Kotaro Lives Alone Review

I wouldn’t call myself a major anime fan. I’m fond of Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Jujitsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia and the concepts for many more basic anime shows. I wanted to get that on the table before I started my review of Kotaro Lives Alone. If that discredits me so be it, but I want it to be known that I am by no means an expert on the subject matter.

Kotaro Lives Alone caught my attention as I was surfing Netflix looking for Demon Slayer and I just happened to stop. The young boy confuses the word bath house with battle house in the preview and I was sold.

The story starts with a small boy, whom you find out is only 4 years old later on in the show, buying several boxes of fancy tissues at his local market. He catches sight of a box full of toy swords and he ensures he snags one before heading home. The story is centered on this 4 year old boy and his trials and tribulations while he lives alone.

I was expecting this to be an outrageous comedy and I was not let down by any means of the word. If you enjoy absurdist comedy as I do there's so many points in the show where you’ll laugh so hard youll have to pause the show for important dialogue. I swear if Spongebob anatomy was right and I had a laugh box I would have needed a transplant because mine would have burned out. The premise is genius and lends itself to so many silly situations that it's hard not to think of it as a comedy, however, that's not all it provides.

My girlfriend and I were watching it and the whole time we were watching she was learning life lessons. Of course she wasn’t ACTUALLY learning but she was playfully admitting that the story had great morals and would teach any kid some valuable lessons. The young boy teaches other youngsters about being kind, taking care of yourself, what it means to be a friend, and other valuable lessons.

Are life lessons and comedy not enough for you? Well how about with the addition of dark undertones? The story shows PLENTY of comedic moments in between some very dark and kind of haunting scenes snuck in there. When you find out why the young boy is able to live alone you kind of shed a tear, followed by a series of tears when you find out why he chose to live alone. This might be a good time to issue a trigger warning to anyone who has troubles with death, domestic abuse, or topics similar to that nature. That being said I firmly believe that this show is well rounded in most aspects of the show.

One final important part of this show is the absolutely magnificent character building sequences that are found throughout. A character living next to Kotaro goes from being a lazy, unmotivated, borderline useless neighbor to being a kind, still sloppy but at the very least motivated, honorable parental guardian for Kotaro. A young lady in the show who also lives by Kotaro goes from being in a toxic relationship to finding the strength to not only break off the relationship but also to move away entirely. As for Kotaro? Well I guess you could say when something isn’t broken, don't fix it.

Overall I’d give Kotaro Lives Alone a 9.5 out of 10. Certain things that I’ve learned in my time studying film and directing drive me to believe in certain methods of storytelling. That being said, there are very minor things that Kotaro Lives Alone misses. Towards the middle a few characters are introduced for exactly one episode. This isn't a super important detail to most but in my opinion filler is the enemy of a good story. If a character is going to be displayed in the foreground of an episode make them matter to the show. If that means adding an episode, creating a second series, or even removing characters all together so be it.

All in all honestly go watch it. It’s fun, it’s short, and above all it made me happy.