Kuragehime - my favourite anime of this season's ongoing series

I realize it's been a long time since I last wrote something. Although I do love my blog, I find it hard to pick things worth writing about since I've always appreciated quality instead of quantity.
This week however, I seem to have found a new reason to write (except for the newly increased number of followers; wow! I have 6 followers!!! those guys with over 200 followers are probably laughing their heads off at me now or will- that is if they ever happen to stumble upon my tiny little blog. Nonetheless, I'm truly tankful to all those willing to follow my blog and maybe even browse a little through the contents. Arigato gozaimasu!). That reason just happens to be a truly unique anime called Kuragehime.
Surprisingly, I've never before wrote about anime, though they do have quite a big part in the birth of this huge mania of mine for everything Asian. However, truthfully speaking, I hardly find any good anime to watch these days.
My first anime was Sailor Moon ( well, maybe it wasn't quite the first, but it was the one series that really got me into the whole anime "business"). Though looking back at it, I find it a bit immature and sometimes way too sappy for my tastes, I still enjoy watching it. All throughout the years, I've desperately tried to get a hold of those nostalgic feelings that this anime brought me, the same excitement, the crazy flutter of the heart, the small butterflies in the stomach that I used to have when I was a little child. Of course I'm passed 20 now, but there were some anime that brught me close to that same excitement I was talking about earlier: Fullmetal Alchemist, Death note, Denno Coil, Special A, Kaichou wa Maid-sama, Darker than Black, Hunter x Hunter... which brings us to the topic of today's post.

Plot:

Kuraghime it's an anime inspired by the josei manga with the same title written by Akiko Higashimura (for those of you wondering, "kuragehime" literally means "jellyfish princess") and its plot is centered around the main character, Tsukimi, who is a jellyfish otaku. Tsukimi shares a house with other otakus, all of them obsessed with different things: Chieko adores kimono and other traditional clothing, Mayaya is obsessed with Records of Three Kingdoms and constantly makes references to them, Banba is a train otaku and Jiji is obsessed with mature men (yes, this one is by far the strangest kind of obsessions if you ask me).
The story starts one fateful night when Tsukimi walks by a pet store and sees two jellyfish in a tank. Being a true "jellyfish connoisseur" she realizes that the two species are incompatible with each other and one of them would soon die if kept in the same tank. Suppressing her fear of talking with men she approaches the shop assistant and desperately tries to convince him to move the jellyfish in separate tanks, but the man takes her for a crazy person and pushes her out of the store. At that point, Tsukimi is saved by a gorgeous lady who convinces the shop assistant into giving the jellyfish to Tsukimi and accompanies Tsukimi back to her house. Tsukimi is tired and she soon falls asleep completely forgetting about the beautiful woman in her room. When she wakes up though, she notices the woman had also fallen asleep in her room, but, surprise-surprise, she is in fact a HE!

Personal opinion:

As you may have already noticed, this anime has a very unique feel to it. First of all, there aren't many anime where the main male character is a cross-dresser. That is something that basically screams "original" in your face!
Sencondly, and probably the most important thing actually, it's the construction of the main character, Tsukimi. Tsukimi is a shy, innocent virgin who dreams of meeting Prince Charming, though she does nothing to help him come along and has a bizarre hobby. She is portrayed in a very realistic way and even though she's a total "looser" in terms of social life, she truly grows to the viewer and you come to like her and root for her. Even more so when she transforms into a breathtaking beauty after a make-over applied by our proffesional cross-dresser.
As for the cross-dresser, whose name is Kuranosuke, he turns out to be a totally normal man.In fact, the main reason to why he likes to wear women's clothes is because he wants to seem like an irresponsible guy so that all of the hard work is passed on to his older brother. The other reason is the fact that he loves make-up. Ah, what a wonderful man, nee!?
To be honest, the secondary characters piss me off. All those otakus are pretty much histerical frustrated women. The only one who I approve of is Banba-san and the only reason of my empathy is because Banba-san never talks.
However, one truly cute and lovable character is Kuranosuke's brother, Shu. Shu appears to be a very serious and strict person, but he blushes like a teenager when he sees Tsukimi (in her "Cinderella" version). As a matter of fact, the two have many things in common: they're both virgins and they're both really shy and , most likely, they're both want to get married. And, somehow, this annoys the hell out of Kuranosuke.

Well, as I'm sure everyone noticed judging by the enthusiasm with which I've written about this anime that, so far, I am truly enjoying it and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone!


EDIT:
So, Kat was kind enough to let me know that Tsukimi is not actually in her 30s. I apologize for the misunderstanding. As for Jiji, I accidentally wrote that she loves mature women, while I meant MEN. Sorry again for the mistakes.
Kat, thank you for pointing out my mistakes. It shows that you really took the time to read it carefully. I really appreciate that.

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