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[br]Zenki is one of those animes that I previewed way back when it first came out on fansub. I thought that it'd be a good show but it was only recently that I had the opportunity to watch it in its entirety. I'm glad I did as I very much enjoyed the show. My original plan was a marathon run over just a few days but the first few episodes convinced me that that would be a bad idea. I watched it spread out over a month instead and even then I was pushing it.
[br]Zenki is more or less a monster-of-the-week show but there is more going on than just random confrontations with monsters. There are forces of evil setting them loose on the human world for reasons of their own. But being a monster-of-the-week show there is a great deal of repetition in the show - animation sequences, theme music, even the general structure of each episode. While that may sound like reason enough to avoid it, it more than makes up for its shortcomings with the characters. Not that they are anything special or that they undergo major changes. No mostly it is because Zenki is a demon bound to serve a human far weaker than himself. Unlike many other shows, he is dangerous and I never lost the sense that he'd rip Chiaki's throat out if he could live with the consequences. Ya gotta love that - a demon that is actually dangerous and not just a big softy with a mock tough guy exterior.
[br]Interestingly, Zenki is listed as one 51 episode long series but it would be more accurate to describe it as two shows. Season 1 is the battle against the tree of evil, a motherly sort of evil. Season 2 is a sequel to the first that starts some time later when the forces of good are getting bored with all the peace and quiet. The battle in the second season is against several factions of evil each with their own agenda though most do use the same type of monsters to further their various goals. Both seasons are complete stories with a begining, middle and ending that leave no loose threads or feelings that the story isn't over. Which is another big plus in my book.
[br]Another thing that doesn't seem quite right in the listing is the ecchi label. There was a single hot spring episode and no fan-service to speak of. There was actually more sexual tension in the show than ecchi and there was no sexual tension in the show besides one monk having a crush on another monk and those two were secondard support characters at best.
[br]I may or may not have watched enough monster-of-the-week shows to be a good judge but I believe that this anime is worth sitting through at least once if you like the demon-bound-to-a-human-and-forced-to-fight-evil type stories.
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Explanation by sourcererz on Friday, 13.02.2015 18:15