Nanatsu-iro★Drops

Length: 12 episodes
Original Airdates: 7/07 - 9/07
Demographic: Unknown (guessing Shoujo)
Genres: Fantasy, Magical Girl, Romance
Also Known As: Stardrops

One-Sentence Summary: "A surefire way to melt your heart"

Plot Synopsis
Tsuwabuki is a normal student, though not very social. One day he meets a new transfer student, named Sumomo Akihime, and another girl, both the only members of the gardening club. Tsuwabuki is forced by a teacher to join this club. But then he bumps into a strange guy with dog ears, switching his drink with they guy's by mistake. Drinking it, he is turned in a stuffed animal. The teacher tells him that the only way to turn back ... to normal is to find the chosen girl and let her catch the seven stardrops. This girl is Sumomo, that accepts to help him, though she's not allowed to know the animal's true identity.
(From ANN)

Personal Opinion
So I'll confess... ever since I had an embarrassing walk-in by my friends when I was intently watching Sailor Moon when I was 7 years old, I have avoided the mahou shoujo (magical girl) genre of anime. A week or so before writing this post, I managed to convince myself to get over this irrational fear. So now i write this post as my first completed Mahou Shoujo anime in over 11 years.

Okay, so to tell the truth, Nanatsuiro Drops isn't like most mahou shoujo animes. From what I read, a lot of MS animes have romance in as a side-genre... In Nanatsuiro Drops, Romance is the main genre and MS is a side genre. ND is nothing more than the cute story of first love. ... okay that was an understatement. Nanatsuiro was probably the CUTEST lovestory that I have EVER seen. Just every aspect about it warms your heart. Sumomo, even though her crying can get annoying, is one of the cutest protagonists that I've ever seen. She's incredibly shy, somewhat weak, has a tendency to cry, quite clumsy... As Konata from Lucky Star would say... "She's a walking pillar of turn-ons". And the show only gets cuter... especially when the main two character deals with their feelings for each other. And then, when it got to the ending.... It melted my manly heart :_)

There were a few problems with some of the characters, and I would've liked to see more background info on a lot of the characters

Other then that... this anime is an instant remedy to depression that can be taken many time without fear of overdose.

RATING: 8/10

Similar to...
- Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora
Both are tales of first love, and both couple have to overcome obstacles

- Shakugan no Shana, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Same art style in all of these three. In fact, the character artworks are done by the same person.

I'll start of by stating that the series is based on an eroge, that alone should've prepared me for what I saw, and in some ways it did, however, being the bastard that I truly am, I still feel the urge to lunge at this show with the critic's lumber axe of death and despair.

Going over everything that was bad about this show would surely take up alot of space, not to mention leave a bitter taste in your mouth and making you believe I've got nothing better to do than complain, which is sadly true... Anyway! The show is pretty much your average lovey-dove ... magical girl high school comedy-romance, filled with cliché characters, situations and dialogue and/or actions. Basically our heroine is a petit, flat-chested but-oh-so-cute shy and kindhearted person. Our hero is a glasses-wearing, somewhat buff and well-sculpted, bad haircut, anti-social douchebag who seems to have severe issues with his parents considering the fact that you never actually get to see them even once. The plot then? Nothing I'll even waste time on telling you, you can pretty much guess what it's about from the title anyway. The plotline is really unoriginal and you can guess the outcome of nearly every episode, not to mention the music constantly reminding us of what mood we should be in. Also, the animators seemed lazy and though it's common I suppose it still bugs me whenever I see the same lazy animation-clip re-used over and over. The show's sweet and cute and has most of the time a happy feeling about it. There's a lot more I could whine about but by now you've probably lost interest anyway, so I'll move on.

The good things about this show is, despite it's unoriginality it still kept me watching. This might be because I got to see a living sheep-plushie have a bath in the all-girls' bath at some summer camp, but I'm guessing that's not all, or else I feel sorry for myself. It's got some fun moments and even though I've seen most, well all, of the jokes before, I still can't help myself to cracking a smile and laughing at some of them. The show's sweet and cute and has most of the time a happy feeling about it, sensitive types might find the sad moments sad too I suppose.

Music and sound were, as usual, good and all but nothing that was exceptional or will make you line up or order the Original Soundtrack or Drama CD from Japan.

Summarisation, already here? Who cares, you've stopped reading anyway! It's an unoriginal, cliché-filled, predictable and happy love-story which actually reminds you of most Hollywood-made films. It's not bad, some jokes are fun and what not, but it's nothing new or exciting really and most viewers will probably yawn or sigh about as often as they'll laugh and smile or cry, well, if you cry when watching this then you're a complete wuss and I'll hunt you down with a lawnmower!

... Seriously, if you get teary-eyes from this I'll come around and smack you with a rolled up newspaper!

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

I started watching this show with no preconceived notions whatsoever; only learning of it's less than desirable eroge origins after looking into it a bit more. My initial reason for watching Nanatsuiro Drops was plain and simple: the character design. Yes, very shallow I'm aware. I happen to be a fan of Noizi Ito's work and had become intrigued when I saw some of her illustrations in one of her art books. Oh how wrong I was.

Nanatsuiro Drops is a magical-girl, romance anime adaption of UNiSONSHIFT's adult dating sim of the same name. The initial premise is quite cliche: Boring male student ... (Tsuwabuki) encounters magical girl (Sumomo), shenanigans and romance ensue. However this story has a mild twist: Tsuwabuki accidentally drinks a magic potion (conveniently occurring through a mix up of cans between himself and another individual). The result of said potion is Tsuwabuki's transformation into a small stuffed lamb doll who is referred to as Yuki. Conveniently, the only way for Tsuwabuki to transform back into his human form permanently is if he aides Sumomo ("his chosen girl") in collecting the Seven Stardrops, all the while hiding his true identity from her. Tsuwabuki transforms to his human form only on a new moon, allowing for some time to confess his romantic affections for Sumomo later on in the story. Nanatsuiro Drops is full of such convenient plot twists; Sumomo just happens to be incredibly advanced in her magical spells with little development or indication of improvement she simply manages to cast spells, the only explanation being the fact that her mother was a brilliant mage. There is no basis for Sumomo's development as a magical girl other than her lineage and we are not provided with a sufficient answer. To make matters worse, the mahou-shoujo element of Nanatsuiro Drops begins to fade into the background as the story progresses; it is ever present but feels somewhat tacked on as the focus shifts to the romantic relationship of Sumomo and Tsuwabuki. As the story progresses, the increasing plot twists become both predictable and incredibly convenient to the point where the story begins to lose any shred of believability or originality it may have initially maintained.If you want something on the lines of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha or Card Captor Sakura, with likable characters and a plot that can be taken somewhat seriously you should probably opt out of sitting through the meager 12 episodes that Nanatsuiro Drops has to offer.

The music for Nanatsuiro Drops is quite mediocre, much like the anime as a whole. The light-hearted girlishness of the OP is fitting and serves to not offend the senses. The BGM is slightly flowery, not really my cup of tea, but again very fitting for such a cute anime.

It is in the character department that Nanatsuiro Drops truly fails in. We are presented with Tsuwabuki, a boring drab male protagonist who possesses anti-social tendencies and who's personality seems to be on par with that of a dish-rag. He is the epitome of the generic male lead: apathetic outlook on life paired with interchangeable characteristics. Sumomo, the main female protagonist can be viewed two ways: either you see her as a super adorable "moe" type girl along the same lines as Mikuru from TMHS (minus the chest of course) or you see her as the incredibly whiny, weak willed sorry excuse for a protagonist that I perceived her to be. Don't get me wrong, this girl is cute as hell but her consistent crying throughout the series is most irritating after a while. She cries in nearly every episode, a strange notion considering the fluffy, cookie-cutter nature of the story and the world around her. One would assume she wouldn't have much to cry about but that seems to not be the case. The other characters making up Nanatsuiro drops are standard fair: a rival that morphs into a friend by the end of the series, a supportive "no questions asked" type best friend, a young and attractive male teacher who conveniently is also Sumomo's uncle and a vast source of knowledge on the seven star drops...you get the point. The only positive thing I can really say about the characters is the fact that the minor characters were not heavily involved in the story. By this I mean we were spared the melodrama of a love-triangle that would have ultimately made this show even worse than it already is.

For such a short series, it sure became tedious to watch fast and I had to force myself to sit through the rest of the episodes. I just couldn't get into this. It felt like the target audience was somewhere along the lines of young girls around age 10-12 looking for a feel-good story to sink their newbie anime teeth into, so to speak. A strange notion considering the eroge origins of Nanatsuiro Drops. Despite it's origins however, NanaDrops is refreshingly innocent, representing a simplistic and highly idealized take on love and relationships. Despite my very low rating, I would definitely recommend this to a younger girl just getting into anime or someone who just wants some mindless fluff. If you're looking for anything more than that however, you are sadly out of luck here.