Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Binbou Shimai Monogatari (The Story of the Poor Sisters) – episode 1

July 30, 2006 on 2:26 am | In Binbou Shimai Monogatari | Comments Off

“A Day for Yukatas, Fireworks and Candy Apples”

Poor sisters clearly live in some alternate dimension where 25 minutes feels like an eternity.

Kyo and Asu are impoverished sisters who have made a vow with their deceased mother to forever watch out for each other.
On the day that the story begins, the fireworks festival comes to town. Asu plots out a course of attack while Kyo goes out and spends Asu’s savings on a yukata. Misunderstandings ensue, solved only by the power of sisterhood.

It’s strange to see Sakamoto Maaya back in action in anime after years of small roles in a time of her life devoted mostly to making music. Here she is in lead roles in two ongoing anime: Ouran High School Host Club and Binbou Shimai Monogatar. She even uses the same voice for both characters, despite Kyo not being very gender ambigous. Kaneda Tomoko, best known to the world at large as being Chiyo-chan in Azumanga Daioh, turns in her best “little girl” performance as Asu.

Not that anyone will notice, because the anime loving community hates anime that covers poverty in any capacity because they don’t like “pity”. A story is not based on pity, but pity can motivate you to care for characters. It’s unlikely that they want your pity because, as Mario Puzo will tell you, poor people have their pride, too.
Asu and Kyo are determined to make a go of it, so if they knew that all of the people on the internet were spitting on them for not having any money, they’d stab them in the face. Actually, I’d really like to see that anime. Still, this fact does not change that you could easily add “-bin” to the title of the episode.

I’m not a big fan of the scenery design, looking a little too much like it had been done with crayons or something, even though it has to be a deliberate choice in this magical age of digimation. Still, it looks okay and it even gets away with the “you can’t see the man’s face in that photo” technique because his face has literally been blacked out with a marker.

Binbou Shimai Monogatari has an interest level, but this first episode did go on way too long. The abject poverty of the sisters isn’t going to make you cry, but it might be a bit too much to watch all at once.