Demon Fighter Kocho

Original Title: 厄災仔寵
Romanized: Yakusai Kochou
Literal: Disaster Kochou

Plot Synopsis

Kocho Enoki came all the way from Taiwan to study Astrology from the rather unassuming professor Kamo at Heian University. Along with her not-really-boyfriend Kosaku (whom she fights over with her rather worldly high-school-aged sister Koran), she is a member of the little-known Astrology Club. When the school is stricken with an increasingly violent spate of supernatural attacks, it's up to these four semi-competent heroes to use their dubious supernatural talents to get to the bottom of the haunting and banish the evil.

Quick Review

Rating: 1.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-10-19

Basically Devil Hunter Yohko without the action or even the pretense of horror, Demon Fighter Kocho is as short as it is lowbrow, so even though it's not outright bad it's also not much worth watching. There's plenty of randy humor and a lot of fourth-wall breaking, and it does manage to serve up three or four decent gags and keep the pace lively throughout. On the down side it's as sleazy as all get-out, takes every opportunity to expose some female flesh (and some male flesh you'd probably rather not see exposed), is shamelessly unoriginal, there's no character development at all (heck, there isn't even any character establishment), and if you charitably call the progression of events a "plot" it still feels more like a set-up for a series than a standalone story. At least it's not bad looking, though there's really no action to speak of.

Demon Fighter Kocho is too dirty and unoriginal to appeal to most, and even if you do enjoy the leering and sleazy humor, it's so short that it's not worth more than a rental anyway. It'd be a decent target for mocking with friends except the humor is so self-aware that the characters will beat you to most of the punchlines.

US DVD Review

The DVD has nifty-looking box art, and includes English and Japanese stereo audio and an accurate English subtitle track. The video looks reasonably good, although the credits are a little weird--the English crawl is over a montage of scenes from the show that look very grainy, and the song subtitles are hardcoded onto a garish border around the video and credits. The only special feature is a "behind the microphone" section of outtakes (with video) from the dubbing studio and some video from the cast party. On the positive side, this is quite long, and you get to see the actors working (or goofing off), which is kind of neat if you're into behind the scenes stuff. On the negative side, it's quite long (cumulatively longer than the entire feature, in fact), and the outtakes aren't generally very funny, so I lost interest after a bit. Still, some should find it interesting, and Kocho's voice actress is certainly lively in the studio.

Content Guide

Anime Works calls it 16-up, and with good reason--dirty humor and semi-explicit mature content abounds.

Violence: 1 - There's some fighting, but it's sparse and mild.

Nudity: 3 - Not voluminous, but a moderate amount of flesh.

Sex/Mature Themes: 3 - A number of significantly dirty jokes and some offscreen hanky-panky.

Language: 2 - Some profanity in both the dub and subtitles.

Notes and Trivia

Based on a comic series of the same name by Nonki Miyasu. It's not available in English as of this writing.

Kocho's sister Koran is specifically called a "kogal" in the story, though the subtitles just went with something similar. For those unfamiliar with Japanese fashion trends, "kogal" (technically "kogyaru") is subculture of older high school girls and young women known for being obsessed with expensive designer clothing and accessories, wearing blatantly sexy clothing, and a tendency toward being extroverted and openly sexual. They also frequently have artificially tanned skin and lightened hair like Koran, although they don't take it as far as the Ganguro look and subculture that they share many similarities with.

Availability

Available in the US from Anime Works on bilingual DVD. RightStuf has it on clearance for $4 while supplies last.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store