Anime First Reaction – FX Senshi Kurumi-chan

Once in a while, I will get in the mood to try something completely different… a genre that I haven’t seen before. FX Senshi Kurumi-chan’s premise fit the bill perfectly for that something different. After all, it’s not every day that you see an anime about foreign currency exchange and investment involving cute anime girls. The cutesy nature of the show told me that it could be something lighthearted and fun. Was it?

Let’s go!

First Episode Synopsis

Kurumi is your average 15-year-old girl. She goes to school, has lunch with her friends, and desperately wants to help her mother, who has been working herself to the bone. One day, she returns from school and notices the trash hasn’t been taken out, dishes are piled up in the sink, and the shrill cries of a woman come from behind a closed door. Inside, Kurumi’s mother is in the middle of a meltdown because she just lost twenty million yen trading on the foreign exchange, or FX (forex) for short.

Her mom tells her not to worry, but she’s terrified of her husband coming home. Thankfully, his business trip gets extended to the end of the year, which buys her more time to work two jobs to earn back the money; however, as hard as she tries, time runs out, and she is unable to secure the funds. That’s when Kurumi loses her mind at her, telling her she should just apologize, and when her mom tries to avoid the conversation by going to the store, Kurumi goes instead and tells her to figure out what to say to her father.

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When she comes home, the note on the table simply reads “I’m Sorry.” She hears the door close, but it’s her father coming home. She tries to explain things when she’s interrupted by the phone. The worst possible scenario has happened. Kurumi’s father moves them to a new area he got transferred to, and then we flash forward five years. By now, Kurumi has studied the demon known as FX, which killed her mother, swearing to avenge her by learning how to trade and earning back the twenty million yen that tore her family apart.

Kurumi worked and saved up 300,000 yen as her starting capital and began trading in the USD to JPY exchange market. Things are going well as she was able to earn more money than anyone she had known in just five minutes. She experiences the highs and joys of FX trading… until the rate plummets!

Worth Watching?

YES – I honestly didn’t expect this at all. I thought, with the cute and brightly-colored visuals, that we would be in for a lighthearted look at the foreign exchange market, but we were treated to something completely darker and more serious… a girl who lost her mother to suicide over the pitfalls of trading, and rather than being turned off by the idea, she becomes filled with a burning rage to avenge her mother’s death and earn back the money she lost. Not because it would solve her problem, but simply out of personal spite. She wanted to prove that her mother shouldn’t have had to die over something as “simple” as foreign currency exchange.

There was way more drama than I had thought; however, as we neared the end of the first episode, what used to be dark and dramatic turned into something light and comical. Even though Kurumi lost a huge chunk of her initial starting capital, the situation was treated as a “welp, you lived and learned” type moment, but we all know that Kurumi isn’t going to learn, because if she did, then this would be a series review rather than a first reaction… aka… it would end after just 1 episode because there would be no point in moving forward.

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At the end, we get a glimpse of the other three girls who will round out our cast of characters. I can only imagine that these girls will either be friends, rivals, or both. Either way, this show did an incredible job hooking me from the first episode, and I am excited to see where it takes us from here.

Just… do yourself a favor and skip that opening. I watched it twice and still have no idea what I just listened to.

anime first reaction FX Senshi Kurumi chan