Oni: Thunder God’s Tale Season 1 Review – A Charming & Lovingly Crafted Story

Episode Guide

Onari’s Kushi Power
“The Mighty Storm Gods
The Truth
“The Demon Moon Rises

The Oni series: Thunder God’s Tale is an exquisitely animated, entertaining, and well-written series. Although it’s primarily designed for children and families, Oni is one of the rare gems that are entertaining for children and adults alike. There’s an important message in this album, along with a wonderful look at Japanese folklore.

The show is split into four episodes The creators of Oni have released a statement and declared that the show is basically one large movie that is divided into chapters. You will feel it while watching. In reality, the best way to enjoy this show is to watch the entire four episodes at once. Don’t fret you’ll have plenty to satisfy your appetite, and there’s never any time is wasted with this particular one.

The story takes place in rural Japan and features hyperactive Onari an innocent girl raised by an eccentric father Naridon. She’s set to embark on a sweeping journey to discover her special abilities.

In the midst of the Demon Moon set to descend upon them, and the wicked Oni waiting to strike their hearts whenever it happens, Onari is taught along with other students how to become a Kami and fight this apocalypse.

But, it’s not the way it appears and as the stories whirl through, it is apparent that there’s a bigger truth hidden in plain sight.

The majority of the time the story is simple, and it includes all the standard plot elements that you’d expect from a film or series such as this. There are power-training scenes, light moments of comedy, and a huge world-ending battle in the final scene.

In fairness to Oni, however, there is nothing that is ever sloppy. Even the most basic scene was designed with care and there’s a well-crafted twist in the middle of the film that alters the way you see the characters and places.

If you played Stray earlier in the year there are certain similarities between the style of art and tone of certain levels, as you can see in this review. But, I’m not going to go over that in this review!

The animation on Oni looks amazing, however, and, thanks to a mix of CGI as well as stop-motion it’s easy to see how much effort and love is put into this production. Although it’s not at the same level of excellence that something like Kubo or The Two Strings, there’s plenty to be impressed with nevertheless.

In addition to the animation, there is the voice acting, which is excellent overall, with several famous voices lending their voice to this production. George Takei is probably the most popular choice for people to prefer, but it is important to give credit to Momona Tamada who brings Onari alive with her sprightly vibrancy that really resonates off of the screen.

Four chapters run at 35 minutes each (and the finale is a little longer to top it off) This is an easy-to-watch but hard to put down.