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.
