novella.gislason - 2013-12-14 07:23:52

For some reason all the romance in this manga got taken out of the anime, so if you're here because you got recommend to the title for a good romance story...go read the manga, and stay away from the anime for heaven's sake. Now the anime is a good way to skip the first 28 chapters of the manga if you so wish, however it is said that the show was toned down on the dark parts to make it more appealing to children. I have yet to read the first 28 chapters, so I'm not sure how much of that is true.

I did watch this before reading it and I wouldn't have read it if I had not fallen in love with the show first, so it does do something right. It's until you find out how much is sucks compared to the manga do you start losing appreciation for the anime.

Story-Mikan and Hotaru were best friends until Hotaru suddenly leaves without warming to go to a boarding school somewhere in Tokyo. After never hearing from her for six months even though she promised, Mikan runs away to go visit her and discovers the school and the people in it are very special, as well as herself. The anime follows the first 28 chapters of the manga almost to a fault. This manga has like 180 chapters so the first 28 is nothing but the intro to the characters, the setting, the world and the conflicts. The story ends with basically nothing being resolved, which is why I went and read the manga. It was recommended as a romance show, so when I got ripped off it helped motivate me to read the manga despite the crappy show. Don't get me wrong, it does start to become a romance show. You can see crushes being developed and a little rivalry going down, so on and so forth, but it never truly turns to romance until like 20 chapters later in the manga.

Animation- Meh. That's the best word for it. There's nothing that stands out, and the colors are kind of dull. Setting the meter at about below average. The thing I hated the most was character design. The only person they did justice was Tsubasa because he looks way better in the anime than the manga. Everyone else looked like shit. They were drawn perfectly in the manga, so whoever went out of their way to redesign them needs to never do another show again because its bad.

Sound- The opening is very childish, I can't recall a single bit of background music by myself and there really wasn't much it could do for the show anyway since the mood was mostly never changing unless there was actual danger. I've yet to watch the dub, but I'm doubting it's any good. Sub sounded fine so I would just watch that unless you like dubs.

Character- Mikan is an oblivious child, Hotaru is a robot that can make robots (she can be caring sometimes), Natsume will seem like the biggest brat unless you read the manga and find out more about him, Ruka is the only slightly normal person, Tsubasa is probably my favorite, and Narumi just creeps me out. There is no character development to be herd of in the anime, like I've been saying this whole time, it's all in the manga.

Enjoyment- I liked this show enough to go out and read the manga. I only think it's crap now because of what the whole story has to offer. I say watch it, but don't force yourself, because it's not worth it if you don't feel like it. My overall recommendation is to go read the manga and skip the show all together. If you're looking for something to watch for the hell of it they go for it, I'm not stopping you.