Autos
Baby
Beauty
Books
Computers
Education
Electronics
Health
Home & Garden
Local Places
Movies
Pets
Travel
Web Sites
more…
Baby
Beauty
Books
Computers
Education
Electronics
Health
Home & Garden
Local Places
Movies
Pets
Travel
Web Sites
more…
Eh, It's Cute But Slow
Sucker For Cute Girls, Anime Geek, Movie guru, Romance Sap
| Pros |
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| Cons |
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MAY
5
2007
Intro
A sweet coming of age tale that doesn’t quite sell itself with this first volume.
The Story
In this sweet coming of age love story, we meet Akari and her best friend Hiroyuki right away. The two met back in grade school when he helped her out after she tripped and dropped her text books into a puddle, completely running them. Now they’re in high school together and are still best friends moving into adulthood but with the start of a brand new semester Akari is finding that she has deeper feelings for Hiroyuki and has no idea how to express them to him.
In the second episode, Akari, Hiroyuki and their friends Shiho and Masashi all score tickets to a concert to see ‘Childish An Hour’. A misunderstanding though leads to some tension which then leads to Shiho thinking about Hiroyuki in a new way.
The third episode of the volume introduces us to the quiet leader (and only member of) the school’s occult club, Serika Kurusugawa, who happens to be the granddaughter of a very rich and important corporation. Hiroyuki meets her in the court yard and helps her find a lizard’s tail for her black magic potion. This seems to earn Hiroyuki a soft spot in her heart which seems to bring the grand total number of girls interested in him up to three.
The final episode of the volume introduces us to Aoi Matsubara who is all about the mixed martial arts fighting tournaments. She desperately wants to enter the extreme tournament as well as start a mixed martial arts club at the school but is getting absolutely zero attention from anyone for it. Once she hears that Hiroyuki has at least a little interest in martial arts, she ropes him into watching her practice and even trying a little bit of it himself.
Aoi has a rival though in the form of a girl named Yoshie who is a member of the Karate club who sees Extreme rules fights as silly and has no interest in seeing a mixed martial arts club formed at the school. Aoi also has an idol in the form of Ayaka, the younger sister of Serika (the occult student from episode 3), who also fights Extreme rules. A grudge match is set up between Aoi and Youshie. Naturally Hiroyuki offers to help with training and by the end of the episode; the grand total of women interested in him is up to four.
The Good And The Bad
With this opening volume we are treated to the first four episodes of this series and I can’t help but think about all the things that I think could’ve been better instead of all of the things that I enjoyed. There were quite a few things that I did enjoy though which is what is most important.
The characters in this anime really won me over right away. Akari is a very sweet and cute girl and her love interest Hiroyuki is really presented as a genuinely nice guy even if he’s a little passive. The supporting characters are also starting to grow on me. Shiho is a little annoying but she means well plus it’s obvious she’s going to play a huge role in not only future episodes but also the end of this series.
What bothered me about the characters however was that with so many being introduced over the course of four episodes, there was so little time for any of them to be developed. With only 13 episodes in this series I really wanted to see faster development of the plot and characters but this first volume did little more than just introduce characters and what kind of roles they are going to play within the upcoming episodes. With so little plot development though, it’s hard to imagine that many casual viewers will be hooked in enough to see the second and third volumes.
Originally airing in 1999, the animation in this series still looks good with little signs of aging. The big issue that I had with the animation is that the colored looked very dull on my screen and nothing really stood out. If there was ever a series that could truly benefit from a re-mastering of the animation to create sharper and more vibrant colors, I think that this might be one of them.
The writing in this series also seemed very simple. The character conflicts were cute and fun though which played a big part in many scenes of this volume but most especially between Hiroyuki and Shiho.
Music
Most of the background music is good and comes through cleanly but I think that a couple of choices were a little odd. The biggest question mark came during episode four when Aoi is training and a soft classical tune is played that certainly made me think of spring time but it never made me think about training for an extreme rules fight. Definitely a very odd choice.
The sound quality in this volume was good though. Despite this being a series eight years old, it transferred over cleanly and I didn’t notice any drops in sound or distortion.
Dub vs. Sub
Putting translated credits after the original Japanese credits on each episode eats up a bit of time. I really would’ve preferred to have the English credits just put on the original closing animation but it’s such a small complaint that it’s hardly worth thinking about.
I noticed one little decision in the translating process that kind of confused me. It’s understandable but still a little confusing. At various points throughout the anime, a character will be speaking to another character and refer them only as ‘sempai’ (which is the honorific for someone who is older than you or in a higher grade, position, etc) but in the subtitles they just translate it as the character is using that person’s name. I have seen other animes just keep the sempai in the script, even in the dub script, and leave it at that so I thought it was interesting that this production team chose to translate it into a name. Perhaps it would’ve been better to leave it as ‘sempai’ and then add a note in the translator’s notes extra.
I was instantly in love with the performance from Angora Deb as Akari and Rich McNanna as Hiroyuki really won me over as well. I’m still having trouble adjusting to Zoe Fries as Shiho though.
Extras
There only a few extras on this volume which is disappointing. For your viewing pleasure there are some character bios where were fun to read since they provided some good insights into the characters without giving away any spoilers which is always a plus in my book.
The other interesting extra were the translator’s notes which gives some insight to some the cultural and anime cross references that pop up in this anime. I always love reading the notes from the translator so that I can get a feel for what they were thinking when they were translating lines in this case though I was a little saddened to see so few notes. Only a couple of the notes were particularly helpful and the rest were things that anime veterans would already know. I’m not holding this against them though and I’m not going to take any points away from them because all of them will be helpful to people who are new to anime or don’t know a lot about Japan.
Finally there is a line art gallery for those who are interested in seeing some of the artwork.
Overall
Overall I was pleased with this release but I still saw so many things that I wish had been done better. This is an anime that has had a huge fan following for years, long before it was ever licensed for release in the states and so you have to assume that it’s going to get better from here and we’re going to see some kind of resolution. Course, I also know that this series was renewed for a sequel series and an OVA after this first season and so that’s certainly another contributing factor to the idea that this anime is only going to get better.
Had I not known any of that before though, I can’t guarantee that I would be sold on this anime from just this volume alone. Still, from what I’ve seen from the characters there is serious potential here for a sweet love story and I’m going to be interested in seeing how it plays out. Recommended.
Final Grade: 81% - B
To Heart Vol. 1: New Feelings is recommended by scorpioeyez
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