"Ballad of a Shinigami" or "Shinigami no Ballad" is a six-episode Japanese anime dramatic series that has a good mix of fantasy, supernatural, and the psychological. It could be classified as a supernatural psychological drama. The Ballad of a Shinigami series is adapted from a ten volume light novel authored by K-ske Hasegawa and published by "Dengeki Bunko." The pace of the series looks to be pretty calm and many things are grounded in reality. The story pretty much as an interesting premise as the two main characters are not human at all. But it plays out well since it looks as if everything is supposed to be in a realistic setting.
The anime looks very sharp and clean from watching the first few episodes.
The series itself revolves around Momo who is a "shinigami." In Japanese mythology, a shinigami means either "soul reaper," "grim reaper," or "god of death." For any anime title that has a good dealing with shinigami, there is implied death. It would look as if Ballad of a Shinigami is by no means an exception to that fact. "Death Note" had shinigami and it had a lot to do with death. "Yu Yu Hakusho" is another anime that had a lot of dealings with shinigami. "Bleach" is the one series with the most dealings with shinigami with a lot of death and wayward spirits involved.
Momo carries around a scythe or a deathscythe which is the signature weapon or tool of a "shinigami." This is also the signature weapon of the grim reaper. That establishes that Momo is an incarnation of the grim reaper. In the series, Momo is accompanied by a taking black cat with wings named Daniel. The series mainly revolves around both Momo and Daniel as they "interfere" with the world of the living. It may seem to be interesting at first but it throws everything off balance. But throwing things off balance doesn’t seem to be the case.
However, Momo isn’t a vengeful shinigami. Basically, she’s responsible for carrying the souls of humans to the afterlife. Whenever Momo touches the hearts of human, she is supposed to bring both kindness and grief. In a sense, Momo tends to bring balance because you cannot have kindness without grief and vice-versa. In the beginning of every episode, Momo plays a behind the scenes role looking over the people whom are about to die. When those people die, Momo then takes their souls to the afterlife.
As a main protagonist, Momo doesn’t intervene in people’s lives. Momo mainly waits for people to pass on and then take them to the afterlife. Ballad of a Shinigami tends to be tragic. However, it’s a natural part of life. Only time Momo and Daniel step in to "interfere" is to put people in their places. The series is pretty interesting show of the natural cycle of life and death.
It looks to be a good series to watch. However, it’s unknown if or when this series will be licensed, dubbed into English, and released to North America.