The award for Kawaii-est of the Kawaii for 2022 goes to… Miss Shachiku and the Little Baby Ghost is hella kawaii. That’s about all there is to it. It keeps the emotional impact light. It’s fun, but also belabors the point a little bit. But what it never stops being is kawaii. This is a cuteness overload show. I love […]
The award for Kawaii-est of the Kawaii for 2022 goes to…
Miss Shachiku and the Little Baby Ghost is hella kawaii. That’s about all there is to it. It keeps the emotional impact light. It’s fun, but also belabors the point a little bit. But what it never stops being is kawaii. This is a cuteness overload show. I love shows like that.
Yes, go watch it. Be prepared for serious reactions to kawaii. Whatever your reaction to cuteness is, laughing and crying at once, shortness of breath, wide-eyed hilarity, get ready to experience in Miss Shachiku and the Little Baby Ghost.
Normally I say a show is driven by a particular element, usually its characters, artwork, or story, with lots of leeway within all that. This show is driven by its kawaii. Any other element is subservient to that. Characters and artwork are the biggest parts of that however, but neither is the driving force of this show. Kawaii is.
So you have Miss Shachiku. Most people be like “Oh look it’s Miss Kobayashi!” from Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. And the comparison is not inapt. This show is very similar to that one in many respects. It seems especially similar in its main adult character to that iconic show. Plain, tired, weary of her corporate life, mechanical, somewhat lifeless even, addicted to her work even though she doesn’t like it really. Miss Kobayashi.
But hopefully you picked up on the word play. It’s pointed out more than once during the show that Miss Shachiku lives up to her name, which more or less means, apparently, “corporate slave.” I think the word evolved from a couple of other words with that meaning in mind. Look it up. This name of hers is kind of funny and kind of sad at the same time. Funny because it’s like naming a character “Mister Main Character” or “Missus Evil Villain” or “Miss Queen.” She has a name apparently (Fushihara I believe—she could hardly interact with other adults in society and only be named Shachiku), but it’s mentioned very little. She’s literally “Miss Corporate Slave.” Which is sad because I don’t want anyone to have to wear that appellation. If you know much about modern Japan you recognize that this is a social issue they deal with, and one which anime usually simply pokes fun at it in this sad kind of way. But that’s Miss Shachiku. Her character and role are made pretty clear to the knowing audience.
Then the kawaii shows up. “Go away!” she boomed over her voice-altering loudspeaker. She’s a spooky ghost! She wants the overworked-but-late-working Miss Shachiku to go home. She’s a vengeful and spiteful ghost and wants her nighttime haunts to herself alone. She intends to frighten Miss Shachiku into yielding to her otherworldly demands.
But Miss Shachiku isn’t Miss Shachiku for nothing. She’s pretty apathetic to everything, or supernatural spooks at the very least. She goes in search of the source of the mysterious demands. And what does she find? The big eyed, blonde-haired, burial-garment clad precious little baby of a girl, Yuurei-chan. Her heart melted in kawaii, and so did all of ours.
This little bundle of sweetness is all cutesy behaviors and cute little sounds and fits of spontaneous crying and loving intentions. I was about laid out cold in paroxisms of kawaii overload. She was trying to get Shachiku-san to go home because she felt bad for her staying so late and losing sleep. I just laughed and cried and felt crazy.
Here was another character with a purely descriptive name. A yuurei is a kind of ghost in Japanese folklore, a departed spirit that hasn’t crossed over, like most ghost legends. So she is affectionately termed Yuurei-chan, an appellation she never objects to. “Kawaii!”
Miss Shachiku will regularly ejaculate “kawaii!” whenever Yuurei enacts one her ultra cute antics. And well she may. It perfectly echoes the audiences’ sentiments. Everything Yuurei does is so cute it ought to be a crime. It’s so cute it’s painful. She brings snacks to Shachiku-san. Kawaii! She climbs up Miss Shachiku’s chair to give her a neck massage. Kawaii! She climbs up into Shachiku’s lap and watches her work. Kawaii!! She falls asleep there. Kawaii!!!!
These two together were great. I probably could’ve watched a whole season of just these two interacting. But the author made a stab at adding extra kawaii and added three more baby characters. Myako was the bakeneko girl who showed up first and gave Yuurei-chan a playmate more her age. After that we were introduced to the maid Lily, Miss Shachiku’s neighbor’s ghostly baby companion. Who knew there could be two people so similarly afflicted with cuteness? and living nextdoor to each other at that. Lily was a little tsundere, too much for me, but I imagine some people find that pretty cute in its own way. Lastly they added Miko-chan, a little oni-girl baby, who was in I think just two episodes and hardly made an impression.
When I say I could probably watch a full season of just Miss Shachiku and Yuurei interacting, I mean a couple of things. First, I mean just that. They’re a ton of fun going at it together. But second, I mean that’s probably about the limit of how much of this I could watch. It does get a little old after a while, kawaii though it be. I felt like they were running out of material by ep3. They loaded up those first three episodes for all it was worth, and it was wonderful. But after that there wasn’t much left to this situation. So the author did the most logical thing and added more characters, and more little baby ghost characters at that, or at least supernatural beings. And it got old. The sweet Yuurei-chan was adorbs. Myako competing for Shachiku’s attention and bickering with Yuurei over her was annoying after one episode. Lily didn’t help things with her tsundere-ness which makes poor Shachiku’s poor neighbor sad occasionally. Then, after watching the opening and seeing four babies in that for ten episodes, finally the fourth baby shows up in ep11 (I think), with no time to do anything for herself or the series. I have no memory of what her particular schtick was.
The voice acting was good. Yuurei was particularly good with her cute voice. Rina Hidaka supplied this voice. She primarily plays these small, high-pitched voiced characters like this, performing roles like Milim (Reincarnated as a Slime) and Filo (Shield Hero), though you might be surprised that she’s Misuzo from Tomo-chan is a Girl. She’s obviously pretty good at this voice acting thing. Shachiku’s VA, Hisako Kanemoto, is probably best known for Erina from Food Wars, having played supporting characters mostly otherwise. She does a nice job with Shachiku and her overflowings of kawaii reactions. Chika Fujiwara’s (Kaguya-sama) VA, Konomi Kohara, did her usual good work with Myako-chan, but nothing spectacular. Kaori Ishihara plays Lily. She’s mostly done supporting supporting (yes I said it twice) roles. She’s actually Shouta from Miss Kobayashi, making another connection to that show here. The last bake-baby, Miko, is voiced by Yui Ogura, also known for supporting roles, such as Shinkan Onna (Goblin Slayer; speaking of descriptive names) and Mei (More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers).
That narrator, by the way, remember him? the guy who always echos Miss Shachiku’s “kawaii!” with his own? For at least one week that was Daisuke Namikawa—as in Hisoka (Hunter x Hunter), Jellal (Fairy Tail), Roku (Black Lagoon), Gilbert Bougainvillea (Violet Evergarden), Eustass Kidd (One Piece), Touru Oikawa (Haikyuu), Haganezuka (Demon Slayer), Ruijerd (Jobless Reincarnation), Lindell (The Ancient Magus’ Bride), Narciso (Jojo)…that guy. I love when shows overdo it with narrators.
That’s about it for characters. It’s all about the kawaii, and it mostly works. It certainly works for Yuurei. It’s hyperdrive kawaii!
The artwork is all light, airy, round, and chibi.
The coloring jumps out the most. I don’t know if I like it exactly, but it works here. It has a filtered light appearance. I’d almost say it’s almost like every scene is lit with those florescent lightbulbs. This might make sense as much of the series takes place inside either an office building or a cheap apartment room, both of which very likely have florescent lighting. But the corollary of this kind of lighting is very dull coloring. Yuurei is clad all in white, and definitely nothing about Shachiku exemplifies the definition of “colorful,” but even where there is some color it’s very dull.
Yes, “round.” Everybody’s heads are like underinflated balls. That sounds terrible, but it’s actually perfect for this show. The little babies of course have very round heads, but even Shachiku and her neighbor have fairly round faces. And not just heads and faces are round either. The babies’ eyes are wonderfully big and round. Eyes are proportionately larger the younger an anime character is obviously, and that’s certainly the case here.
Chibi! I love when anime works chibi versions of characters into certain scenes (here in June 2023 fairly recently we saw this work very well with Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible). Only here there isn’t a shift from normal art style to the sudden chibi style: everything is chibi. Or, kind of. The babies are all chibi. Their heads are way bigger than their bodies, I kid you not. Their eyes are bigger than their little hands, which is hella sweet but also really weird. But that’s chibi, and we like it. But the adults aren’t chibi, right Hawk? No, but they’re about as close as they can get without falling into that category. Miss Shachiku’s head is definitely out of proportion with her body, almost like you’d see on a young middle school character. Only her height and dolefulness show she’s an adult.
This show is all about the kawaii, and the artwork plays right into that. Whether it’s the chibi styling, the lightweight coloring, the round eyes that droop at the corners when filled with crybaby tears or shine with stars when filled with infant excitement, and all the fun reaction faces from Miss Shachiku whenever the kawaii hits hard, this show’s artwork exudes cuteness everywhere. Kawaii!!
Poor Shachiku-san is overworked and underslept, and probably underpaid. She’s regularly at the office until late at night, as in after midnight, working on her and others’ work projects. One night a ghostly voice booms out, demanding Miss Shachiku leave! Not only does she not leave, unfazed as she is in her dullness, but she goes looking for the source of the voice. She finds it in this little cute girl who proclaims she’s a ghost and just wanted Miss Shachiku to go home and get some sleep and take care of herself. Since Miss Shachiku initially refuses to do so, little Yuurei-chan sets about trying to make overtime more tolerable for Miss Shachiku with little services and the kawaii-est company you never had. Soon Miss Shachiku’s life begins to liven up a little, and she soon learns to take better care of herself and love life again.
But that’s about it. This story ran out of steam pretty quickly. Basically it’s Miss Shachiku and the little baby ghost—which is of course the title. There’s not much more to it than these little babies basically rescuing Shachiku from her drudgery.
But that’s sweet enough by itself. Shachiku brightens up visibly when they’re around and becomes more alive. I found this humorously ironic, as some of these creatures imbuing her with new life are ghosts, who of course by definition are dead. I guess that’s kind of funny, but it’s also kind of sad too.
I liked the repetitive jokes in this show. Miss Shachiku’s exclamations of “kawaii!” as she begins to lose her reason with the overload is always fun. So is the thing where, despite her intentions to drive Miss Shachiku home, Yuurei’s efforts often charge Miss Shachiku’s batteries up so much she actually feels like she can work longer. I also liked the thing where no one but Shachiku could see the babies, except for the neighbor of course and that one knowing old lady. There were probably another repeating touches like this that I’m not remembering right now, but the fact that I remember them says something for them.
The story keeps it light. We get a little backstory on Yuurei and the other baby ghosts, and even a little on Shachiku’s situation (and her neighbor gets a little attention in this way too), but none of it is overwhelmingly sad. You feel bad for Yuurei of course, as she obviously passed away as a baby and now haunts a corporate office. She’s completely alone until she begins to haunt Shachiku. But all of this is simply superficial in the story, and isn’t highlighted to add sadness. This was a good decision. The story is supposed to be all about the kawaii, and it mostly keeps the spotlight on that feature.
Which brings me to one of my favorite words in anime: iyashikei. “Iyashikei” is a genre of anime that’s simply supposed to make you feel good, or feel like you’re being healed or some such sensation. Heartwarming, comfy, lightweight, pretty, and sweet, it’s not supposed to stir up anything stronger than a comfortable laugh in its audiences. What’s an uncomfortable laugh, you say? Go watch Gintama, and watch Gin-san say “Every man is born with a bazooka in his heart,” or that idiotic scene where the head of the Shinsengumi is about to be married to a gorilla alien princess and there are bananas everywhere, and you’ll know what an uncomfortable laugh is. This show is comedy of course, but it’s comfortable comedy. I like to think it fits nicely in the iyashikei category.
That’s all there is to it really. It’s sweet and cute and that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s not gonna win any awards, but it’s not supposed to. It’s supposed to be sweet and cute and make you feel that life isn’t all so bad, and it does that. I like that just fine.
It’ll be hard to have a second season of this. One could argue a second season doesn’t really matter for a show like this, as it’s kind of the run-of-the-mill iyashikei and any other iyashikei series would do just as well to lighten one’s mood. I hear you on that. There’s nothing about it that’s so exceptional that you would absolutely require a second season of it. It’s not like Non Non Biyori, where you could watch the silly antics among those crazy characters almost endlessly. But more than that, there’s simply not much to add here. It’s just Miss Shachiku and the little baby ghost.
Iyashikei is a broader category than you might think, or at least some people define it so. As in, some people say Mushishi is iyashikei. That question aside, this show falls squarely in the pure iyashikei category. If you need something to lighten your day and you’re in the mood for a major kawaii high, grab Miss Kobayashi and Renge-chon and sit down and let Yuurei-chan heal Miss Shachiku’s woes and our own.
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