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Feb 23, 2015
Incest without guilt would be like sausages without mustard. If you like incest romance, it’s definitely worth watching.
I watched the show then read the visual novel so I’ll include some comparison in here for those who are interested.
Premise:
Boy and girl twins, Haruka and Sora; their parents died. They move into their gandpa’s house in the countryside(granpa is dead). They used to visit Granpa a lot. Lots of girls in this town like Haruka because he is pretty. Omnibus romance ensues. Haruka and Sora try to keep a tight lid on what’s going on between them, but the opening kinda gives it away.
Characters:
Akira is an energetic
...
and really nice and sociable shrine maiden with family issues, which she is an orphan so… In the visual novel she’s a much bigger presence to be honest. No matter which route you take, she strongly empathizes with all the characters and tries to help them no matter what they’re going through. Here, she's... energetic and nice and has family issues. She also has giant boobs in this. Boobs generally are a lot bigger in the anime.
Kazuha is rich and pretty. And she plays the violin. I guess she’s nice.
Nao, I think, actually calls herself Haruka’s big sister from time to time. She’s really just his childhood friend. She’s supportive and relatively mature. And when her arc comes around, I admire her. She has a boyfriend who is deeply obsessed with his twin sister, and Nao is just like, “Well, I knew what I was getting myself into.” It’s not that she’s doesn’t have a problem with it, but she’s known Haru and Sora for so long she’s on their side no matter what. Though Sora utterly hates her guts.
Haruka, in the anime, is a fairly normal pretty boy aside from his relationship with his twin sister. The visual novel focused a lot more on Haru simply trying to learn to live on his own with Sora, sort out their household, and integrate both himself and Sora into this town. The anime focuses a lot more on the romances which leaves Haru with not much character development and not much to do aside from tending on his girlfriend of the week. I think Sora’s arc works much better because dealing with her brings out a lot more of Haru's past. Also, how a man deals with his incestuous desires is really a test of character.
Knowing Haru as I do from the VN, he’s really just as messed up by his parents' deaths as Sora is, but he feels like he needs to keep it together for Sora’s sake. In the anime they make it seem as if he enjoys Sora’s relying in him, but in the VN we see that after the funeral, Sora kinda freaked out and put everything on his shoulders. He didn’t have much of a choice, and he’s really not sure what he’s doing trying to run a household. Deep down, he wants someone else to make these decisions or at least show him what to do and he resents Sora always putting everything on him while she tales it easy. Well, we don’t get too much of that in the anime, but we do get to see him nearly lose his mind and cry big hot man-tears over Sora, which is about as good.
Sora is quiet, reclusive, haughty, and dismissive. The only person she ever listens to even sometimes is her brother Haru. She spent half her life in a hospital and Haru was the only person who visited her on a regular basis. She’s developed a strong attachment to Haru , though she normally never leaves her room. She’s gotten very used to sitting alone in her bed and surfing the internet. I lover her line when Haru tells her he’s not sure they can get internet and she says, “I cannot live without it.”
For me, Sora is the one who makes this anime. I even like her better here than in the visual novel. The little scenes where she mocks the other girls behind their backs, the little fantasies of hers we see every so often; it adds something to her character that really wasn’t in the visual novel. Honestly, in the VN I couldn’t tell if she was really in love with Haru or just insanely jealous of Nao. She actually comes off a little more mature and, well, sane in this version. Her voice, here, is also a slightly lower register and doesn’t sound so ridiculously cutesy. That helps.
Conclusion/Opinion:
Honestly, I enjoy this anime a lot more than I should. I do so by ignoring episodes 4-9 and focusing on the relationship between Haru and Sora. Other people seem to think the Kazuha, Akira, and Nao romances are worthwhile, and you might like them. Plotwise, however, they are pretty thin. The show tries to involve us by giving the girls back stories, but the conflict involved is a pale shadow compared to what’s going on between Haru and Sora in the first episode. This was not a good candidate for the omnibus romance structure.
As I said before, Haru is mostly characterized in the VN by his attempts to manage his household and deal with Sora. The anime doesn’t have time for household details because they need to make room for four different romance stories, and his romantic interests don’t really tell us much about Haru. This makes it hard to care about Haru’s relationships since we don’t really know much about him.
I think they would have done better to give this a merged structure like the Kanon and Clannad animes. We could even have kept some of the sex scenes too. All we’d have to do is say Haru is one pretty son of a gun and he needs to distract himself from his sister by involving himself in the problems of all these other girls. I mean that’s basically what they did with Nao in the final arc anyway.
What I really like here are the parts dealing with Haru and Sora’s relationship. I love this one scene in the first episode where Haru and Sora are sitting across the table from eachother and we see an imaginary scene of Haru walking over an kissing his sister. But who imagined it? I’ve seen people argue it both ways and honestly, I don’t see why both of them shouldn’t be imagining it. Its definitely on both their minds.
I love the tension which arises from seeing that Haru and Sora are clearly obsessed with eachother from the beginning but that they keep a very tight lid on it. I remember when this first came out, someone stated just how smart it was to make it clear from the beginning that there would be sex in this anime. This allows the first episode to clearly pose the question, “Are these two going to have sex?” without there necessarily being a clear answer. Though the Omnibus romance structure kinda promises Haru’s gonna have sex with everybody at some point, I think it was a smart move to put the Sora arc at the end to give time for the tension to rise. It would have been even smarter if the structure were merged but oh well.
I particularly love Haru’s decent into insanity. I’ve gone insane before and, yeah, this is pretty much what it’s like. Zegapain kinda has a similar thing but it’s a little more drawn out here. And I should let you know, this part isn’t in the VN, it just wouldn’t work. In the VN, Haru goes crazy in other ways, becoming as detached with reality as Sora is. But here, we get to see Haru’s face as he cries big man-tears, and we get to see him try to make his relationship with Nao work out. We get to see him desperately reach out for help and get rejected. That’s some powerful cinema.
Other nice bits include seeing Haru and Sora constantly texting eachother on their smart phones. That was a lot of fun to see in action. The scenery, which is based on an actual small town in the Japanese countryside, is also very different from the VN. Its not really better or worse. I like the character designs better in the VN, where the art in general has a much softer feel and uses less vivid colors so that everything looks a little faded. But the vivid colors of the anime work much better for the environment.
I also love how Kozue gets a name in this. In the VN even her dialogue box is labeled “Class Prez”. She’s not really any more important here but I like how she freaks out and gets all judgmental at the end. Everyone is way too okay with all this in the VN, but Kozue in the anime knows how to lay on the guilt and social rejection like a boss. I used to hate her in this anime. Reading the VN made me realize just how much she adds to the story. Incest without guilt really is like sausages without mustard.
Lastly, I love how Haru is voicedby the same guy who did Katsuragi Keima in TWGOK and Kamina Ayato in RahXephon. Shimono Hiro is just awesome at screaming like a madman. Plus now I can imagine this show is really about Kami-niisama playing through the VN.
I rate this as a 7 because fully half of the show is not worth rewatching. The art isn’t too remarkable and the music while appropriate can get a little cliché. The plot isn’t exactly Count of Monte Cristo genius, but is succeeds in raising the tension and bringing out some of the characters. I thoroughly however enjoy rewatching the final arc and the first few episodes. I recommend it to anyone who can put up with incest and the omnibus structure.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 20, 2015
Watch it before you read the manga.
Premise:
Guy, Daisuke transforms into Phantom thief Dark. Dark is different personality that lives in his head. Ladies man, very suave. Daiske is a nice dweeb, dreams of being like Dark. Can't stop transforming till girl likes him. In the mean time, he steals magic cursed art.
Opinion:
I liked, no loved this show before I read the manga. Daisuke is such a loser, Risa just tramples over him, and I could sympathize with that. A lot of guys can actually, despite it being about a bunch of bishounen who act ambiguously gay at times, this anime tends to appeal a
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lot to guys.
Me, I'm having a hard time recommending it. I remember loving this series. I own all the DVDs. The English voice actor commentary alone is worth it. I love the final episode where Satoshi's voice actor is commenting alongside Krad's and he tells the story of how when he was going in to do the last episode, Risa's voice actress was just getting done, and they crossed paths in the parking lot. She comes up to him and say, "Oh Greg, your character." and she is just swooning. And Greg has no idea what happens in the last episode. The English voice actors were never allowed to see their parts before they did them and everybody on the staff thought Satoshi was gay.
That's just about the only reason I keep the anime. A lot of great stories in those commentaries. The actors used to call the world in which DNAngel happens "The Land of Clueless" because none of the voice actors had any idea what was going on most of the time.
Anyway, I don't know\what to tell you. I watched this over and over again in high school, and I'm glad a friend of mine warned me not to read the manga until I finished the series, because the manga is just so much damn better it put's this thing to shame. I'm sorry. I guess I should be reviewing the manga.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 19, 2015
Episode for episode, this is probably the best anime I've ever seen.
Premise:
Girl, Rakka, wakes up, hatches from cocoon in other world. No memories of past. People around her, called Haibane, have wings and halos. She is Haibane too. She receives name Rakka based on her cocoon dream in which she was falling. Surreal kind of afterlife-ish world. Haibane have to live differently from humans. Girl struggle to adapt to life as a Haibane and reconcile it with feelings from her previous life.
Characters:
Thinking about the Characters, I feel like very few of them stick out. Inter-character relations are a big part of the story, but I'll
...
just talk about the characters that stand out.
Rakka is a very believable sort of introverted girl. She want to have friends and belong and can act happy and be helpful, but she has a hard time really trusting people with her thoughts. She has a hard time making decisions that mean anything and tends to ignore her problems. For instance, Haibane must have a job, though they can't have money. Rakka goes around to all the other Haibane to see if she likes thier work, but she never really takes any of it seriously, she's just having fun being with the others and distracting herself. Eventually she is given the job of washing gravestones as penance. And she comes to like that. She functions as a point of view character than can draw the viewer into the other world as she comes to accept her place in it.
Reki, really warmhearted motherly character or older sister-like character with a dark side. She reminds me of my older stepsister. Anyway, Reki teaches the other Haibane and treats Rakka like a daughter almost. She's not exactly all that mature and she was a real problem child growing up. Still has a big problem with authority. She also has some real issues, in many ways worse than Rakka.
The Communicator is the priest who heads the Haibane Renmei, which is kind of the Haibane religion or society. He wears a mask and a robe so we never see his body. He might not be a Haibane. Only he is allowed to communicate with outsiders who come within the walls. He coordinates trade and in return the humans pay for the Haibane's upkeep. He also acts as the moral and spiritual guide to the Haibane ensuring the preservation off their rituals and the moral growth of the Haibane themselves.
Conclusion/Opinions:
Really, there is as much to say about the society and world of Haibane Renmei as there is about its characters. I don't want to move into too much interpretation, because like a Romantic or Gothic work, a lot of the enjoyment here is in the mystery and the feelings the images and story invoke. Not everything feels like it can be explained. Most people, including myself, look at Haibane Renmei as a story about the afterlife. The creator, Yoshitoshi ABe, has outright denied that such was his intent, but he encourages everyone to come to their own conclusions.
I also don't want to spoil anything for you, a lot of the story has to do with the nature of sin and forgiveness. The Communicator has a riddle he uses called the Circle of Sin which is quite insightful. To escape the city, a Haibane must sometimes solve the Circle of Sin, but no one can find it by simply thinking, and that is what traps Reki and what causes her to resent Rakka.
There is just so much going on here, the golden rust on the tombstones, the broken clock, the tallest building in the city built at its lowest point, the supernatural nature of the walls, the identity of the Toga. There's just so much room for speculation. And the world of Haibane Renmei lets the imagination roam free, though not unguided or unfettered. Rather pretentious of me to say, but this series is largely about involving you with life within the walls and taking you into its world.
There's not really much romance, I don't know if the Haibane are allowed to have sex. Certainly, I think some of them, like Reki, might be forbidden. As far as plot, they don't really go anywhere. There are two real arcs, Rakka's story and Reki's, but they kinda flow into eachother.
The art I think is what really makes it a masterpiece and the sound. The background piece called Blight I think is the best depiction of fear and pain I've ever heard. Really heart-wrenching to remember it. The way fear plays into pain. And Yoshitoshi ABe's art is simply unrivaled. I used one of his sketches for my icon. He's noted for being one of the few artists who never uses a ruler. It gives his eyes a unique luster that you just don't see anywhere else. And his taste in costumes and in architecture and art remind me of Shadow of the Colossus. A lot of Haibane Renmei looks and feels like Shadow of the Colossus or Ico.
This is the only anime he wrote the story for and honestly, its probably his most optimistic piece. If you've ever read any of his manga or seen his other animes he worked on, ABe is usually a lot darker and more gruesome than this. But here the horror is much more fear of the unknown and sort of Gothic in nature.
There is no reason not to watch this unless you just can't take anime seriously, and even them, it's Yoshitoshi ABe, just watch it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 19, 2015
Giant robot anime where the only really bad part is the giant robots. First five episodes couldn't hook a worm. If you watch episode 6 and 7 and still don't care, then this isn't for you.
Overview:
Hard not to spoil anything, What can I tell you that isn't a lie?
I'll say the English voice actors thought they were doing an Animatrix series until episode six. You can hear the boredom in their voices go away at that point.
I'll tell you the robots and the organization wielding them are fighting a pointless war. A lot of Sogoru's struggle is to find a point and not get
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drawn in by the desire for revenge or simply to protect those he loves. I call him cyber-Buddha sometimes.
Premise:
Guy, Sogoru Kyo, is high school student. Girl appears in his apartment. Takes him to the future where giant robots fight aliens and the earth is in ruins.
But something isn't right. It's hard to tell if it's the animation style or just a thing, but weird stuff keeps popping up visually around Sogoru's school. Though neither he nor anybody else notices it. He tries to tell people about the future, but as it turns out there is a video game the girl and her organization put out which depicts the future she showed him, so people think he's just talking about the game.
Not much of what I just told you is altogether true, but you can believe it until episode six.
*SPOILER* - skip to end spoiler
Aliens are not aliens. There is no time travel. Also, no high school. Sogoru is living in a quantum computer simulation. He and everyone he knows are the digitized remnants of the human race which was wiped out by a genetically engineered plague. Guy who made the plague wanted to perfect humanity by giving them immortality in his Quantum Computers. Unfortunately, he couldn't save enough people and the computers have serious memory limitations. He moved on to trying to engineer a new human race, the Garz-Orum, and left humanity trapped in the simulations. The girl is a Cerebrent, part of an organization of rebel programs that seized control of Garz-Orum factories and weapons and are waging a war of revenge against the man who annihilated the human race and is now worshiped as a god by the Garz-Orum.
*END SPOILER*
Characters:
I usually describe these characters as stock characters taken to unusual places. Sogoru is a pretty normal jock, though he has an unusual interest in philosophy.
I remember thinking Lucien was just another brooding lancer character, and he kinda is, but he serves a special purpose here trying to tempt Sogoru to join him in his meaningless quest for revenge.
Ryoko, the childhood friend, is kind of sisterly, but she gets to go interesting places with her character that I can't tell you about. It has to do with stuff like suicide, reincarnation and brain damage. Some of that is a lie.
Really hard not to spoil anything, but the dialogue and the interactions with the characters and their relationships, are really what drives the series. The robot fights are kinda just the boring filler you wade through so you can get back to the dialogue and character arcs.
Conclusion:
I cannot believe Sunrise made this. The giant robot look kinda stupid and their fight scenes feel clumsy, slow, and soulless. I like the English version because they added in a bunch of cursing so at least it's funny to see how they changed the combat dialogue. Really, if you want to understand where they went wrong, look at the best of Gundam, 08th MS Team.
In 08th MS Team, we know the enemy and sympathize with them. The war is a battle of ideas. the future direction of the human race is at stake and no one is necessarily right. Good people defend bad causes and bad people and good causes and good people have bad people defending them. This is present for the good guys in Zegapain, but they do a very poor job of characterizing the bad guys.
You have to really dig to get something thematic out of them, and even then, they are still cartoonish. The problem is most of the enemy pilots are depicted as mindless drones, and the ones with minds aren't exactly hard thinkers who can justify their cause. Not even Naaga, the big bad can really defend his cause. Though I guess that's supposed to show how he's completely lost touch with his humanity. We could have seen a bit of his back story or something.
Here I am complaining, when in reality I really love this anime. Its hard to say why without spoilers, but I'll agree with another reviewer and say the sci-fi is its strong suite. This doesn't show up until episode 6, but I was curious about how the girl from the future could so freely manipulate time and space. That's why I stuck around. But I still put it down after episode 5 and only came back to it months later.
This series is what really got me started on things like the Philosophy of the Common Task. If you like this series I recommend reading Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 19, 2015
If you like the first episode, go read the manga.
Overview:
This is an incest comedy wherein common depoctions of little sister characters (and harem characters in general) are satirzed. The story is sympathetic towards the little sister character Nao, and the other harem stereotypes who all turn out to be pretty messed up while admitting that Shuuske, the dude, really doesn't deserve all the attention he gets, and if he is popular with girls it's probably because these girls are certifiably insane often bordering on yandere.
Premise:
Girl, Nao, is obsessed with her perverted older brother Shuuske. She dreams of getting thrown out of the house and running
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off alone together with him rejected by society for their forbidden love. Needless to say she's a bit of an ecentric.
Other girls on and off express an interest in Shuuske. Hijinks ensue.
Characters:
I love Nao. A lot of people say she's too manipulative and creepy and I've even heard some people say she doesn't deserve Shuuske (as if that were an issue), but me I say she doesn't let silly things like common decency or sense get in the way of her ideals. She's a go-getter. I've seen more cutthroat obsessive girls, but none with more Batman-like preparedness or control. Every scene she's in is golden, and as the main point of view character she's in a lot.
Other girls include a staler childhood friend of Shuuske's and a shy quite bookish girl who as it turns out all those books she reads are hardcore yaoi.
Shuuske is perverted but nice. Not all that different from most harem heroes. There's a lot of focus on the suffering his perversity brings him. Nao's interest in him is rather idiosyncratic in nature, but he can also be very sweet. I can see why certain desperate girls might like him. I think Nao sums him up in the first lines of the series.
Conclusion:
I hold this up as an example of an anime I was sure would never be made. And in all honesty I still think it was objectively a mistake to make this at the time it was made. Ever since, I have no idea what will be made an anime. I don't know what goes through producers' minds. Maybe they saw how well Oreimo did and thought the public was screaming for incest comedy. Unlikely considering the release date, but who knows?
Honestly, I like the manga, it funny, and this series follows it fairly closely. On the other hand, the art style of the manga does not hold up in animation (it was a web comic for god's sake). Also, the manga had like twenty chapters out when this aired. That covered about two and a half plot arcs. At about episode 9 or ten, the series just starts making shit up, which I guess would be fine if they had any talent for it. The manga's English translator was really worried that the manga would follow the developments of the anime for a while. We all breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out the animation studio didn't have clue and had diverged wildly from where the story was going.
In this way, its a lot like Fruits Basket in that they started making the anime before the manga was finished and they stuck really close to the manga but had to make up the ending. Unfortunately, whereas the Fruits Basket anime showed off the best of the Manga while coincidentally hiding some of the weaker point of the story, and came up with an acceptable ending, Oniichan no Koto cuts out some good parts from a manga which didn't have that much going for it to begin with and botches the ending. It still manages to maintain a lot of the humor, but it needs the manga as a crutch.
Also, I don't care what the author says, Nao's hair is red. At least the manga lets me dream.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 19, 2015
I'll go ahead and say this is my favorite series.
Overview/Opinion:
I should clarify that and say, if the Monogatari series were one series and not multiple series, they might beat out Cardcaptor Sakura, but as single series go, this one for me is the best.
Cardcaptor Sakura wins me over not because it has the highest quality story or characters, or sound or even animation. Haibane Renmei has it beat on all those counts. Except plot maybe, but stuff like Death Note has it bear there. It is the best because it is seventy episodes long and the quality stays pretty darn amazing for
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the whole seventy episodes.
Premise:
Fifth grade girl Sakura comes home one day, finds magic book in her father's basement library, opens book, magic cards fly out and hide themselves all over town. Kero, guardian of the cards, kind of a teddy bear with wings, explains to Sakura: magic cards aren't necessarily evil, but they are powerful and have a sick sense of humor which they inherited from their creator. Prophesy says they will bring about a catastrophe if ever released. Only a person born with magic powers could open the book, so Kero declared Sakura the Cardcaptor, has her take a magic oath and charges her with the duty of retrieving the cards.
Characters:
I can't go into this too much without spoilers. I will say that Sakura is not the most interesting character. Not by a long shot. I keep thinking I'm going to find her annoying every time I watch it, but she always comes off as sympathetic and very likable, though not with a particularly interesting personality. A lot like Indiana Jones or James Bond in that way.
It's characters like her best friend Tomoyo who really pick up the slack in a way. Sakura can maintain your sympathies and she has the strength of character to advance the story, do what has to be done, but characters like Tomoyo are the ones you'll end up quoting and being really interested in. A lot of new characters are introduced over the course of the seventy episode series, most of them with their own recurring side plots and secrets and sometimes very intricate back-stories.
Really understanding characters like Sakura's father takes a lot of attention to detail. Particularly in her father's case, a lot of it is in how little we actually know about him in contrast with how much we know about Sakura's dead mother. And he's not the only one this is true for. There is a lot of back story to be read out in the subtlies of what goes onin this series. A lot to be learned about for instance Clow Reed who created the cards, just by looking at how his cards act.
Art:
I don't normally say anything about a series' art because I'm seldom impressed. A series can be just fine with bad art or horrible music, just look at Crest of the Stars. They failed on both count and I still gave them a nine.
But Cardcaptor Sakura is one of those special series. Actually, this is fairly standard CLAMP animation, but standard CLAMP still beats out best of the line Sunrise stuff any day of the week. I cannot believe how well this twenty-year-old anime still holds up in the visual department.
If I had to use one word to characterize it it would be whispy. The hair the magic effects the outfit designs, the action, its all very wispy and wind themed. Rather than being angular like a lot of anime at this time or particularly round like some older anime, they seem to have found a nice middle ground by turning a lot of things sleek. Of course this means nobody has a butt, however, it really works.
Its a seventy episode anime, they take shortcuts constantly, but when the tome comes the action is always fluid and beautiful.
Conclusion:
I got into Cardcaptors, the bastardized American version, when I was in elementary school and bought my first DVD of Cardcaptor Sakura when I was something like twelve years old. I have to say, it changed my idea of how fantasy could operate in a story.
More than ten years later, the animation, story, characters, even the music hold up miraculously well. I start watching it again terrified that it won't be as good, and then I can't put it down. It still has the power to suck me in. And not just me, anyone who passes by while I'm watching it gets sucked onto the sofa for at least five episodes.
I showed this to a friend of mine in middle school and he got addicted right away. We would watch new episodes together over the phone by synching our computers. I remember I mentioned this series to a girl I liked once and she immediately grabbed me by the arms, looked me in the eyes and said "You know That Sakura and [guy she likes] spend the rest of their lives together and live happily ever after, right? Right?" And then she begged me to lend her the second movie. She hadn't seen it, she had no idea who ends up together.
If you can't stand stories about little girls who have crushes on pretty boys, then you'll have a hard time. But if you're cool with that, sit down on the sofa buddy, and get ready to be there for a while. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 19, 2015
This one is hard. Definitely a guilty pleasure.
Overview:
I came to this after reading the light novels it was based on. I won't say I loved the novels, I sometimes had to skip over the parts with Anna in them, but I admired their depictions of Akito as a very sound minded kind of guy. He's stuck in a very moe situation, I won't say harem, but very close to it, and unlike most harem heroes, he keeps his head about him. Very little really freaks this guy out. Three girls including his sister are coming onto him hard and he stays relatively cool and can
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even be very charming and insightful. A lot of times his dialogue, just his ability to keep calm and say the right things to break up the moe and keep it real honestly impressed me at times.
It went so far I had to believe I was misreading the novels. After all it was a translation and it was just writing. Maybe the author intended that Akito was really screaming these lines. Could he really be this cool? I seriously doubted it. And I want to thank this anime, because without it, I would never have been sure just how cool the character of Akito could be. As it turns out, he was everything I dreamed he was and more. I love this character and his depiction in the anime, I have to say pretty much borders on perfect.
Now is when I should probably bring up that the disgust generated by this anime caused the people who were working tirelessly translating the light novels to drop them completely.
The main problem I think is that the studio was looking for a harem anime to capitalize on Oreimo's success and well, the novels just weren't quite moe enough. I can't help going into some detail on the changes they made, I'm sorry. If you want the short version, they messed it up both in big ways - really freaking huge ways - and in small subtle ways as well.
Premise:
The story starts just after Akito has spirited his twin sister Akiko away in the night from the estate of her adopted parents to the run down old fashioned shack of a house he rented because he's a freaking hero and he can't help it. Only in this version he just kind off bought what looks like a mansion and waited there for her to come to him after shipping most of her stuff.
Okay no more details. It's been seven years since Akito and Akiko were adopted and split up by rival families because their parents died and these rivals saw an opportunity to eliminate the opposition. Akito at that time swore to Akiko that one day they would be reunited. They would live under the same roof again, retake their family name, and no one would ever force them apart again. And seven year's later he's finally done it.
Only Akiko, reflecting for seven years on the words he spoke to her has come to believe that the two of them were desperately in love with eachother as children and his oath was a declaration of love and his intent to effectively marry his sister. And now the time has come and she is all for it. Akito's feelings can be summed up in his line, "I love you more than anyone else in the world - as a sister."
Now the anime jumps I don't know how many months ahead and has very little else to do with the novels from now on. Akito, Akiko and three other girls now all live together in this mansion as the four girls compete for Akito's affection. It has turned ito a full on harem fanservice anime and you only really have to watch the opening to get the picture.
Characters:
I'm not going to explain all the characters for you, Ana and Arashi are mostly the same as they were in the book (that is to say, fanservice characters) only a whole hell of a lot less subtle about it. The anime also completely omits the family politics thing that kinda gave Ana and Asrashi a good reason to be here, so pretty much just fanservice.
Akiko is fairly well depicted though they cut a lot of her best dialogue short. Akito is beautifully depicted, though he narrated the novels so of course a lot of his best stuff had to be cut out. But they actually added in a bunch of great dialogue for him so I won't complain
It's Ginbei that really gets my goat. In the novels, I loved Ginbei, especially her downright eloquent phone conversations with Akito. And in the anime we skip over all those phone conversations and she's a Tsundere. You will notice, Ginbei is not mentioned among the characters and voice actors above, and that is right. For me, there is no Ginbei in most of this series.
Conclusion:
Still, I have to say, there are a lot of good bits to this anime. The first episode, the beginning of the second episode. The flashback episode (Akito was already a goddamn hero when he was just ten years old). There a little snippet when Akito is sick that's definitely worth watching. It's just great to see some of these scenes depicted on screen. They do take certain scenes from the novels and throw them around here and there without screwing up the dialogue too much and those scenes are genuinely pretty good. Even some of the added scenes, like Psudo-Ginbei's moe shtick with the kitten, are pretty darn decent. This is one of those animes which are honestly painful for me to watch from beginning to end, but now that I've finished watching it, I go back to it all the time just to watch an episode or a scene that I just can't get out of my head.
I don't know if I can recommend it. I give it a four because I think maybe four tenths of the series are worth watching and re-watching. iIf you're not cool with incest, there isn't any but you'll probably want to skip this anyway. If you like incest romances at all, go read the novels, or at least the volumes that were translated and if you like those, go ahead and watch the series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Feb 19, 2015
*spoilers*
The premise sounds... promising. Genetically engineered girls go into deserted Tokyo to inspect the destruction wrought by a reactor that apparently ran on nerve gas, weapons grade plutonium, and the t-virus. Okay a little topical, but there's a lot of focus on the characters and how they feel about being engineered - oh what why can she tame that wolf so fast. Because she has a good sense of smell? Okay... you know what I'll go with it. Why why is that one crying and screaming. Well, I guess the scene was a little emotional, maybe I just didn't notice - Wait, wait a stealth
...
bomber? A B2 stealth bomber... owned by a corporation... secretly flying toxic waste... into nerve gas Tokyo... so they can dump it in a lake. Tell me, when they were at 20,00ft, did they happen to notice the ocean, because most corporations do. So, now we have a bazooka, and we're chasing a B-2 stealth bomber around in a jeep, though nerve gas Tokyo. And these girls FEEL SO MUCH!!! THEY CANT STOP FEELING! WHY WERE WE MADE!?! WHY!?!
I think this was the only time I kept watching an anime simply because I thought it couldn't be as bad as it seemed. It was worse. The girls are so damn emotional, there's one of them I like just because she doesn't freak out quite so much. I think she freaked out once because she sympathized with this couple who I think abandoned their kid or something and she wanted everyone to know how much she FELT FOR THEM!!! Really, you may not believe the all caps are appropriate, and they''re not, because no writing can express how much she FEELS FOR YOU!!! The emotions are TOO MUCH!!! I mean there's a lot of stuff here to get upset about and to be scared of and their very existence I'm sure can be a source of anxiety but wow can they over do it. I cannot believe how much they can over do it.
And then there was the part where we case a B-2 stealth bomber, trying to shoot it down with a bazooka one of the girls apparently had, and we are trying to kill these people on a plane because they had the nerve to dump toxic waste in a lake in an irradiated nerve gas zone. Guys if you're gonna feel so much how about feeling that its wrong to kill people just for improper disposal of industrial waste? And no I mean they are having a party hunting these people down and shooting them out of the sky over Tokyo. And everyone's behind them on this. And it doesn't get better after that. It really doesn't.
Read more at http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=445&show=6640#tQ2VCXzXK3dZTyJy.99
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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