romance genre standard

Titles under this category is a romance anime, that will always be handicapped.

Review: Kimikiss pure rouge (キミキス pure rouge)

Posted by ranpha on 4th April 2008
Posted in: anime review - reposted, romance genre standard. Tagged: . 1 comment


A man in love. His story arc is the best in this anime.

This is a review of an anime that is similar to Myself, Yourself but much superior, titled kimikiss pure rouge. This is a 2007 anime and also belongs to the romance genre, which means it will compete with Nodame Cantabile for 2007 award and also judged with a higher standard compared to titles in other genres.


In the search for true love, best friends like the one above is always the one been neglected in the favor of a new shiny boyfriend/girlfriend.

Story:-
Three childhood friends were reunited after 2 years when one of them returned from overseas. Each of them has to deal with their own separate romantic stories, which will eventually merge themselves into the whole main story.

The story takes quite some time to develop, but when it does the story is actually very good and well worth the wait. The story is also augmented by the great presentation that allows the plot to flow freely. Character developments are excellent for almost everyone, and surely one of the best from all the anime I have reviewed recently. These three factors contributed to each other towards the essence of a very good anime.

Although the character development in this anime is as good as it can be, it is very surprising indeed that this anime do not have a strong character the way Chocotto Sister (Choco) or Nodame Cantabile (Noda Megumi) has. Meanwhile the only complaint I have is the ending which could have been presented better. For God-sake, you don’t dump your girlfriend in the last 10 minutes in the last episode; this will make it hard for the dumper to get his one true love in a believable/natural way, in the term of limited airtime.


A woman in love. Her story arc is the least interesting in this anime.

Character Design:-
Overall, the character design in this anime is good, with the genius girl being outstanding. Also an anime where brown is the new black. Except for the genius girl which has black hair. And that’s why she stands out in this typical Japanese high school setting.

Voice acting:-
A positive point of this anime, voice acting in this anime is excellent, although there is no one that really stands out.

Music:-
The OST is decent and the 2nd ED theme is excellent. The OP and 1st ED theme are not.


Awful acting from two awful actors.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this 2007 anime is just as good as most of the other 2007 anime I have reviewed recently. They are fluid, even in the little fast-paced scenes this anime has. No comment about choreography because this is a romantic slice-of-life anime.

Meanwhile, the directing is excellent, and definitely one of the positive points of this anime. Many of my writing in the story section apply here, especially the presentation part. One of the better directing gig I have seen recently.

Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. Pretty decent for a romance anime that is not overbearing unlike that culprit Myself, Yourself. Remember, the handicap is applied here. Nodame Cantabile is still the holder of Best Anime of 2007 though.


If the ending can be visualized, it may looks like this.

Review: Ai Yori Aoshi (藍より青し) + Enishi (藍より青し ～縁～)

Posted by ranpha on 21st December 2007
Posted in: anime review - reposted, romance genre standard. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment


The main female character Aoi Sakuraba.

For today, I will make a mini-review of another anime I have always wanted to watch, Ai Yori Aoshi (all 2 seasons of them). Romance anime series are usually reviewed by me with a higher standard compared to other genres, so let’s see if this anime can extract points from me at the end.

Story:-
Kaoru Hanabishi is a piss-poor university student who stumbled upon a beautiful damsel-in-distress at the local train station. He eventually finds out that she is his long-lost fiancée and after a set of events, he finds himself living in a mansion filled to the brim with all kind of beauties commonly seen in a typical harem anime. He has to keep his engagement secret while keeping out the other women who are interested only in getting into his pants.

Frankly speaking, the story is so thin there is nothing I can really write about here. And I prefer not wanting to comment about the second season’s story which is almost entirely composed with filler episodes with little character developments. The only shining star in the series is the damsel-in-distress Aoi Sakuraba, whose character strength barely able to carry the series forward.

Speaking about character strength, I want to question why the male protagonist’s character is not developed as well as Aoi Sakuraba is. This also applies to that manager character too, but throughout the 2 seasons of the anime, character development for Kaoru Hanabishi can be described as minimal at best. This robs the massive potential this anime may have. This anime as a whole also has pacing problems. Between some characters, time seems to flow differently. For example, how is that Tina Foster managed to graduate before Kaoru Hanabishi did, despite her taking a year off her studies?


If Kaoru Hanabishi has half of the character development she has, the anime would have more substance.

Character Design:-
A positive aspect of the anime if you can ignore the hair colours. They are pretty decent, especially for female characters. Aoi Sakuraba really stands out in this anime, and other females are not bad too. Still, brown is the new black huh.

Voice acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is decent in general, with the voice of Tina Foster being outstanding. Aoi Sakuraba, who has the same voice actress with Noda Megumi, did not perform as well as she is in Nodame Cantabile. Overall, they are still good though, should be no problem there.

Music:-
The OST is great, but only the OP in second season and the ED in episode 15 of first season are good.


Chasing another woman is not character development, mind you.

Animation/Direction:-
Despite watching DVD rips, some of the fast-paced scenes exhibits obvious low frame rates. And I think this happened in some normal scenes too. No action scenes that I can comment on though. The directing is good, my complaint will be only about the time sync problem I mentioned above.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Non-existent story, almost zero character development for the main character (Kaoru at the start of the anime is basically the same as the one at the end of second season, except older), disappointing themes are the factors that caused the anime to lose points. The next anime that will be reviewed is Nagasarete Airantou, a hopeful 2007 anime that may have a chance to dethrone Nodame Cantabile. Maybe.


A pic that simply has to be here.

Review: Suzuka (涼風)

Posted by ranpha on 25th June 2006
Posted in: anime review - reposted, romance genre standard. Tagged: . Leave a Comment

 
This is a review of your typical romance anime, Suzuka. The person above is not Suzuka though.

Story:-
For reviewing romance anime title, I will usually try to compare one with one of my favourite romance anime titles of all time, DNA^2 ~Dokokade Nakushita Aitsu no Aitsu~. The storyline is simple, but ambiguous enough for me not to be able to PREDICT THE ENDING. That anime also has a kick-ass presentation, and the ending is superb. And I must mention the kick-ass OP/ED themes and voice actors/actresses.

There are 2 faults of most romance anime titles nowadays, and they are:-

1. Bloody predictable ending that can be seen even before halfway of a series lifetime. I usually do this by watching at least half of the series, and then predicts how the series will end.
2. Story presentation that contributes to the ending, which can be fault of either crappy plotline or crappy directing.

For me, even if the former is bad, the latter can still salvage the series but certainly will not get a full mark from this stingy reviewer. DNA^2 shows that an almost-perfect romance title can be produced, and certainly I hoped more romance anime titles can also do the same.

Returning to Suzuka, you don’t have to be a genius to know how the series will end. For God’s sake, just look at the title. Anyway, I still hold off my judgement until at least 13 episodes, but by then I am convinced that I am right. The hero and the heroine will have a happy ending and everything will be good and swell.

The story mainly revolves about how how the hero works hard to woo Suzuka, the heroine of the story. The hero also has to deal with a childhood friend who has a crush on him since their childhood. Basically a love-triangle story arc employs by many others romance anime titles out there, including DNA^2 itself.

The ending can be seen from miles away, and the presentation towards that shiny and clear ending is not that good either. In a love-triangle arc, the hero will certainly become couple with his childhood friend but they they will break up because of the heroine. And I know in advance that such thing will happen. How the break-up is generated reeks of unoriginality (childhood friend see hero buying present for her while accompanied by Suzuka – watched this kind of break-up plenty of times already). After that, there will be just more crying and slapping and running before the ending I anticipated materialized.

Actually I already lost interest around episodes 20 or something but I persevered by hoping that I am wrong in my prediction of the ending of the series. Maybe the hero died in an accident or something or maybe the hero will ends up with his childhood friend or maybe I can have a bad (read: tragic) ending, but it will not be the case.

Character design:-
Your typical modern character design for a romance anime title of this era. This is not a bad thing, because DNA^2 also has character design as its main weakness. You see DNA^2 and you will think Akira Toriyama is the one who designed the characters.

Voice acting:-
This series has pretty decent voice actors/actresses in here. Not as good as DNA^2 though, but at least nothing that will really ruin the series.

Music:-
Suffers like the majority of the anime titles here. If they don’t make it to my iPod, they are simply not good enough. DNA^2 themes both get into my iPod, with appropriate tunes that matched the anime perfectly. The OST is pretty decent though.

Animation/Direction:-
Quite obvious that the production company of this anime doesn’t like fast-paced scenes/characters, as some animation quality suffered. The direction is good, but the plotlines bogged it down.

Conclusion:-
Nothing really good to expect from a typical romance anime title, so 5 out of 10 this series will get. Very unfortunate because the standard of judgement is higher.

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