Haré+Guu
| Episode Count | 26 |
| Season | Spring 2001 |
| Genres | Comedy, Shounen |
| Source Material | Manga |
| Rating | TBD |
| Streaming | TBD |
Haré+Guu is one of many zany wacky comedies that were pumped out in the mid00s (not that they don’t make those now, it’s just that the mid00s was when that specific kind of anime was at it’s peak in terms of popularity and quality in this writer’s opinion). I had basically never heard of this show until a friend of mine said we should check it out years ago. Still no idea how it landed on their radar. Let me tell ya, you might have never heard of Haré+Guu but it’s a show that you never forget once you’ve seen it.
Based on a manga by Renjuro Kindaichi, Haré+Guu features a lot of the hallmarks of this period of comedy anime, a bizarre sense of humor, snappy pacing, a colorful cast of characters and a bright artstyle emblematic of early digipaint anime. The thing that sets Haré+Guu apart from it’s many brethren is of course, the concept of the show itself.
Taking place in a nondescript jungle island, the series follows, Haré, a boy native to the island who lives there with the other natives and his single mom Weda. One day after running home after being frightened by a figure in the forest, he finds out that a mysterious girl named Guu has become his step sister. The next day he finds out that Guu’s personality has completely changed (having gone from cute and bubbly to gloomy and antagonistic) and that Guu has a habit of eating everything (and I do mean everything). Guu then eats Haré and sends him to a pocket dimension that appears to exist in her stomach. After a terrifying experience being eaten by Guu, Haré realizes that his once-peaceful life has now been upended now that a liminal being has now become his new step sister. From there the show goes into the various misadventures of Haré, Guu and the various people who live on the island.
If surreal comedy is your bag, Haré+Guu will have you exclaiming: “My little sister can’t be an eldritch abomination!”
Also I couldn’t find a place to mention it in the blurb but the jungle is inhabited by these creatures called pokute that truly have one of the designs of all time.
- akasinan