Konnichiwa! Maid-chan desu!
Poor Japan is currently suffering under a 40°C+ heat wave. This is especially hard on old people, vampires and snow women.
Vampires? Snow women?
Demi-chan wa kataritei shows a world where half-humans, or much cuter said “Demis”, are rare, but normal occurrences living a normal (school) life – with a few extra problems based on their nature.
The story starts when, on the evening before the new school year begins, the teacher Takahashi Tetsuo meets a strange girl in front of the school, who runs away after being seen by him.
Tetsuo is the Biology teacher and very interested in Demis, but he is afraid that he will never meet one, since they are so rare. But to his surprise he gets to meet some.
The first day of the new school year a new teacher is announced – and that new teacher is a succubus!
Tetsuo tries to come into contact with her, but his interested looks have made the wrong impression.
Succubus have it hard because of her uncontrollable powers. Men may react heavily to their mere presence and a touch can have devastatingly seductive results. That is why the new math teacher, Satō Sakie, always makes sure to look as unattractive as possible and always takes the first and last train to and from work.
Maid-chan is lucky enough to not need any sleep, but she still knows how hard it can be to have to get up that early!
But Sakie is not the only Demi new to Tetsuo’s school. Remember the girl from the start?
Tetsuo meets her again and learns that the girl is a student at his school. Even more interesting: She is a vampire!
Takanashi Hikari is a cheerful girl with a distinct hairstyle. She often forces her younger twin sister Himari (not a vampire) to make her hair, and when Himari does not want to, Hikari is often late to school.
Hikari is a very outgoing girl that likes nothing more than to play pranks, like doing a “surprise pencil bite” on her teacher.
But she actually never bites someone, getting a monthly ration of blood from the government. Just sometimes she has “aching teeth” and has to nibble on someones arm, normally her sister Himari.
Despite her demeanor, Hikari is also very helpful and an impressive observer of human relationships, always taking the initiative when she thinks someone needs help.
Hikari is the (not so) silent hero of this show, Maid-chan thinks.
But as a vampire, Hikari is weak against bright light and the sun, and she suffers extremely in the summer heat. In this she is no different from another Demi girl that is new to school: the snow woman Kusakabe Yuki.
Until recently Yuki had lived in the North, where her “abilities” as a snow women were not really important. They are not strong anyway – or so Yuki thinks.
But then she found ice lumps in her hot bathing water and now fears she could accidentally hurt someone and avoids other people.
It will fall upon the shoulders of Tetsuo to find a solution to help this Demi girl. And to do this he needs to force Yuki to do some embarrassing things…
Tetsuo will (of course) solve the problem, as he will do with the fourth Demi he meets at school, the Dullahan Machi Kyōko.
A Dullahan, if you ignorant human readers don’t know, is a human whose head is not attached to the rest of the body in the… traditional way.
Medical observations have shown that Kyōko has a neck, but this neck seems to exist in a different dimension, creating a worm hole between her head and body. There seem to be no restrictions for the distance between head and body, but of course nobody is suggesting any tests for this.
Stretching a neck for several thousand miles may well fall under torture laws, and even Tetsuo, who can get quite lost in his thoughts when thinking about the nature of Demis, would not do this.
Talking about the nature of Demis, the math teacher Sakie, the succubus, erroneously thinks that her seducing powers have no effects on Tetsuo, because he didn’t show a reaction when he touched her.
This makes her heart race – a man that is not affected by her powers! Maybe this one is the Mr. Right for a succubus?
She finds out about her error, but that does not change her feelings and so Sakie uses Tetsuo’s interest in Demis to come closer to him, sometimes putting Tetsuo’s willpower to a hard test.
Characters, characters, characters!
The whole 13-episode series revolved around the four Demis, their individual problems with their nature (and with growing up), and Tetsuos research about this.
Demi-chan wa kataritei goes deep into this, bringing in philosophy, morals and even a bit of physics.
While at first the characters appear to be a bit flat, the episodes step by step introduce not only their background but also more deepness. The caring soul that is hidden under Hikaris prank-making nature and her sister-bond to Himari. The secretly gag-manga loving snow woman who shares this hobby with the succubus who craves for real (not seductive power induced) emotional contacts. And the Dullahan that has top scores on tests without any goal in life.
The step-by-step research of Tetsuo also means that you, as the watcher, can deeply relate to the girls and their specific problems.
Conclusion
Demi-chan wa kataritai takes what is the best part of Science Fiction – taking an idea and thoroughly following it to the logical end – and puts it in a school comedy. In one way that is great and Maid-chan really likes it.
But on the other side the setting also restricts the possibilities. The girls are living in a world where being a Demi does not even result in any harassment or bullying, at least not directly. The biggest problems (Maid-chan admits it often seems so) are love problems.
Demi-chan wa kataritai is still, in its combination, an outstanding school comedy, with lots of fun but also some more sincere tones. It is a bit like the sisters Hikari and Himari: seemingly the complete opposite, but not themselves without the other half.
Due to those restrictions and the mostly “unobtrusive” backgrounds Maid-chan cannot give more then 8/10 points, but still heavily recommends the series to any fan of school comedy. You won’t regret it!
See you next time!