My Chinese zodiac can't be this moe.
Etotama (Eto-tamashii) is an Anime First production by studio Encourage Films and 3DCG studio Shirogumi, which aired in the spring 2015 anime season.
One day, Ordinary High-School Student Takeru Amato moved to an extremely cheap apartment...only to find out that there's a hole to the astral world, with his flatmate being the extremely clingy and egotistic cat deity Nya-tan. She failed her promotion to Zodiac being (Eto-musume) 2000 years ago and now seeks to change things.
Unexpectedly for everyone, a new TV series based on franchise was confirmed
in 2018.
Etotama provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Takeru's house has a giant shogi piece with "keima"note written on it, referencing Hiro Shimono's starring role in The World God Only Knows.
- Affectionate Parody: It's basically a parody of different anime cliches and the writers don't even try to hide it.
- Alice Allusion: Usa-tan has shades of this, especially when in Pretty Mode, where she gains a blue dress and white apron to go with her blonde hair. Her white rabbit ears and large pocket watch reference the White Rabbit, and she has a tea party in her battle dimension before the fight.
- Animal-Eared Headband: In Pretty Mode, the fighters get animal hats of their respective animals. Outside of Pretty Mode, Mo-tan wears a cow-spotted cowboy hat with small cow ears and horns.
- Art Shift: The fights are animated completely in CG with the characters Super-Deformed, in contrast to the hand-drawn 2-D animation outside the battle dimension.
- Badass Adorable: All the Eto-musume, especially in Pretty Mode.
- Braids of Action: Shima-tan has a single braided ponytail.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Every episode at least once. The Eto-Musume seem to have a backdoor to that, to be honest. Averted with Takeru, who gets confused every time the girls do this.
- Calling Your Attacks: A lot of the characters do this, with the technique name appearing on-screen.
- Cannot Tell a Joke: Shar-tan tries, but is so serious in nature that everyone takes her seriously or gets frustrated at her.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Mo-tan is primarily a joke character, but she can be serious when she wants to be.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Piyo-tan demolishes Nya-tan in a game of shogi. This happens after Nya-tan receives such a handicap that Piyo-tan has only one piece on the board.
- Death Is Cheap: If any Eto-musume dies, she just reincarnates couple of days after.
- Expressive Accessory: The star Nya-tan wears in her hair changes expressions with her. It can be seen as early as the opening sequence.
- Fantastic Arousal: Usa-tan's feet are an erogenous zone for her. When Takeru becomes sick due to a divine cold, the bursts of Sol/Lull he causes make her entire body one, leaving her writhing on the floor.
- Forbidden Technique: Etotama Kagura Senguu is a forbidden ritual that only gods can perform but Nya-tan and Chu-tan somehow figured out how to use it. Unlike other examples, Kagura Senguu doesn't appear to have drawbacks on the wielder, but it's still, well, forbidden because it can permanently destroy any Eto-shin's or Eto-musume's Etotama.
- Episode 12 reveals that the Etotama Kagura Senguu can also completely restore damaged Etotama.
- Genius Ditz: Piyo-tan is an incredibly skilled shogi-player, which requires great intelligence. However, her amnesia-after-three-steps issue causes her to fall under the ditzy side.
- Gratuitous English: Mo-tan likes to pepper her speech with English words and phrases.
- Hidden Depths: Mo-tan, who decides to live with human families to make them happy, until they die.
- Idiots Cannot Catch Colds: When Nya-tan is unaffected by the various Sol/Lull effects of a sick Takeru's sneezing, she assumes it's because she lives well and healthily. Everyone else assumes it's because she's an idiot. Subverted, however, in that Nya-tan was the one who got Takeru sick in the first place, giving him her cold.
- Idiot Hair: Ki-tan and Shar-tan.
- Insistent Terminology: Uma-tan insists on referring to the "Takamagahara Commemorative Maid Cafe Eto Manager's Cup" by its full title, rather than shorten it to "Manager's Cup" as everyone else does.
- Ironic Echo: When Uri-Tan died in episode 3, the ending showed scenes of her. This happens again when Mo-tan dies. The two girls even died for the hands of Chu-tan.The ironic part plays when, while Uri-tan's death was played by comedy (At least in the next chapter), Mo-tan's is not.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia:
- Nya-tan has it because Chu-tan used the forbidden Etotama Kagura Senguu on Nya-tan's Etotama. Chu-tan hesitated, resulting in Nya-tan's soul getting damaged but not destroyed. This damage carried over when Nya-tan reincarnated 60 years later, resulting in her amnesia.
- Piyo-tan experiences this every time she takes three physical steps on the ground. It's even a Running Gag to count her steps when she hits the floor.
- Lens Flare Censor:
- Used in episode 5 to hide the naughty bits of the Eto-shin that are present, much to Nya-tan's annoyance. The girls go on to point out that the censors are animated in, so they can't be removed as part of the blu-ray release.
- Not that it stops Mo-tan from attempting to tear off her censors to make Nya-tan satisfied.
- Little Bit Beastly: Each of the Eto-musume have ears and tail of their respective animals. Some also have clothing that match, such as Mo-tan's cow-patterned clothing or Usa-tan's bunny-girl outfit.
- Medium Awareness: The Eto-Musume are aware of their status as characters, which frequently results in Breaking the Fourth Wall. Mortals like Takeru do not have this awareness and don't understand when the Eto-Musume refer to it.
- MegaCorp: Usa-tan's Usa-Tan Company (UTC) is this. In fact, most of the products seen in the show come from the UTC!
- Miss Exposition: Uri-tan. Usa-tan lampshades how easily she falls into the role.
- Moe Anthropomorphism:
- Chinese zodiac as cute kemonomimi girls. Why not?
- The Pretty Mode is the mode the Eto-Musume take to fight in the Eto World.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: When Usa-tan shows everyone a chart of which Eto-shin do and do not want a cat to be included in the Zodiac, Mo-tan is off to the side on her own since she's "too perverted to be counted".Mo-tan: Oh my God!
- Navel-Deep Neckline: Chu-tan's outfit has a neckline that reaches all the way down to her navel.
- Nice Guy: Takeru is this. It has been stated that the Sol/Lull he generates is highly potent.
- No Fourth Wall: Nobody pays attention to that thing. There's probably a fukafuka part in the wall anyway.
- The Power of Love: Mo-tan tries to invoke this, trying to get Chu-tan to leave Nya-tan alone by reminding her of the more tender relationship that she and Nya-tan had before the whole "kill all cats" business started. It doesn't work note .
- Purple Is Powerful: Chu-tan has a primarily purple colour scheme and is the strongest of the Eto-shins.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Chu-tan. Shima-tan too, though to a lesser degree.
- Recap Episode: Episode 7, and it's frequently lampshaded by Shar-tan throughout the episode itself.
- Revenge: Chu-tan wants it on Nya-tan. The reason is left ambiguous as Nya-tan doesn't remember and Chu-tan refuses to elaborate. This prompts Nya-tan to assume it was probably something extremely petty.
- Serious Business: Takeru and Piyo-tan have an above-average reverence for Shogi.Takeru: Shogi is the universe!
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: In the end, Nya-tan's efforts in becoming a member of the zodiac is thwarted due to a simple refusal from a fully-restored Chu-tan, who vows to be a better zodiac spirit. The other Eto-shin readily agree to support her. Nya-tan...is not pleased by this turn of events at all.Nya-tan: "Wh-what is this feeling!? Does this mean I can't join the zodiac!? My one cour worth of effort..."
- Single-Target Sexuality: Mo-tan has eyes only for Nya-tan...much to the latter's dismay.
- Slasher Smile: Chu-tan gets some real psychotic looking grins in Episode 10.
- Sleep Cute: The ending sequence has Nya-tan and all the Eto-shin except Chu-tan doing this. Chu-tan joins in on the act in the final episode after her Etotama is restored.
- Taken for Granite: Less than ten minutes into episode 7, Nya-tan is petrified by Shar-tan so she can take Takeru on a tour-slash-recap episode looking for a cure.
- Take That, Audience!: From episode 8:Uri-tan: Incidentally, I prefer to record things and watch them at my leisure.Key-tan & Inu-tan: Ditto!Uma-tan: And that's why our god ratings are dropping!Key-tan: Shows just keep piling up before I can watch them, though.Inu-tan: Yeah, and then I can't be bothered to watch and just delete them.Usa-tan: Oh, if you buy the Blu-rays, that won't happen.Key-tan: I'm not buying those. I don't have the money.Inu-tan: And I don't have anywhere to put them.Usa-tan: People like you are the reason there's so much insecurity in this industry! Buy the discs! Show proper gratitude to the staff who sweat blood and wipe their tears with more tears producing these things! Don't just watch with a dumb look on your face! If you watch it, buy it! Money needs to be put into circulation in this world!Key-tan & Inu-tan: U-uh, right...
- They Killed Kenny Again: Thanks to Death Being Cheap, Uri-tan dies twice in episodes 3 and 5.
- Those Two Guys: Key-tan and Inu-tan are always seen together. In fact, they're even lumped together as "overlapping characters" by Usa-tan and given makeovers in episode 4. In episode 6 they end up giving up their Sol/Lull seals almost without a fight.
- Title Drop: In-Universe, Etotamas are the cores and souls of Eto-shins and Eto-musumes. The name gets dropped here and there.
- Trademark Favorite Food:
- Sesame seed oil for Uri-tan. She buys in bulk and tries to add it to things that shouldn't have it.
- Key-tan and Inu-tan love bananas and bones respectively (obviously), and were willing to give their Sol/Lull Seals to Nya-tan in exchange for high-grade bananas and bones.
- Shar-tan likes curry. Her recipe is also the cure for any case of petrification.
- Chu-tan loves cheese, of course.
- Training from Hell: Episode 9 is dedicated to training Nya-tan to play shogi in the most physical ways possible. The Eto-shin suggest it's to force her to learn via trauma.
- Verbal Tic: Uri-tan uses the common "desu" at the end of her sentences, but frequently says it twice in a row, desu desu. "Nya's" also frequently pepper Nya-tan's speech, as one would expect from a cat girl.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: When Nya-Tan expends too much magic energy, her clothes (Which are made of the same stuff) go poof.
- Wham Episode: Ep. 10. Some more serious themes mixed in overall comedy plot. And, presumably, Mo-tan Killed Off for Real (at least till Chu-tan will be defeated).
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Uma-tan has shades of this.
