Dog and Scissors (Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou) 
Director: Yukio Takahashi, Series Composition: Toshizo Nemoto, Character Designer: Yōko Satō
Voice Actors: Takahiro Sakurai (Kazuhito), Marina Inoue (Kirihime), Ai Kakuma (Hami), Chiwa Saito (Sara), Maaya Uchida (Sakura)
Studio: Gonzo
This s a story about books. Of writing and dying. A Story of writing and reading.
The anime begins in a richly furnished home where a woman sits typing and a dog sits reading. A narrator informs us of who he is:
I, Harumi Kazuhito am a dyed-in-the-wool idiot for books. I’m not just any dog, either. Until recently I was human!
Yes, that dog reading is the narrator and he was a bibliophile high school boy in his former life. His favourite author was Shinobu Akiyama, who appeared out of nowhere seven years ago, and has gone on to conquer Japan with her seven deadly sins novel series which Harumi adores. Harumi was desperately waiting for the final novel, Lust, to come out but found that destiny was going to deal him a bit of a strange hand by turning him into a dog.
Why is Harumi a dog? He was present during a robbery of a diner. A mentally unstable man threatened to kill a fellow patron of the diner, a woman too engrossed with writing a book. Harumi stepped in and put up a fight but it ended badly.
During that special moment when he is in the afterlife he expressed his desperate desire to live and found a body that would accept his soul. It just happens that the body was that of a dog rescued by a pet store owner with a huge afro.
Despite being reborn as a dachshund, Harumi is still obsessed with reading books and he’s still obsessed with Shinobu Akiyama. He soon finds himself bought by the woman who got him killed. She turns out to be Natsuno Kirihime but Harumi knows her quite well through her pen name Shinobu Akiyama.
This might be awesome situation except she is majorly irritated that she can hear all of Harumi’s thoughts, has a scissor fetish and carries a pair strapped to her thigh. She’s also a bit of a dom and so the two clash.
The two settle down into a life full of reading and writing, bondage and cutting. Why is Natsuno taking care of Harumi and will Harumi finally get to read the final volume of the Seven Deadly Sins series, Lust? All will be revealed… Hopefully…
The title Dog and Scissors is one that immediately makes me think of Menchi from Excel Saga. Animals under threat from crazy women! That’s pretty much what the first two episodes struck me as. There is no plot thread emerging but there are a whole bunch of crazy characters and weird situations revolving around books, dogs and scissors which is best exemplified by the opening and ending themes which are colourful assaults on sanity and reason. Just enjoy the colours, chaos and coordinated dancing and wait for videos of people imitating the damn things.
I’m not a big fan of the theme tunes but I do like the dancing. Totally overcooked and joyous. And the general madness of flying giant scissors around.
I’ve watched the first two episodes and I laughed quite a few times. It’s not the most sophisticated anime out there but it is bizarre enough and delirious enough at points to keep my interest. What I like most about it is the fact that most of the jokes revolve around books.
When Harumi sees his life flash before his eyes it is all meaningless, parents, friends, hot glasses wearing girlfriend, cute maids. Then he gets to books and cries I can’t die without reading this first. Everything from his sexuality to his social contacts boil down to books. When he’s finally back in the land of the living he comes out with the priceless line, “I came back to life. I can… I can read!”
Yep, he’s obsessed.
A lot of jokes also revolve around Natsuno being flat-chested but I can overlook those cheap gags. She’s a great as a cracked character who exists in a world of her own. So far she modulates between super confident and competent (great) and overly emotional (bad). The inconsistent characterisation only works because the anime has no real serious tone and revels in smut and surreality.
Her book titles are so damn awesome so there’s comedy to be mined from that. Witness this glorious tome.
Anyway, the banter between Harumi and Natsuno is quite funny but it’s the delivery from the seiyuu which gives the lines that lift that makes me laugh. The chemistry between Takahiro Sakurai as Harumi and Marina Inoue as Natsuno is somewhere between bubbling and explosive as they throw insults back and forth at each other without missing a beat. Frankly, Marina Inoue is completely bloody sexy in the role when she uses her low and sultry voice and, flat-chested or not, I think Natsuno’s character design is gorgeous.
The animation is nothing spectacular. There are a lot of static shots and direction is rather dull but at least the character and art designs are solid, bordering on the crazy. I mean, if this were an art-house film I could talk about each shot being a tableaux and other pretentious things but when you have the crazy fun situation of the show and weird looking characters like these guys…
… Well, you might as well just sit back and enjoy it as a fun way to spend 25 minutes.
I’m going to take to calling this Dachshund x Dominatrix purely because all of the jokes revolve around him being a dog and her being a perv with a pair of scissors and a S&M dress sense. I haven’t read Shunsuke Sarai’s original works but the randomness feels a lot like Excel Saga and I liked that a lot because it was just plain crazy and full of otaku references. This is similar therefore it has potential to get better. Plus we have yet to be fully introduced to all of the characters like this diva.
3/5
