As I mentioned in the last review, the characters are very well-defined. I already feel attached to most of them, and even without the plot twist, their everyday “adventures” are interesting enough to keep me engaged.
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Romance and Fantasy are tricky genres to craft a story into. It takes a lot of finesse to overcome tropes and bring a well-balanced story to the table. I believe Kamegaki is on the right track with The World is Still Beautiful. The characters are engaging and interesting, especially Princess Nike and King Livius.
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La Corda d’Oro: Blue Sky follows the Seisou Academy ensemble’s participation in Japan’s national ensemble competition. After receiving a mysterious letter at one of her violin performances that reads, “Is this where you meet your limit?” Kanade and her friend Kyoya are pulled into joining Seisou Academy and its ensemble by their childhood friend Ritsu. They, of course, encounter many fierce competitors on their journey—many of whom they befriend—but one in particular, Myoga Reigi, possesses a passionate hatred for Kanade. This merely adds to her troubles, for she and Ritsu are struggling to make their own sounds blossom. They cannot help but think that they should have been more prepared than this before the competition.
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Love Stage!! introduces the audience to Izumi Sena, a college student who dreams of becoming a manga artist in a family where entertainment is the career path of choice. Despite all of the opportunities and offers for help Izumi has received, he declines them all because his heart lay in pursuit of manga; he even joined the Manga Club at school to better his drawing.
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I noted in my last review that the personality of the main characters has not been expanded upon much yet, but it is clear to me now that this is so because the characters are holding back so much of themselves. Futaba is only beginning to come out of her shell, and Kou has a lot of barriers put up.
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Not an awful lot has been revealed plot-wise thus far, but this is not a bad thing in this case. So far, the main character, Toko, goes to watch fireworks with her friends during the summer break of their senior year at high school.
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Having watched more episodes, thus far, I am nopersona postert surprised to find that Persona 4 Golden has been made in the image of a slice-of-life comedy. The audience is expected to know who the characters are already, and nearly all the jokes refer back to events in both the original anime and game.
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You would assume, from its title and watching the first minute of the show, that Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun would be a something along the lines of your stereotypical shoujo romance anime. And you’d be right, in a sense. Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun does kicks off with our high school girl protagonist, Chiyo Sakura, confessing her feelings for the titular schoolmate Umetaro Nozaki in the typical, blushy-blushy, “oh, I’m so nervous I hope he likes me back” way, but that’s about where the shoujo-ness of this series ends. Once Umetaro gives his response to Chiyo’s confession, you’ll know instantly that Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun isn’t going to be at all anything involving shoujo bubbles and sparkles (unironically, anyway).
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If someone had told me ten years ago that an niche genre video game series combining dating sim and dungeon crawl mechanics would emerge as one of the most-hyped Japanese role-playing game series since Final Fantasy, I would have thought said person was under the influence of some mind-altering substance (alternately I would have begged said person to join my scarcely-attended university anime club that I reigned over, but that’s another story).
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I swear, this series is a serious roller coaster. I’ve gone from confusion to utter boredom to annoyance to mild interest twice now in full cycles. I won’t say things are spectacular, but the series is waaaaaay better than it was at the end of episode ten. Why, you ask? Well, we’ve finally advanced to the beginning of the Nine Schools Competition after three episodes of painfully boring filler. With the start of the competition, drama unfolds.
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