.anime phreak. – call me Ki様

(マイセルフ；ユアセルフ)

Additional info:

This series is currently completed.
Genre: Slice of Life, Romance, Comedy(?)
Demographic: Shounen
Animation Studio: Dogakobo

Synopsis:

Hidaka Sana returns to his birth town, fictional Sakuranomori, due to un-foretold circumstances. He returns by himself, his parent(s) keeps in touch with him via phone. The main part of the series involves events between Sana and his childhood friends. The plot develops as the shady backgrounds of each character gets unveiled. Mainly focuses on what happened during their time apart.

Review:

Artwork and Animation: 7/10
No complaints here, the general shounen romance/harem styled artwork is easy to swallow for most people, and I’m glad they didn’t get lazy in comedy/unimportant scenes (you know what I’m talking about, single line artists!). The color’s are balanced into a more vivid version of reality, and generally is from inking. Little repetitive actions shows limited flash works but has still scenes to lighten the workload of artists and animators.
Sound (Themes and Inserts): 8/10
Not a big deal here either, a standard job, songs goes with the mood it is trying to create, weakness is in it’s originality or the lack of it, but it’s strength lies in it also, for a Slice of Life/Romance, people tend to concentrate more on the plot. I have the OP and ED songs on a CD for my car, nice music to listen to when driving. Not outstanding, but that’s why you wouldn’t listen to it too much to get sick of it.
Plot (including character development): 6.5/10
As I said before, the lack of originality is a key mark for Slice of Life since there is a limit to how much you can deviate from reality. But they followed it too closely, but they did all drama to unbalance it. They did the opposite to what they should’ve done, extraordinary circumstances handled with ordinary behavior, that’s the trademark to real human behavior, and I doubt you’d get too inspired by this anime. That said, it is better than having no exciting plot twists can be even lamer so it did help with they revealed their backgrounds. A slow plot in the beginning picks up momentum for the grand sla… Wait, there is no grand slam. They bit off more than they can chew, and the last episode just jammed the conclusion in without explanation, though it can be worked out easily with logic, it leaves a sense of unease.

Spoiler:

Because everyone wanted to know how that incest thing turned out.
The last episode kinda tells you that.

Maybe they got called off a 26 episode season, then in that case I can’t really blame them. But at least it’s out of the norm.
Characters are so far stereotypical and static except Nanaka and perhaps the twins. Others did probably change their lives a little but not their behavior.
When you listen to Aoi’s voice you either thinks it’s moe or annoying. I think it hurts my ears.
Directing: 5/10
Err…. none? Yes the mood was created, but I am always stringy with my rating for this one, I expect goodness, jaw dropping moments of beauty and horror alike. And my jaw is still quite intact. Standard, standard, standard. Strength and weakness all rolled into one, well, I wouldn’t go as far as rating it badly, since it’s not a blotched directing attempt.
Overall: 6/10
Generally time well wasted. I wouldn’t say time well spent though, since I could find a better romance anime out there. And there is a limit of Aoi’s snorting/giggling I can take before it gets old. The romance looked more like pairing than actual justified love, so it’s romance part is kinda lowered and it becomes more of a slice of life anime. Watch it if you have too much time on your hand, and if you’re put off by the first couple of episodes like I was, leave it for a while and come back to it, it gets better, but don’t expect too much from it, no heart-wrenching material. No tissues included, not that you would need any. Just enjoy digging up their pasts like a private detective. If you don’t enjoy that, well, thats too bad.