Inari Kon Kon: Complete Series + OVA Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Inari Kon Kon: Complete Series + OVA Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 5, 2015

That old adage “be careful what you wish for” has informed any number of multimedia properties through the years, with whole franchises like The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series often being based pretty firmly on twists of fate sparked by someone’s deepest desires and/or prayers. Something along those lines also informs the charming if lightweight Inari Kon Kon, a show which traverses some standard magical girl territory while also offering gentle lessons about trying to come to terms with one’s personal identity, even when there are bigger, better and more popular people seemingly in abundance. Inari Fushimi is a sweet and quite shy middle school girl whose name references the Shinto kami Inari Ōkami whose purview includes foxes. On the way to school one morning Inari thinks she’s rescuing a little dog who is perilously close to falling into a river. Inari herself ends up in the drink, but she manages to save what she assumes is a normal canine, even tying her bandana around the little creature’s leg as a sort of token of their togetherness. Later, Inari is stunned to find out she actually rescued a fox spirit and when several siblings of that spirit lead her into a secret part of local Inari shrine (i.e., one devoted to the god), Inari (the girl) finds herself even more gobsmacked when the shrine’s resident deity Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami appears and offers to grant the little girl one wish. That is obviously a recipe for disaster, and indeed Inari’s wish leads to some unforeseen developments which then propel this simple but often quite heartfelt anime forward.

Inari as a character traffics in relatively unsurprising traits like a rather refreshingly innocent helpful streak, but also as tends to be the case in similarly themed anime, her own best intentions often result in disaster. One of these embarrassing escapades occurs just before her mystical experience with Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami, and is in fact the reason why Inari in such a dither to have a wish come true. Inari has more than a bit of crush on popular schoolmate Kōji Tanbabashi, and when she’s paired with him in physical education class one day, it seems like a dream come true. Suffice it to say, a totally horrifying chain of events leads to Inari not only being unable to voice her true feelings for the boy, but humiliating both him and herself in the process. It’s at this emotionally roiling point that Inari is only too happy to be guided by fox spirits into a “den” of a spiritual order.

Inari is under the initial misapprehension that Kōji is attracted to another girl in the class named Akemi Sumizome, and so when Inari is offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to have one and only one wish come true, she perhaps unwisely asks to become Sumizome. That leads to some temporary quasi-farcical events, but the upshot is that Inari of course realizes what a mistake she’s made and wants to be transformed back. (This would have been a great place to have inserted The Twilight Zone’s iconic theme music.) Uka-no-Mitama- no-Kami is unable to grant that request, but comes up with a workaround which may in fact help but which creates its own round of problems.

By the time the resulting brouhaha has been developed, most audience members will be solidly rooting for Inari, a girl who is a bit impulsive but who also obviously has a good heart and sweet demeanor. It’s not much of a spoiler to mention that her relationship with Kōji provides grist for the mill for a lot (maybe even most) of the subsequent developments, but while there’s no shirking from the romantic angle of the anime, there are some other rather interesting and even touching elements, including an almost philosophical rumination on what it means to pray to (or at least use the power of) a god when that means depleting that god’s own power (and, therefore, ability to affect anything from on high). Inari Kon Kon doesn’t dwell on these issues that way someone like, say, Mamoru Oshii might. It doesn’t have any outsized ambitions, but the fact that there are some relatively delicate little subtexts at play here gives Inari Kon Kon quite a bit of its distinctive flavor.

A parallel love story of sorts involving Inari’s brother Tōka and Uka probably doesn’t resonate as much as the focal one, though even this aspect has an interesting subtext and backstory involving Tōka’s ability to “see” the spirit world. In fact one of Inara Kon Kon’s most interesting aspects is how it repeatedly shows spiritual realms coexisting and interacting with the “merely” mortal. Inari ends up as a kind of go-between (in more ways than one), and kind of strangely becomes a living exemplar of that old adage “god in action.”

Inari Kon Kon: Complete Series + OVA Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Inari Kon Kon is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Brightness looks a little boosted throughout this presentation, but this is otherwise a very colorful and often quite beautiful looking anime. The animation style is very fluid, especially with regard to elements like the ghostly fox spirits, but there is some really evocative rendering of dappled light and the like that helps to develop depth and adds quite a bit of luster to the proceedings. The palette is very varied, but deep oranges and purples often dominate and pop very well. Line detail is sharp and well detailed, and there are no issues with image instability.

Inari Kon Kon: Complete Series + OVA Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Inari Kon Kon features the original Japanese language track delivered via Dolby TrueHD 2.0. This release does not include an English dub, and the subtitles are forced during audio playback. The series can occasionally be a bit noisy, but the stereo track offers decent separation and appealing depth, especially in some of the enjoyable music. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and well prioritized. Dynamic range isn't huge in this anime, but there are occasional bursts of energy. Fidelity is excellent and there are no issues of any kind to warrant concern.

Inari Kon Kon: Complete Series + OVA Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Note: All of the supplements for Inari Kon Kon are on Disc 2 of this two Blu-ray disc set.

• Pub Fox Theater (1080p; 13:34) features nine slightly wacky shorts with, yep, foxes at a pub talking things over while various snippets from episodes play on the "bar television."


• Commercial Collection (1080p; 00:51)


• Promotional Video (1080p; 1:41)


• Textless Opening Song Kyo ni koiiro (1080p; 1:32)


• Textless Closing Song Saved (1080p; 1:32)


• U.S. Trailer (1080p; 1:35)

Inari Kon Kon: Complete Series + OVA Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Inari Kon Kon is no groundbreaking anime by any stretch, but it, quite like its heroine, seems to have a good heart and a gentle way of moving a somewhat predictable story forward. Inari herself is lovable pretty much from the get go, and while some of the philosophical ruminations are probably handled in too sanguine a fashion, there is some really interesting foundational content in this anime that is deeper than the surface pleasures of its story might initially suggest. The design aesthetic is similarly shiny on the surface but able to offer surprising depth at times. While almost intentionally slight, Inari Kon Kon offers some understated pleasures that may appeal even to those who typically don't go in for magical girl fare. Technical merits are generally strong, and Inari Kon Kon comes Recommended.