prohaska.emmalee - 2014-02-25 01:22:01

What can I say about Futakoi? Many reviews of this anime are typically centered around people praising it. I, however, am not here to do so. If you are someone who is either new to anime and is looking for something to get yourself started or really have no “standards” when it comes to your enjoyment then please don’t let me deter you from this. For a beginner, this is probably perfect. It has everything you could need: characters,
music, and of course DRAMA…now that being said I would like to speak to the more…er… veterans of anime.

If you have any standards what-so-ever for anime then I would advise you to stay away from this one. I am one of those people that feel as though all a good anime needs to hold itself together is somewhat decent animation, good soundtrack/audio quality, and characters that don’t have the personality of a wet noodle. Anime has to have some form of soul that drives it, something people seem to have forgotten to tell the creators of
Futakoi. If you have those three characteristics acting in conjunction then you can generally get away with outlandish ideas or settings.

First, I would like to cover the animation of this show. It’s pretty bad. Plain and simple. Now I won’t be too hyper critical about the animation style simply because this is from the early 2000s (2004) era of anime and that was kind of a weird time for animation. It was almost as if the animators were wanting to branch out with new ideas but at the same time were scared of trying anything new so they kept with the older style of
pointier jaw lines, darker color values, and eyes that either look dead or have weird unnatural catch-lights (look up anime from then and you will see what I mean).

Moving on, the sound in this show. My. God. I understand that these characters are in their last year of middle school, but come on. Have a little variety. Almost EVERY.SINGLE.CHARACTER. has a high pitched pre-pubescent voice that makes your ears want to void themselves of blood. The only character(s) that don’t have a completely terribly high voice is the sister of the weak-bodied artistic twin and the main character’s old rocket
loving friend from kindergarten. Both of which are pretty minor apart from the DRAMA that the childhood friend brings (SPOILER ALERT: he likes one of the childhood twins -gasp-!). Apart from the dodgy voices what really caps off what is wrong with voice acting is when you can tell that they are in a
sound booth that.isn’t.sealed.properly. At times, you can hear the distinct feedback of the audio bouncing off of the walls and hitting the mic. Now, am I being picky there? Yeah, I am only because I have had to work with editing audio before and when it comes to an anime, voice means everything. EVERYTHING. Since it’s not a live performance the only way to convey any emotion is through voice and clarity and when you do a half-assed job of audio, well then, you kind of screw it up. While I am on an audio rant let me cover the soundtrack of this. What even. The music sounds really generic and doesn’t stand out at all. What makes matters worse there is some strange angelic hymn that enjoys playing every time a new pair of twins is introduced which isn’t often, but at the same time is. There is literally SIX PAIRS of twins. SIX. so out of 12 episodes you hear that chime/hymn SIX times.

Okay, finally I will talk characters. UGH. It is REALLY bad when you can guess a characters’ personality from simply looking at a picture of them. Even worse is when you are stuck with said character(s) FOR THE ENTIRE SHOW. I didn’t find a single character I truly liked in this anime. All of them seem flat and boring. The main character comes off as an indecisive prick who seems to lack the common decency to convey any intelligent thought. During the DRAMA of the show the creators make him seem like the good guy and that his childhood friend is in the wrong leading to the main character saying to himself “I can’t lose!” LOSE WHAT! ONE of the sisters of the FOUR pairs that are legally in your range to date. Not to mention SPOILER:
the childhood friend gets shafted anyway because NONE, I repeat, NONE of these characters seem to understand what emotion is. At one point the childhood pair of twins get in a fight with each other over how they feel about the main character which lasts all of 2 minutes and ends with them
suddenly rooting for each other. Excuse me? Realistically, these two would have been staring daggers into each other for days, but no, everyone has to be “happy” in this anime. happy,happy,happy…

Oh, and to throw this out there, if you are looking for an anime that has any form of commitment relationship wise. STAY. AWAY. SPOILER: in the last episode it literally goes from the rich twins about to be transferred (oh noze) to everyone partying after passing the high school entrance exams.
wut. Yeah. remember HAPPY.

PS The phrase “that’s so nostalgic!” or any deviation now makes me want to kill myself because of this anime. Seriously. They use it at the most awkward times. “Hey look it’s the old department store we used to eat ice cream at! That feels so nostalgic!” Seriously, the writing is cringe worthy.

NOW all that being said this is an older anime so I SUPPOSE I can’t be too mean (but I will be) about this anime aaaaannnnddd I am currently on a quest to watch bad animes at the time of this review buuuutt that doesn’t change the fact that…you know what…. no I’m done here. Anymore thinking about this will only damage me more.