the audience applauded

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Living alone, somehow, a young child who claims she is a doll and refers to herself in third person, summons a fox spirit named Kokkuri. When Kokkuri actually arrives, she kicks him out. Eventually the girl, Kohina, lets him stay even though he takes away her beloved cup of noodles. Kokkuri tries to get Kohina to be less of a doll and more of a regular girl. His efforts have mixed results. Eventually other spirits arrive causing more mischief and comedy. Unfortunately as happens too often in Japanese anime, there are pedophile characters who make various inappropriate remarks and suggestions though the little girl is not harmed. Still, I wish that sort of humor would go away.

Young Kohina Ichimatsu is a strange little girl; she lives alone, eats nothing but cheap instant noodles and strangest of all she is convinced that she is a doll! One day she plays 'Kokkuri' and summons Kokkuri-san; a fox-spirit. Seeing how she lives he takes it upon himself to act as her guardian and look after her. They are soon joined by too further spirits; Inugami, who is a dog spirit who can switch gender at will and Shigaraki, an old tanuki spirit who likes to drink and do as little work as possible. Over the course of the series the spirits regularly argue with each other but they all want to help Kohina.This series is rather funny in both senses of the word; there are plenty of laugh out loud moments but it is also rather strange… in a good way. The characters are fun to watch; given that she is an 'emotionless doll' Kohina is particularly entertaining; her dead pan delivery is great. The various spirits; both the main three and more minor characters are good too. The animation is solid enough and the characters designs are good. Once the main characters are introduced each episode tells its own story leading to a finale that leaves things open although I have no reason to believe there will be more. Overall a fun little series which I enjoyed more than I expected.These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.