Ah… Ever reminisced about those lovely summer days you spent
with your friends? Maybe you made a shoddy amateur film... Maybe you went to the
beach… Maybe you encountered a humanoid alien…
What? You’ve never encountered an alien during summer break?
Jeez, you’re missing out, because the kids in this series did! And man, was it
quite engaging.
I honestly don’t think friends would sit like this unless they were
filming an opening sequence to a series… Oh, wait! Oh, yeah, there are *SPOILERS*.
Animation/Art:
9/10
The art is very appealing and contemporary, and looks
especially good when your iPod decides to stream high-quality video instead of
obviously compressed video. Anyway, I felt that everything about the character
designs were memorable, from the wavy-haired, bespectacled Kaito to the tiny,
genre-savvy upper-classman, Lemon/Remon. Each of the six individual characters
were designed with so many discrepancies that it is difficult to really mix
them up, even if you do forget their names.
Although rain can be dreary, something about this seems
more relaxing than depressing.
The backgrounds were breathtaking. Every colour was vivid
and bright, and the settings looked very realistic, as well as fantastical.
This series takes place in Kitakami,
Iwate, and from the looks of things, it is absolutely gorgeous. Weather also
plays a major role in this series’ aesthetic, and when it rained, it POURED (I’m looking at you, Morton), and
being an Arizonan, it was absolutely wonderful. There didn’t seem to be as many
computer-generated lights in this series like in Tari Tari, but the colours used to simulate lighting were perfect.
The show was just a visual pleasure, and another thing to note is the
exaggerated colour used for imagine spots, which separated the more natural
colours of the series from the hyper-realistic colours of the imaginations of
the characters.
They even simulated real
Super-8 film! It’s pretty cool.
I personally think that, the
newer and more high-definition a series looks, the better the animation, but
this isn’t necessarily always true. In this series' case, however, it is very true, and
one can see the difference when (and if) the definition fluctuates between high
and low while watching on an iPod.
There wasn’t a
moment when the animation seemed unintentionally choppy, and more often than
not, I was amazed at how fluid and gorgeous everything looked. The characters
were full of life, as well as the backgrounds, which might sound weird, but
when you think about it, a good background can make something look that much
better than a bad one.
Characters: 8/10
There were six
characters the series focused on, with Kaito and Ichika (Senpai) being the
primary focuses, as their romance was what the series was basically about.
Kaito Kirishima –
If you’re an attractive female alien, watch out for his camera.
Kaito Kirishima – Obviously, he’s got a thing for filming.
In fact, he inherited it from his grandfather from another series that came before this. That’s some pretty cool continuation, if you ask me (but I’m such a
picky anime person that I don’t know if I’d actually watch Onegai Teacher or Onegai
Twins). He and his friends are thinking about filming a movie over their
summer break.
Kaito is a pleasant
young guy whose parents died a while back, so his sister takes care of him. But
this doesn’t get in the way of him having friends, or even finding the love of
his teenage years (I don’t know about his life, but whatever—it’s anime).
Not much can really
be said about this character except that he’s the kind of protagonist most
viewers would possibly see themselves as (except for the whole “dead parents”
situation).
Although I generally
dislike characters such as these (because they are so common in crappy slice-of-the-life), there was this realistic substance he had as
a character that really made him a likeable character for me. He’s into film,
too, which is kind of cool to see, because anime protagonists don’t tend to be
involved in one particular subject from what I’ve seen.
Kaito is a part of
the craziest love polygon I’ve seen so far that actually works in an
understandable way, because he’s in love with Ichika and is loved by Kaori, who
is admired by Tetsuro who is admired by Mio. Teenagers.
Ichika Takatsuki –
It’s easier to just call her “Senpai.”
Ichika Takatsuki – “Senpai” is Kaito’s designated romantic
interest in this series, and is also a Martian Girl from Planet V (Aquabats,
anyone?). She accidentally kind of kills Kaito in the first episode, but heals
him and eventually ends up living with him over the summer. She is the main
character in the movie Kaito and his friends are filming, and ends up as
Kaito’s girlfriend in the end.
Ichika honestly did
not appeal much to me in the beginning of the series because of her height
compared to Kaito, as well as her informed beauty (I really didn’t think she was as beautiful
as everyone made her out to be), but in time, I found to think of her as a very
appropriate and sweet match for Kaito. She’s a loving and caring individual who
makes friends with all of Kaito’s friends, and actually reveals to them that
she is an alien, which really doesn’t surprise any of them.
She’s got this weird
alien machine creature thing (Rinon) that I think is her guidance system for
her broken spaceship. Don’t quote me on that. Also, Rinon as a weird/cute creature thing is something you’d
expect out of an anime, but it’s not nearly as obnoxious as a few others
because it doesn’t talk. It does, however, say “NAAAAWWW” all the time. I
ignored it.
This is what Rinon looks like.
Anyway, Kaito and
Ichika’s romance is interesting to watch unfold, surprisingly, and I was very
happy when they finally got together in the end. I also thought it was cute to
see her come back after her planet’s search team brought her back practically
against her will. Good stuff. Good spoilers.
Kaori Kinoshita – You can forget her name, but you'll remember her character—that’s the kind of person she
is.
Kaori Kinoshita – When a girl reminds me of Eponine from Les Misérables, I think I automatically
find her to be endearing, especially when she’s mostly well done, like in this series.
So Kaori is “in
love” with Kaito because, on the first day she saw him—when he first
transferred to her school—she noticed that, despite him only recently losing
his parents, he showed that he was strong by smiling as best as he could. She
loves him so much, but is devastated over the fact that she can never have him,
hence my connection of her and Eponine.
Now, the biggest
difference between Kaori and Eponine is that Kaori doesn’t die. In fact, nobody
dies in this series. Another big difference is that Kaori is kind of angsty quite
often, and I found her to be annoying the second time she reluctantly lectured
Ichika about showing her true feelings to Kaito.
Other than that,
though, she’s been childhood friends with Tetsuro, who is later revealed to
actually be in love with her. God, teenagers.
Tetsuro Ishigaki –
Older than he looks, but still believably a teenager.
Tetsuro Ishigaki – This guy seems like a really cool and
close friend of Kaito’s. He even goes out of his way to incite Ichika and
Kaito’s blooming romance. This may seem like a jerk move to Kaori, who likes
Kaito, but we later learn that he does this so that Kaori is available.
This guy is a very
interesting individual, because he is kind, yet teasing to the girls. He seems
to have a thing for Mio at first, but later on it is obvious that he is in love with Kaori. He
also comes off as a ladies’ man, but has trouble with girls he isn’t
comfortable with.
It was bittersweet
to see that he liked Kaori instead of Mio, because I liked Mio, too, but he
doesn’t seem to really make up his mind and asks Mio out to the movies in a
high-speed chase between him and an alien ship. Whether or not he was being
serious, trying to take her mind off of the crazy matter at hand, or a
combination of both is ambiguous, but it doesn’t make him any less interesting.
Mio Kitahara – A
regular Mikuru Asahina... But with a twist…
Mio Kitahara – Your standard moé character is actually a
nudist.
Or, at least she is
at home.
She was apparently
raised as a nudist, but she learned it wasn’t exactly socially acceptable, so
she’s been trying to hide it. It’s kind of tragic, actually, when we learn
about this, and she ends up confessing to Tetsuro that she likes him after he
says that even if she told her friends about this problem, they wouldn’t mind,
and they’d help her through it.
She’s very “cute”
and proper despite this lifestyle she was brought into, and all she wants is
for Tetsuro to like her back. She never really gets the best resolution,
because what happens beyond the finale of the series is not shown. I do wish
the best for her, but I don’t think I’ll ever know, unless a new series is
released and addresses this matter (but by then, it’ll probably be irrelevant in more ways than one).
Lemon/Remon Yamano –
Call her what you will, but anything she says to the others in this series kind
of puts a sour taste in their mouths. It's punny.
Lemon/Remon
Yamano – A troll is a troll,
no matter what you say. This girl is definitely one, and she is so genre savvy
that she knows pretty much everything about all of the other characters, plus
she expects what will happen to them as the series progresses—we see what she
knows in the screenplay she has written for the group’s film. Her name was subtitled as "Remon," too, but I think "Lemon" is more appropriate for her actions.
She also makes them
all drink some alcoholic beverage called “Dynamite Drink,” resulting in an
embarrassing photograph:
‘Course she’s drunk. What does
she look like, a high school student? HA HA HA HA
Lemon/Remon remains
mysterious throughout the entire series, but eventually turns out to be the
leader of the Men in Black, somehow. This is cool beyond belief, and I
appreciate the strangeness of this character all the more because of this
revelation.
Good work, you
beautiful people in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Music: 8.5/10
I really liked the
music for this series, so much so that I found it online and listened to it
repeatedly. There is a lot of emotion in the background music, and all of it is
appropriately placed throughout the scenes that take place in the series.
I even found the
opening and ending songs to be really nice, although not exactly memorable.
I’ve Sound (not a typo; that's the group's real name) and Iuchi
Maiko have made their way into my brain as anime composers to remember! Check
out the soundtrack on YouTube, or something, if you like, because it’s pretty
good!
Why am I showing you this
picture? Because Men in Black. Duh.
Story/Execution: 8/10
There have only been
a few serious romantic series I’ve watched in my day, but I’ve got to say that
this one was very well done. It explored the real-life idea of falling in love
with someone who has been your best friend for a long time, as well as the idea
of somebody new who gets in the way of you trying to win over your crush.
Watching this
reminded me of E.T. a lot (even if I
haven’t seen it since I was, like, three), and obviously, friendship was a huge
part of this series, besides the romance. My favourite part was when Ichika
revealed to all of her friends that she was an alien, but all of them accepted
her as their friend, anyway. That’s some real friendship, there.
This is bad news.
The love polygon in
this series was pretty entertaining, as well, because the characters were all
likeable, they got into all kinds of interesting situations, and they all
remained good friends to the end. The drama between all of them was pretty
realistic, as far as I could tell (save for the fact that Ichika’s an alien),
and all in all, I just really like this series.
Such a cinematic scene.
Of course, it had
its humour, but I feel like this was more of a romantic series at its core. I
do wish there was more of a resolution for Tetsuro, Mio, and Kaori’s romantic
pursuits, and I think this is what gives this series some fault. But despite
this, I liked it a lot.
Overall: 8.5/10
I feel like I don’t
exactly know what to say about this series except that I liked it a lot. It’s
not necessarily bad that I don’t know what to say, but I can’t say that this
series is the best in the world. It’s definitely one of the best ones I’ve
reviewed, so far, up there with Usagi
Drop in terms of my caring potential for anime characters, so that’s good.
Anyway, let everyone
you know in on my little review website! I’ve got some films to review, and I
hope I get them out soon, because I promised to have a review for Dr. Strangelove a while ago, and I saw
it last week…
Anyway, thanks for
reading, and spread the word!
Goodnight.
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