It’s time again for another Anime review. Okay so I watch a lot of Anime, but it’s so kawaii, and I’m into all that cute stuff.
Today’s review is on Princess Jellyfish, an Anime I watched a while ago, and never got a chance to write a review for.
Princess Jellyfish, is a quirky show, much like the name itself. It centers around the tents of the Amamizukan, apartment complex; who all happen to be otaku women. These women all have a little quirk about them. Most of all they all tend to be shy, insecure, and avoid men.
The central figure is Tsukimi Kurashita, who is an 18-year-old illustrator living at the complex and is obsessed with jellyfish. The jellyfish obsession was brought on by her a memory of her late mother during a visit to an aquarium when Tsukimi was young. Since then she has always drawn jellyfish and has a great fondness for them.
Though Tsukimi dreams of being a successful illustrator and moves to Tokyo, she doesn’t really get anywhere due to her obsession and general fear of stylish people, which explains why she choose to reside at Amamizukan, in the first place.
Once night on the way home, Tsukimi passes a pet shop and resizes that the store clerk has a made a grave error in where they have placed the jellyfish, and it is liable to die. She tries to explain this, but her nervous shyness kicks in and just makes a jumble of things until Kuranosuke Koibuchi walks in. This beautiful stylish lady figures out what Tsukimi was trying to say and ends up buying the jellyfish for her.
Tsukimi was awed inspired by the perfect feminine qualities, confidence, and style of Kuranosuke. However, in a weird turn of circumstances, Kuranosuke, ended up passing out at Tsukimi apartment that night, only for Tsukimi to find out the next morning that Kuranosuke, wasn’t the perfect women after all, but a crossing dressing guy.
Kuranosuke, obviously has problems of his own. Being the illegitimate child of a politician he resents his father for taking him away from his showgirl mother at a young age. In order to feel closer to his mother, which he hasn’t seen in years he crosses dresses in beautiful gowns like the ones she used to wear.
The rest of the story unfolds as the other apartment tenants become friends with Kuranosuke, who gives them all makeovers and helps them to be more confident women. Though, Tsukimi is the only one that knows that Kuranosuke is actually a man.
If the story of these guys weren’t funny alone, there’s Kuranosuke’s half-brother, who is the stereotype 30-year old virgin, Shū Koibuchi. He was dramatized after seeing his father cheat with Kuranosuke’s mother, and since then has sworn off relationships with women. That is until he meets Tsukimi after Kuranosuke made her over and thinks she is the ideal lady. Unfortunately for Shū, he’s got more problems than just finding out more about Tsukimi.
Shū is in the middle of a big political development project and real estate developer Shōko Inari tries to manipulate Shū to favoring her requests, by blackmailing him into believing that he spent the night with her. However, because of his psychological issues, he knows that could have never happened. Shōko, who has been more or less sleeping her way up the corporate ladder, is now taken back by the fact that Shū, would be so virtuous and even somewhat concerned about her well-being.
The Anime itself if only about 11 episodes and just gives you a taste of these characters and their rather odd situation. Apparently, the manga continues on expanding more on the rest of the tenants of Amamizukan.
Although I wish the series had more meat, overall it was cute, despite the crazy obsessions of the characters. It’s not a bad watch and has a kind of romantic quality to it.
