I'm Kodama Kawashiri: The Dissolute Life of a Dangerous Lifehacker is an anime adaptation of Kawashiri's autobiographical manga of the same name. Every two and a half-minute episode tells a story about Kawashiri's life as an artist and mangaka. The anime's opening credits sequence is a typically entertaining anime opening, but at one minute and thirty seconds, it constitutes an entire 60% of every episode's runtime.
The anime itself is a highly relatable slice-of-life comedy. Frequent topics include Kawashiri's sleep schedule, eating habits and flashbacks to her childhood living among the rice fields. The "life hacks" of the title include sleeping uncomfortably to wake up sooner and buying the best chocolates for herself on Valentine's Day. However, since anime OPs are so popular among fans, could there be an upside to an anime that is mostly intro?
The intro begins with Kawashiri getting out of bed and brushing her teeth, followed by a time-lapse of her drawing, eating chips and stretching. She then walks to her favorite convenience store, Inageya, receiving a "revelation" from her trusty mental "Revelation Cat" every time she buys something. Kawashiri then walks home under the stars to eat salmon and karaage chicken and drink beer before relaxing in the bath. Finally, she goes back to sleep, book-ending the intro with a similar shot of Kawashiri in bed that shows how her days blend together.
The time-lapse is a classic example of a live-action technique being replicated in animation. This makes Kawashiri's daily life seem more "real," befitting the relatable nature of the humor in the show. Also relatable for many fans are Kawashiri's "revelations" in the store. This could be a reference to how so many artists have their best ideas at the worst times, often forgetting them when they sit to write them down.
Alternatively, it could simply be that Kawashiri is having revelations about what food to buy and how to prepare it -- an interpretation supported by the events of Episode 13 in which Revelation Cat oversees Kawashiri's luxurious midnight snack. The following scene in the OP shows steam billowing out as Kawashiri opens the plastic lid on her salmon bento box, showing that store-bought meals aren't exempt from anime's typically appetizing and lovingly-animated food scenes.
The intro features smooth, detailed animation, whereas the series proper has a more limited manga style, with many animations simply going back and forth between two frames. This choice may have been to make the most of the short anime's budget, but it also ends up being an appropriate style for a show about the life of a mangaka. This manga aesthetic is cemented by the way Kawashiri's narrations appear onscreen as captions, as well as the thicker, inkier outlines of the characters.
New episodes hit Crunchyroll in the West every Thursday. Watching one episode a week makes the intro feel welcome, as a vital part of the I'm Kodama Kawashiri experience and a tribute to its creators. However, binge-watching the series is impossible without seeing the same intro 20 times in an hour -- something that would likely make even the best, most timeless anime OPs hard to watch. Fans watching on mobile or PC at least have the option to skip straight to the start of an episode.
It would be easy to joke that the relatively long intro is an oddly appropriate "life hack" to increase the length of the episodes, but more intro doesn't really mean less anime. It's better to think of the anime proper as one-minute shorts that say exactly as much as they need to. Similarly, Kawashiri herself is not so straightforward; she claims she's been "living an aimless life" in Episode 1, but the fact that she went to art school and has deadlines in the first place makes her seem downright motivated. Kawashiri's procrastinating may be her natural reaction to the pressures of working as an artist, but it can also feel like a cathartic rebellion against the expectations of work, even though she still sometimes sacrifices her sleep to get the job done.
Aoi Yuuki of Madoka and Boogiepop fame voices Kawashiri with an aptly down-to-earth voice. It also sounds as though she voices various other characters and sound effects, which reinforces how the anime is filtered through Kawashiri's worldview. Her endearing appreciation of small but meaningful things such as her love of the Inageya convenience store and criteria for great Chinese food likewise makes the anime feel somewhat like an iyashikei series, or "healing anime."
Perhaps the intro is such a big part of I'm Kodama Kawashiri because it provides as worthwhile an insight into Kawashiri's story as the episodes themselves. Not only this, but the intro has some beautiful moments and a catchy opening theme: "Nightholic" by Yuri Kuriyama and UROMT. For these reasons, fans can accept the intro as a wider part of the I'm Kodama Kawashiri whole.
I'm Kodama Kawashiri is available to stream on Crunchyroll.