Medaka Box

Medaka Kurokami is, in the truest sense of the word, perfect. Beautiful, intelligent, and athletic, Medaka's dream is to make others happy. So when she runs for Student Council President of the prestigious Hakoniwa Academy, winning the election with 98% of the votes is only to be expected.

The very first thing the boisterous new president does is set up the "Medaka Box," a suggestion box allowing students to submit any kind of request for assistance. Together with the cynical Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, her childhood friend who has been strong-armed into helping, Medaka fulfills these requests at a ridiculous rate. For every job completed, she adds flowers to the student council room, with the aim of filling the entire school. However, the two are about to find out that helping others may be a lot harder than they think as they begin to uncover a devastating plan centering on the academy and even Medaka herself!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kurokami, Medaka Main

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Hitoyoshi, Zenkichi Main

Ono, Yuuki Japanese

Shiranui, Hansode Main

Katou, Emiri Japanese

Kikaijima, Mogana Main

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Akune, Kouki Main

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Unzen, Myouri Supporting

Park, Romi Japanese

Nabeshima, Nekomi Supporting

Kotobuki, Minako Japanese

Miyakonojou, Oudo Supporting

Katsunuma, Kiyoshi Japanese

Yatsushiro, Kenna Supporting

Nakao, Eri Japanese

Hitoyoshi, Hitomi Supporting

Itou, Yoshiyuki Producer

Beniya, Yoshikazu Producer

Saitou, Tomoyuki Producer

Katou, Masazumi Producer

Reviews

Mar 21, 2021

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: A show with some potential in terms of smaller aspects, but that is lacking in that it’s a character focused show that only has one particularly interesting character.

Medaka Box is an anime that isn’t really bad at anything, but is great at very little as well. It’s the story of the titular character Medaka who is incredibly overpowered. However, she isn’t the protagonist, rather the protagonist is someone that is much more normal and is basically just following along, Zenkichi. Medaka is pretty great. She’s just in general pretty likable due to how positive and powerful she she is and pulls off a lot ... of pretty amazing feats over the show. She’s also shown to have some depth with her rage form. Still, it never really feels like she gets character development. The protagonist fares even worse, wherein he both doesn’t seem to have much depth, nor does he get any character development. He actually has less to him than most of the characters in the show, including the prominent side characters.

The way the show is structured is essentially that the student council gets a series of requests that each lead them to get involved with one more side characters. Through doing so, Medaka and the rest of the council essentially push these side characters to grow. This is incredibly straightforward and simplistic, but it gives the side characters character arcs and clear character growth. A few of those characters end up becoming main characters and joining the student council, so outside of the main two the main characters do have character development, but this development is entirely frontloaded and there is never any development beyond that after they join the student council. As a result, in what feels incredibly strange, whoever it feels like are the main characters at the time never get any character development. Medaka feels like a strong enough character to power through that and still be interesting and easy to get invested, but none of the other characters are, and thus in terms of characters the cast doesn’t feel very strong.

There’s also nothing like any sort of overarching plot, rather just small stories that focus on characters, so even if these individual stories are mostly decent enough in and of themselves, holistically they don’t add up to all that great of a plot. There’s a lot of good comedy, equally held up by Medaka and the jokester character Shiranui, but it doesn’t quite feel like it’s enough to make the show great. There’s also some pretty exciting action, but it only shows up for an episode near the end of the show, so that isn’t enough to hold the anime up either. Thus while there’s definitely some good there, it overall still feels kind of lacking.

The art and animation were decent enough but not exceptional. There were some pretty interesting designs though. The OP was solid with a decent song and visuals that fit quite well with a bunch of somewhat hidden Medaka’s throughout. The ED was decent enough. The soundtrack wasn’t particularly memorable but it did what it needed to.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Nov 27, 2014

Monjoex

Mixed Feelings

Oddly enough, I found myself enjoying this show more than I thought I would. Far from perfect, it still has it where it counts with its witty humor and “out there” characters.

According to fans of the manga, the anime really didn’t cover a lot of ground. More or less the majority of it was introducing the characters and developing them as they interact with each other in a case by case sort of way. The last, oh let’s say, third of the series is the first story arc.

... This character, Medaka, is too perfect. She has a way with getting anyone to see things her way and uses this to “convert” delinquents into upstanding people. Her methods are a little less than ideal as there tends to be violence involved at some point. In the end, however, she succeeds in accomplishing her goal, one way or another. While it is for the good of things, she’s a love/hate kind of character.

The comedic value of the show overall isn’t the best. But it has its moments. The general consensus says that it may be a better option to read the manga if you’re really looking to get into this series. I cannot confirm or deny that, as I have not read the manga.

Overall I give this show 6/10 , its a Decent for what it was, but nothing award winning. Sort of became an after thought when I was finished watching it. For a slice of life style anime, with decent humor and all around fun characters, it’s good to give a shot if you’re bored and need some comedy.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 4, 2021

Resting_Bonfire

Not Recommended

Medaka Box

I watched the anime first and read the manga afterward out of curiosity. And as I expected, the third arc in the manga (right where the anime left off) is the best. Everything that comes before and after is almost a waste of time.

But wait! Medaka Box is a "satire" anime manga, right? Shouldn't this be entertaining in some way then? It parodies shounen/manga cliché, character stereotypes, cliché scenes are poked fun at. Everything is present. Even the use of the "plot armor" aspect, in terms of plot.

What could go wrong?

First and foremost, the type of humor is completely forced ... and every possible character seems like a sad NPC without any depth or personality. They are just different character designs with dialogue. And this one is still the better of the two seasons since the setup from the anime was still kind of interesting and had charm.


A real plot is not present in the anime, not even after the second season. No, even in the manga there is no real plot. It's just one arc after another that has almost no relevance other than introducing new characters.

The characters aren't hateful, in their own bizarre and bad way, they are likable. Excluding, of course, the main antagonist of the third season (arc 3), which is a sympathy bomb.
The special thing here is actually that the characters towards the end of the manga have character development. But since this only occurs at the end, it is not relevant to the anime.


The intro is average, the osts are average except for the final one in episode 12.



Conclusion


There is hardly anything that can be said about this anime. It is empty and a below-average prologue. It has minimal strengths but that's about it. It stands out only for its bizarre features.

Enjoyment - 4

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Medaka Box Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Jun 6, 2012	158 replies	by Randomega »» Nov 21, 8:39 AM
	Poll: Medaka Box Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Yumekichi11 - Apr 25, 2012	103 replies	by Karva1 »» Jun 29, 2:43 PM
	Poll: Medaka Box Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jun 20, 2012	128 replies	by Homura24 »» Jun 13, 1:53 AM
	Poll: Medaka Box Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jun 13, 2012	123 replies	by Homura24 »» Jun 13, 1:10 AM
	Poll: Medaka Box Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Ame_Sama - Apr 4, 2012	297 replies	by Aru_Kun07 »» May 29, 12:17 PM

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