—Fumika
The souls of the newly-departed are afforded one last wish. If they so choose, they may write a letter to one still-living person. The heart of the sender, their thoughts and feelings, are laid bare in this letter, called a Shigofumi.
A girl named Fumika, with her partner, a talking staff named Kanaka, is one of the souls who deliver these Shigofumi. Except Fumika isn't like the other letter carriers. Since she took up the mantle of letter carrier for the dead, she's continued aging. Since all the letter carriers should already be dead themselves, this poses something of a mystery for Fumika and her coworkers, especially her friend Chiaki. Moreover, she bears a suspicious resemblance to a girl who used to go to a school in her delivery zone. A girl who's now comatose in a nearby hospital after shooting her father. Why is Fumika such an abnormal letter carrier? And what connection, if any, does she have with that comatose girl she visits so often?
Shigofumi is a Thirteen Episode Anime from J.C. Staff, Bandai Visual, and GENCO. Early on, the series follows Fumika as she touches on the lives of those who receive Shigofumi. After one particularly eventful delivery, though, the show shifts the focus to Fumika herself, as it slowly unravels the mystery behind her and the girl in the hospital.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents:
- In episode 2 Asuna's father makes her pose for child porn.
- Fumika herself experienced this when her father Kirameki used her as a draft board, 'writing' with glass pens.
- Asuna killed her father when he tried to use her little sister as well and Fumika's alter ego shot Kirameki.
- The Atoner: Both Fumi and Mika after the former wakens from her coma. The latter wants the former to shoot her for shooting Kirameki. The former wants to isolate herself for the exact same reason.
- Can Not Tell A Lie: The souls who write shigofumi are bound to tell the truth.
- Chekhov's Gun: Fumika caries a large, rather shiny handgun, and occasionally pulls it out to make a point. This is the same gun with which she shot Kirameki.
- Convenient Coma: The girl Fumika visits. It's actually the other half of the original Fumika's split personality, Fumi.
- Freudian Excuse: In the first episode, Asuna Ayase is revealed to have killed her father. Seems pretty twisted until the second episode reveals that her father had been renting her out for child porn, and was intending to do the same to Asuna's little sister.
- Meaningful Name:
- Kirameki ('sparkle' or 'shimmer') is obsessed with things that do just that.
- There's also Aizawa Kirei. Kirei means 'beautiful'. When we finally see her in episode 12, she seems to have a love of beautiful things, as well."Just as her name, she was a beautiful person."
- Pac Man Fever: Averted with a very accurate, though generalized, depiction of Animal Crossing.
- Parental Abandonment: Fumika's mom only wanted to experience childbirth and marriage, not follow through on the commitments involved.
- Phone Call from the Dead: This is all about letters sent by the dead to the living.
- Tears from a Stone: In episode 4, a statue appears to cry. It turns out to be rain.
- Winged Humanoid: The talking staffs used by the letter carriers can transform into wings for their users, enabling them to fly. They have a limited time in which this function can be used though, after which they return to normal.
- Your Days Are Numbered: One particular man in a story who was watching a girl named Fumika had cancer and was supposed to die soon anyway, but instead died because he pushed Fumika out of the way of an oncoming bus.
