but they themselves do not really change. Pretty much everybody is a dynamic character in the manga though. They are also somewhat realistic and relatable if you've ever been one of these type of people ever. By that I mean a misanthrope who also likes manga.

I’m not really sure about the soundtrack because it has been awhile since I’ve seen it, but I did like the opening theme. Going straight into the art, I loved it. The artist’s style is unique and I happen to love it. All the characters look like real people. Not beautiful or hideous but real people, and they show this in the show (and even more so the manga). I’ll admit that the art strong points lie in it’s character’s and costumes since it’s softness isn’t necessarily the best for backgrounds, but the backgrounds still look pretty amazing. The animation, it’s been too long for me to truly remember it, but I think that itself was pretty good, nothing over the top amazing, but still pretty good.

Oh yeah, and they mention this
 ideal a lot too. It's great,
showing to have self
confidence, self pride in oneself.
Ah yes. I do love this anime.
Also that's Tsukimi, the braids +glasses girl.
ENJOY~ <3

The storyline I personally like. It’s original. It branches off into something you really wouldn't expect, turning into a weird sort of fashion manga, but also not. It does have romance in it, but it’s also about accepting things and it haves a deeper more powerful meaning to it as the girl’s the building accept more into their friendship and being their for one another and branching off from their otaku lifestyle. In the anime, it does well until it's abrupt end the last few episodes. Because that was OBVIOUSLY the best way to get out of it! *sarcastic*

Now that I think I’ve covered all the aspects let’s venture onto the fact of manga vs. anime since I’m doing both for now. The anime essentially follows the same plot of the manga (so I started where it left off) but since there is no chance of a second season for the anime, it ends it abruptly and rather, badly, closing up all loose ends super suddenly and missing out on a few essential chapters that were featured in the manga, but were sped over in the anime as it neared it’s end. The anime is still a good watch, but I do recommend the manga more than I recommend the anime, or if you wish to truly follow the story and still watch the anime, go to the chapter before episode 10? starts and start reading from there. And in additional news, it looks like that Kuregehime is also getting a live action series.

Overall, this show and manga is adorable and one of the best romance genre anything I’ve read and or watched in a long time! So kewt!!

Look at the Amars.... and Kura.