Little children are playing happily in the park, swinging without a care in the world—until they turn to ash and blow away! Kafu is the only child left standing, er, swinging, and she races home in understandable panic, passing burned-out, crumbling corpses along the way, only to find her parents in a similar state inside their own home. The Blackout has struck, and the world will never be the same, partly because this unexplained disaster spurs the discovery of a new form of clean energy powered by thought. Kafu is adopted by a neighbor, Erika, who raises her for the next seven years until trauma strikes again, this time, in the form of tesseractors, or giant robot-like spiders that are given life by the fears of humans, and are driven by a thirst for destruction. One of these creatures orphans Kafu yet again, while the teen is saved only by her song and the mysterious being it conjures: the boy-like Laplace, who transforms into a giant, incorporeal fish and defends Kafu. Turns out, Kafu is a witchling, and the only thing that can defeat the teserractors now stalking the new world is her song. Heavy lies the crown!
I’m going to admit two things: First, I know nothing about the VTuber franchise that this series spins out from, my apologies! And second, I was secretly hoping this would be awesome, and, well, it kinda is! I’ve had a good run with series following groups of traumatized CGI girls so far this year (Ave Mujica, what a ride! Momentary Lily was pretty decent too, until Go Hands’ signature sentient hair got to be too much for me and I dropped it), and this one may well make it a hat-trick! The CGI is decent, not too uncanny valley, and softened by the trick of using blue for contours rather than stark black. The worldbuilding is interesting, with some quasi-physics underpinning the new clean energy source, and thus the monsters too. Kafu’s initial trauma is well-done, but her second recovery is skipped over here—there must have been a little time jump, so maybe we’ll come back to it later. The theme of the power of music/song may sound a little cheesy, but actually, there are some details to the lore that could see this having some salient spiritual parallels, such as Laplace, who tells Kafu that he will always walk with her, or Kafu’s song itself, which bubbles up from her unconsciously and centers on themes of faith. The OP and ED (which has some pretty cool 3D CGI) promise that Kafu will team up with four more Girls Who Sing over the coming episodes, and frankly, I’m intrigued enough to tune in, at least until we’ve met them all. This could go somewhere interesting—by which I mean philosophically and spiritually thought-provoking—so I’m going to stick around! I do love me a metaphor, and can dine out on an allegory for weeks at a time! Plus, gotta at least hear these girls perform, right? It’s only fair, after all the trauma they’ve been through.
Kamitsubaki City Under Construction is streaming on Crunchyroll.
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