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.
