Kira Kira Happy ★ Hirake! Cocotama ("Glittering Happy ★ Open! Cocotama") is an anime series produced by OLM Incorporated, based on Bandai's line of dollhouse toys marketed to girls. It premiered on September 6, 2018, replacing Kamisama Minarai: Himitsu no Cocotama during the Fall 2018 anime season.
A spinoff series of shorts titled Mono No Kamisama Cocotama was released on YouTube in September 2019, but all 12 episodes have presently been privatized. The spinoff series is currently on hiatus as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kira Kira Happy ★ Hirake! Cocotama provides examples of:
- A Dog Named "Dog": More like “A dog named after the thing he is born from”. Can you guess what object Ribbon and Pillow are born from?
- And then there’s Nikki. It doesn’t seem like an example for this trope until you know that “Nikki” is Japanese for diary, the object that she is born from.
- All Your Powers Combined: It exists in the previous series. However, how they do it is different. Three Cocotamas do their magic on a device called The Magical Egg, it then closes, combining their magic. Then Haruka opens it with the Key of Wonders, releasing the combined magic. Later, Nikki upgrades it so it can handle not only three types of Cocotama magic, but about a hundred.
- And the Adventure Continues: Apparently, Another town has a problem with the Minus Power.
- Bad Future: If the cherry blossom tree dies, everybody in town (including Cocotamas!) will lose interest, and eventually turn it into a Crapsack World 600 years later.
- Banana Peel: The 43rd episode has a girl named Yuuka become affected by the Minus Power after she slips on a banana peel and loses her shoe.
- Big Eater: Chaco. She even gets mad when Pillow took the candy that she was about to eat at episode 3! This also serves as a major plot point in the first half of episode 13, where Pantonio has her deliver food to the other Cocotamas, but she habitually eats some of the orders herself before they arrive to the Cocotamas who ordered them.
- Birthday Episode: The 43rd episode involves the Cocotamas celebrating Haruka's birthday.
- The Chosen One: Haruka is chosen to be the Legendary Cocotama Contractor. The one who “opens the door of happiness to save the world with the Key of Wonders”. One aspect that makes her special from other Cocotama contractors is that she doesn't need to form a contract to prevent the Cocotamas she meets from disappearing or to form a bond with them.
- Turns out, Ribbon is chosen to be Haruka’s sidekick!
- Chromatic Arrangement: The new main Cocotamas for this series, Ribbon, Pillow, and Chaco, are red, blue, and yellow respectively.
- City of Adventure: Sakura town.
- Continuity Cameo: Kokoro’s Cocotamas (and all of them too!) appear in the final episode in a Big Damn Heroes moment in order to save the cherry blossom tree. Don’t worry, Kokoro also appears in the same episode interacting with Haruka.
- Counting Sheep: In the first half of the 37th episode, Pillow attempts this when he's having trouble sleeping by watching Ribbon repeatedly jump over a miniature fence while dressed in a sheep costume and counting her jumps. Instead, this tires out Ribbon.
- End-of-Series Awareness: The 55th episode ends with Ribbon informing the audience to cherish their experiences and that the Cocotamas will love them forever.
- Fell Asleep Standing Up: Pillow is sometimes seen doing this as a Funny Background Event.
- Funny Animal: The Cocotamas themselves, considering they all have animal-like features including tails based on the items they were born from.
- Fun Size: The Cocotamas, as with the previous series.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: The Minus Power. It’s just a... tree thing that just makes people miserable with its petals. It isn’t even sentient!
- Goo Goo Getup: The first half of the 25th episode has Tuxy and Dressy wear bonnets and bibs to disguise themselves as babies in hopes of earning Nachu's trust.
- Gratuitous English: Most of the toys use English for some names of the characters and the packaging. The same goes for the official website.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Like the previous series, the Cocotamas are only wearing underpants as their clothing and nothing to cover their top.
- Lost Food Grievance: Chako will lash out whenever food she wanted to eat is consumed by someone else.
- MacGuffin: the objects that make the buildings of Cocotama town.
- The Magic Goes Away: Like the previous series, the failing condition if a contractor breaks the promise in the Cocotama Contract, which results in a serious Laser-Guided Amnesia.
- When the cherry blossom tree dies, Sakura town will slowly but surely go to the Bad Future mentioned above, which is considerably way worse than the aforementioned Laser-Guided Amnesia!
- Magically-Binding Contract: Averted. Instead, Haruka gets the ability of seeing Cocotamas without them going back to where they come from as the Legendary Cocotama Contractor.
- Meaningful Name: Cocotama has a rather interesting naming. Coco is short for "Kokoro", meaning "heart", and "Tama", which either means "soul", "god", or "egg". It depends on how you portray the translation.
- No Antagonist: Unlike the previous series, averted. The Cocotamas Tuxy and Dressy spend several episodes attempting to take the Cocotama Castle or otherwise cause trouble for the Cocotamas that live with Haruka. Later, it turns out the minus energy is the reason why the cherry blossom tree isn’t blooming.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: the Key of Wonders only appears when the Legendary Cocotama Contractor appears. That key is made out of an egg of a Cocotama after all.
- Our Time Machine Is Different: The Magical Egg. Not only can it travel through time, it can combine Cocotama magic and even is a communication device!
- P.O.V. Sequel: The second half of the 22nd episode takes place concurrently with the first half and depicts Tuxy and Dressy trying to get food from Pantonio before Pantonio is asked by Haruka to make a young boy's medicine sweeter so that the boy will be more willing to take it.
- Red Is Heroic: Runnin believes in this trope. Believed so hard that he thinks that he is the main character!
- Reformed, but Not Tamed: Tuxy and Dressy start out as recurring antagonists who attempt to steal the Cocotama Castle and often get chased by the police officer Cocotama Patrol. Near the end of the series, they reluctantly allow themselves to be registered in the Magical Egg so it can channel the magic of 100 Cocotamas and are convinced of humans actually caring about their belongings, but the last episodes show that they're still getting in trouble with Patrol.
- Second Episode Introduction: The second episode is the debut of Pillow, the first Cocotama to appear after Ribbon.
- Supreme Chef: Pantonio is a Cocotama chef who is able to instantly create highly delectable dishes, but tends to have difficulty doing so without making a mess and getting covered in soot.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Like with the previous series, Cocotama gender is determined by whether the pattern at the waistband of their underpants is in zig-zags (male) or in curves (female).
- This Is My Side: The seventh episode has two sisters get into a squabble, with the elder sister using some tape to divide their shared room.
- Toilet Humour: Not all the time, but there are occasional bathroom-related jokes.
- Marume's debut episode has him express excitement at finding a picture of a cake that looks like poop in a book on desserts.
- In the first half of the 14th episode, Ribbon remarks that her super hearing enabled her to hear Haruka's father farting.
- The 15th episode has Tuxy and Dressy attempt to steal Cocotama Castle while Haruka's Cocotamas are sleeping, only for awkwardness to ensue when Ribbon wakes up and uses the castle's toilet in front of them.
- In the second half of the 40th episode, one of the attempts Marume, Pillow and Scope make at flying into space is by holding hands and farting.
- The 44th episode has Nikki state that cameras will be capable of photographing farts in the future.
- Walking Spoiler: Nikki. That character does debut halfway after all. The Minus Power also counts.
