Shigofumi is another episodic series that takes an in-depth look at death. At first, it may seem like some strange cross between Shinigami no Ballad and Jigoku Shoujo, but it quickly finds its own style and identity to work with. The earlier episodes mostly focus on random cases, where Fumika, our lead girl for this series, delivers the final memories of a person who just died to his loved ones, while the latter episodes focus on Fumika herself, and why she ended up delivering these letters in the first place.

Shigofumi’s strength is how it’s able to deliver a quiet and engaging atmosphere, with the subtlety of a herd of stampeding elephants. One moment, you’re enthralled by the versatile characters, the next you’re freaked out by some disturbing plot twist that came out of nowhere. The interesting thing is that this series knows fully well how to combine its quiet moments with its eventful ones.

Another strength about this series is the cast of characters. The writers make sure that all the characters are likable before they start playing with them. Especially Fumika turns into a well-rounded character for such a small series. Her development is started early, and not at the semi-final episodes, which seems to be a mistake that many series seem to make.

But yeah, I mentioned that this series has the subtlety of a herd of stampeding elephants. This is in both the good and the bad way. If things seem a bit too quiet, you can bet your hat that a candle will fall over and set a house on fire, just too spice things up a bit, and the entire series is filled with these kinds of plot-twists.

The individual stories basically range from one particularly far-fetched tale of bullying, to very subtle and insightful views on death, and especially the people who have been left by them. Shigofumi definitely has its flaws, but because of this it also has its own identify. You may try, and Jigoku Shoujo and Shinigami no Ballad indeed at first sight seem similar, but you won’t find any series that’s really captured the same essence as this one. If you want a series that’s short, sweet, and yet still packs a punch, then this one could be worth to check out.

And so Shigofumi has ended. Surprisingly, it didn’t go as I planned. Fumi didn’t turn into a psychotic killer at all, and she instead became surprisingly likable throughout the episode. It’s really sad that this series is so short, as it would have been able to do great things if it was allowed twelve more episodes. Shigofumi really has its own style, and I believe that it wouldn’t run out of inspiration with two seasons. Ah well, in exchange for its short length, it turned into a short but sweet series.

Basically, Mika went back into Fumi for a while and temporarily disappeared, so that Fumi would be able to lead her own life. Fumi, however, had a lot of trouble in her own life, and just wasn’t suited to be transferred to school so quickly. Everyone took pictures of her, she became paranoid, her own mother didn’t want to have her anymore. In the end, when she runs to Mikawa Kirameki’s house, Mika finally appears again, and smacks her for running away every time. While it wasn’t the best ending, it was great to see the “internal” struggle between Fumi and Mika. In the climax, it finally turned out that both of them had their own needs, but were holding back because of the other. Nice. I like it.

But why? For GOD’S SAKE WHY!? Who the heck found it a good idea to suddenly make Natsuko fall in love with Kaname? It comes from nowhere, serves absolutely no purpose, is very badly developed, and turned her entirely character into a joke. I suppose that the writers wanted to add a bit more extra tension, but that rather backfired on them, just like every umpth series that attempts such a freaking twist!

Ah, now that that’s out, I do hope that more series like Shigofumi appear. Series that create their own style, and don’t try to be like others. This really has been a series with its own identity, and even though the plot was a bit boggled up at times, I had a blast watching it.

Okay, I was wrong… this episode didn’t feature the climax of this series at all. All it did was just build up for the next one, while the local festival took place. I do say that Shinichiro’s a pretty good dancer. And he’s probably the first harem-lead ever that actually performs during a festival, because it’s usually the other way around.

In any case, this episode built up very well, along with the previous episode. For a large part, it follows Noe, as she tries to make sense of what to do next, and it subtly suggested that Noe would indeed jump off of somewhere at the end of the episode. After all, first we have Shinichiro’s story, where the chicken that wants to fly crashes down. Then she can’t make her own chickens fly. Shinichiro is also in top-shape, and he really is able to find something to do as he performs, and the scene cuts to a couple of pigeons and seagulls that actually do take off.

The portrayal of Noe as a chicken and Shinichiro as a seagull is quite appropriate. Shinichiro has really developed over the past few episodes. You can see that he’s been trying to sort out his own feelings, and with success. He may zigzag between Noe and Hiromi, but every time his feelings do move from one to the other, he gets a bit closer to fining out what he really wants to do with his life.

Noe on the other hand, has been going nowhere. She too is in the middle of some sort of love-triangle, but in this episode, her brother has basically scared her off now that he actually made clear that he loves her. The fact that she’s weird is basically a double-edged sword. On one side, this perfectly distracted Shinichiro from his own lovesickness about Hiromi, but on the other hand she basically alienated everyone else. Now that she’s lovesick herself, there’s nobody else for her apart from Shinichiro, and he has been occupied with Hiromi for quite a bit. Added to that, while Shinichiro has his dancing and manga-writing, all Noe has are her chickens and her strange theories to distract her.

And these are exactly who she turns to. In this episode, she realizes how Shinichiro has left her behind, and tries to take off herself. This time, though, it’s in the literal sense, and she jumps off the same tree as in the first episode, though this time it looks to be a bit higher.

So, the big question: what the heck is going to happen in the next episode?! Noe will probably end up in the hospital, but then? I still have no freaking idea about who Shinichiro will end up with. He’ll obviously care a lot about Noe, and make sure she’s treated properly at the beginning of the next episode, but it’s not like Hiromi will just stand still and do nothing.

What surprises me a bit is that one major question still hasn’t been answered: if Hiromi and Shinichiro aren’t siblings, then why did Shinichiro’s mother hate Hiromi?