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Politics is often thought of as a dull and dreary affair; several old men in suits debating issues like agricultural legislation and increasing taxes a little. But perhaps the most uninteresting of all is international affairs; a battle to get as much as you can from someone else while giving them back as little as possible in return. It’s a world of faked smiles and awkward handshakes.

If only the countries of the world could compete against other like men; pitting themselves against one another in fierce competition, as they battle for ultimate supremacy.

And what better way to do that, than a game of 2v2 ... Mahjong?

‘The Legend of Koizumi’ sees the former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro doing diplomacy with six of Japan’s deadliest enemies, including North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Chinese Premier Wen. Also taking part in the (trash) talks are a range of Japanese and international political figures.

While all but the most informed of Westerners are unlikely to recognise all but the most infamous members of the cast, this barely detracts from The Legend of Koizumi’s humour. Even if the names are new, the characters are not; Dictators that don’t play by the rules, and exaggeratedly manly “heroes of freedom”.

And it is this that makes Legend of Koizumi very accessible, even to a foreign audience; something that isn’t easy for a political satire that uses localised, real world figures. In fact, the main reason Legend of Koizumi is funny is simply because it is so over the top; from letting out a primal scream while declaring Riichi to intercepting a nuclear missile with a Fighter Jet, Koizumi is so ridiculously manly that he can burn a hole through a mahjong tile simply by pressing his finger up against it.

Since Legend of Koizumi is mostly about poking fun at political figures, it doesn’t really have much of a story. Essentially, he settles Japanese diplomacy by battling various communist dictators. Given that there are three episodes and each one is only ten minutes long, we can forgive Koizumi for lacking any real character development or providing much in the way of introductions before the games begin. But remember that although these figures may not be well known in the west, in Japan they are household names; they don’t need any lengthy introductions.

Koizumi is the single product of a small animation studio, and hence did not receive a very large budget. Thankfully however, the art doesn’t really feel cheaply made; animation is largely avoided, however the animation that is there is as smooth as any television production. Reaction shots are kept to a sensible length. And while they are somewhat frequent, multiple angles are used to prevent it from feeling static. What’s more, these flaws only become apparent with a well trained eye, or upon closer inspection.

The art style is reminiscent of fighting or martial arts anime; butch, muscular bodies and faces, with blood vessels ready to pop at any second but are still recognisable, bearing obvious resemblances to the figures they parody (if you know what the figures they parody look like, anyway).

The background music is mock suspense; loud and heavy percussion throughout, spaced with tense silences and touches of dramatic, orchestral strings. Most of the cast have exaggerated deep, masculine voices; dialogue is delivered in a style similar to a bad action movie. For example, in one scene, Koizumi (having been shot only moments ago) calmly steps out of a helicopter and simply says: “Let’s delegate”.

Aside from catchphrases delivered like they were lifted from a Schwarzenegger movie, Koizumi’s dialogue is limited guttural screams when declaring a hand, and trash talking his opponents, who are given silly accents and have their mannerisms and characteristics blown out of proportion.

But being so over the top is what makes the Legend of Koizumi so good; even without the satire it is still hilarious to watch and easy to enjoy. And, since it only lasts 30 minutes in total, it doesn’t have enough time to become stale or repetitive.

If I was going to be diplomatic about it, I’d probably cite that the easily accessible humour, the very short running time and the large enjoyment factor that Legend of Koizumi has, make for good incentives to watch it. But then, diplomacy never gets anyone anywhere does it?

So watch Legend of Koizumi, or I’ll declare ‘Rising Sun’ on your ass, pinko!

Ah, the harem genre.

One lovable loser who through some bizarre circumstances ends up surrounded by a group of gorgeous women who all proceed to fall in love with him somehow; and then our protagonist must make the difficult choice of picking the one female cast member to call his own.

While it was always a stupid and sexist premise, it proved to be a very popular format (for an almost entirely male audience). And so, many titles made use of the formula with little to no variation. While these titles lacked creativity, they were still profitable and that allowed the same basic story to be ... reproduced many, many times. A ‘tried and tested’ formula simply became a tired one. Eventually, it got to the point that even making a few minor changes would create a stir.

Like all other harems, ‘To Heart’ is the story of one man and the many women that surround him. Hiroyuki Fujita is like every other male harem protagonist in this respect. BUT...

(You may want to sit yourselves for this one, guys)

(Deep breaths)

(Ready?)

He’s not a total loser!

In fact, Hiroyuki is actually quite a nice guy. He helps people out, gives them advice when they need it, is pretty popular and athletic; even if he is a little lazy and forgetful at times. Really, it’s not a big surprise he is so popular with women!
And with that one swipe, Hiroyuki manages to slay the ancient dragon of the harem genre -the completely unbelievable wish fulfilment fantasy of loser male anime fans everywhere- and rescue one of several girls desperate to be carried off into the sunset by their handsome knight (who won’t be too wimpy to actually carry them for once).

However, while Hiroyuki being a hit with the ladies may not be completely unbelievable, Whether or not Hiroyuki is a believable character or not, is another story altogether.

Is he a Gary Stu? No, of course he’s not: He sleeps in classes and he’s forgetful, too. He’s far less a writer’s (or audiences) pet than most other harem protagonists, even if he is a ‘better’ person than they are. The problem with Hiroyuki is not that he is too idealistic; the problem is that his actions do not entirely click with his personality, and sometimes come across as erratic or illogical.

One moment he’s dozing off while his classmates argue with each other; the next he gets up out of his chair and helps the class representative draw lots for the seating plan. He shrugs it off, claiming that he simply ‘wants to go home’; but when was the last time you saw someone who has half asleep be the first to jump up and help someone out?

Another issue is his prioritising of relationships; Hiroyuki usually hangs around with his close friends, but will readily abandon them to jump to the needs of complete strangers. While it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that someone would help out a stranger and perhaps neglect a friend, it is hard to believe someone who goes to great lengths to help others could ignore their friends with such consistency.

But perhaps I’m being too hard on old Hiroyuki-chan. While his behaviour feels contradictory at times, he isn’t an easy character to dislike. He’s someone that we can identify with, not as some sort of self-insertion fantasy, but as a nice, friendly guy who we want to be happy.

If nothing else, he manages not to be the typical harem fare which unfortunately, cannot be said for the rest of the cast, which consists of every Ken Akamatsu harem cliché there is: the childhood best friend, the arrogant tsundere, the underdog athlete, the weird rich girl, the psychic rich girl and even the robot girl; they’re all here. All archetypical, all uninteresting!

That being said, even if they are unoriginal, they do manage to make for plenty of enjoyable episodes, albeit quite silly at times. Some episodes, such as those featuring robotic girl Multi, and the occult obsessed ojou-samas will no doubt prove to be too ridiculous for some to enjoy.

The storyline is fairly episodic, with the rule of thumb for the series being ‘one girl; one episode’. While the characters do make some brief cameos in other episodes, these are always only a few lines of dialogue and are spread very thinly across the series, and they are never developed further with only one or two exceptions other than the main cast.

But even the main cast feel underdeveloped at times. Most of childhood friend Akira’s appearances in the first two thirds of the series seem to be for the sole purpose of reminding us that she still exists; tsundere Shiho seems to change very little through most of the series only to have a sudden growth spurt as things are winding down, one of the hallmarks of a bad tsundere. Best friend Masahi doesn’t change even slightly and the only thing Hiroyuki seems to develop over the course of the show is a better memory.

Despite the problems with character development, To Heart does manage to be an entertaining show. The pacing is somewhat slow, largely due to its episodic format, but this suits it well. It gives the show a calm, laid back feel which reflects the personality of the protagonist quite well, and leaves To Heart feeling more like a Slice of Life than a harem; whether or not that is a good thing, depends on personal preference.

On the artistic front, To Heart is somewhat mixed. Released in ’99, like most anime released at that time it uses cell animation. Thankfully, while clearly not a new release, the art style is pretty good and it doesn’t feel outdated. On the other hand, there seems to have been a fair number of sacrifices on the animation front, and it feels cheaply made at times. In some scenes we have background characters drawn with the same level of detail and quality as the main characters, but left unanimated. These scenes can be reasonably lengthy and the background characters often have expressions that suggest they are talking, laughing or smiling, which aside from looking very low budget, is quite distracting.

A cynical person might think that such practices would make static shots of the artwork, such as those featured in magazine advertisements look better. Perhaps with the intention of falsely portraying the art to be of a higher standard than it really is.

Additionally, lots of scrolling shots of still images are used, and placement shots are used a bit more than necessary. While these aren’t quite as big an issue as the aforementioned background characters, they can feel overused at times.

The soundtrack can be summarised in a single word: ‘barren’.

There wasn’t very much background music used in To Heart at all; aside from occasional touches of violins and pianos; usually limited to the emotional scenes. Unfortunately when the lack of background music is combined with the blatant attempts to cut corners in the animation, it casts serious doubt on the possibility that it was intentionally minimalistic. This leaves ’To Heart’ feeling altogether very cheap indeed.

At least the voice acting work is competent. While there are no particularly shiny stars among the cast, each one suits their respective role. It has to be said though that there are not any particularly taxing scenes to test the seiyuu’s skills either; ultimately, it shouldn’t get on anyone’s nerves, which in a show like To Heart, is all you really need.

Because in the end, ‘To Heart’ is an anime that is only slightly above average. The protagonist aside, it’s a cast full of under developed, stereotypical characters put together in an anime that looks alright but feels cheaply produced. It was enjoyable, but it did nothing really special. Hiroyuki may have been interesting as a harem protagonist, but as an anime character, he’s average at best.

And it’s the same with To Heart. When you compare it with other harem, it’s a good, perhaps even great title. But when you start looking at it beyond the boundaries of the harem genre line, it just can’t cut it. Not because of any flaws inherit in the harem genre; but because overall, it is a mediocre anime.

It’s not so much that ‘To Heart’ is in a school of its own; it’s just a top student in a class full of under-achievers.