Dara-san of Reiwa

MeenOnFilms

I'm not going to lie, I watched this for the plot of the big snake Yokai-God lady, but ended up staying for the slice-of-life comedy drama between Dara-san with two goofy kids and people in the town that befriend her. It's nothing special, but I think they nailed the drama, pacing, characters, comedy and supernatural-horror elements really well. I love how there are some serious well-done moments that greatly enhance and expand the lores of Japanese folk/ghost tales and characters, especially Dara-San's past life when she was human in 15th-century feudal Japan. It is good and makes her story feel more important and makes you look forward to her as a character (poor Dara-San). I really like it, I have not read the manga yet, but anime is pretty much convincing me to read it now. However, there may be some elements that a bit put me off, like the stalker personality of one character (although, they justified that she had a social anxiety problem and Androphobia), some sexualized parts of middle schoolers (even if they justify by adding the lore to it, it still came out weird) and also the Japanese love of blonde and blue eyes needs to stop, like it's tiresome now (He's a good kid and character, but I absolutely wish we had different designs of him being "Half Japanese-Australian"). Other than that, I think this is a solid drama comedy supernatural horror slice-of-life anime that I think will become more famous to the average audiences in the next months after the current bloat anime seasons of 2026 have passed.