langworth.nya - 2014-04-03 18:30:10

Story: At a Shinto shrine in Shimoda, there is a large rock. It is said that if four close friends gather around the rock and all wish for the same thing, that wish will come true. As four friends, Natsumi, Saki, Yuka and Rinko, gather around the rock like they used to in their childhood, they soon find the rock can indeed grant people's wishes. With only a short amount of time before Saki is due to transfer schools, the girls spend a summer filled with magic (Source: Wikipedia)

Pros: The main characters are all very memorable and have plenty of personality as well as go through loads of development together. This anime is very deep and thought provoking as the girls all try their best to make their summers last, which is kind of rare for these types of anime and I really like that idea of mixing in supernatural elements without forcefully/dumbly shoving it into the limelight in every episode. Some of the magic that happens in the show may have been done before, but its got some creative twists that really make them all the more amusing, especially the last few episodes. Art and animation is really pretty to look at.

The voice work is really well done, you can tell that the VAs really put their all into this one. Also, the show has the best OP I've ever heard in any anime, it's so great and powerful that'll stick into your head for days, weeks, or even months it is that awesome. The ED is great to listen too.

Cons: First few episodes aren't all that great with the characters acting cold to one another (now granted there is a reason they are acting this way but that doesn't make it any fun to watch thought) but it gets better as the show progressed and at least they didn't have them make up at the very end of the show, that would really suck. I did not like the ending that much, its not a bad one per se, but with the set up I just felt it could have been stronger to some degree (minor complaint). The side characters while good, didn't really add much to the story or were that compelling especially when compared to the main ones. The idea of the rock having multiple cousins in the world with the same powers is also kind of stupid :P

Overall: This truly is a work of art and is one of the best animes out there. I wish it had more love though as this is wonderful to watch whether or not you like supernatural and slice of life mixed in.

Thanks for reading my 34th review~

alva.renner - 2013-08-27 20:40:40

As always my reviews are spoiler free.

MAL-era import review; please excuse my lack of experience.

Stop me if you've seen this one before: four high/middle school girls are just going about their lives. There are no sinister plots or world-saving hero required. The viewer is asked to sit back and enjoy as nothing of particular note goes on. There is always some theme that sort of keeps the anime moving along, whether it be music, photography, gondola rowing, or in Natsuiro Kiseki's case, a miracle granting rock. It's a slightly different take on a familiar idea. It had a lot of potential, but did it live up to expectations?

Story - 6/10

Four middle school girls come together at a boulder near a shrine. When it is touched, it is able to grant wishes. With Saki, one of the four girls moving away at the end of the summer, they use the rock to make the best of the time they have left together.

I really thought this could be a cool premise. With the ability of having your every wish granted, you could do anything. Herein lies the problem with Natsuiro Kiseki: it totally wastes potential.

Let me talk about some of the other issues with the magic rock. First, its wish granting ability is somewhat vague. While it leads to some undesired (albeit wished for) outcomes, that's fine. However, this rock seems to have some consistency issues to make up for plot conveniences. At first, it is implied that it can grant any wish, as long as the four people touching it wish for the same thing. However, throughout the series, many new "rules" are introduced at just the right time so that the plot takes a certain direction. Some may not be bothered by this, but I feel like the rules were being made up as the game was being played. And don't worry, if the girls can't get to the original rock, one of its "cousins" will always be close by.

The biggest issue in my opinion is how the girls utterly squander the opportunity the rock could give them. How many amazing things could you do in a summer if you had no limits? Not much for them; it is spent on singing, swimming, a short vacation, and a visit to a haunted house from their youth. The majority of the series was the exploration of how vague wishes go wrong and how the girls respond to the following incidents. So much more could have been done.

I wish this anime was better.

Animation - 6/10

Animation is very average for the time. There were never any outstanding problems, but nothing worth positively noting either, aside from some nice character designs for the leads.

Sound - 6/10

The soundtrack was nothing special. There are a few insert songs sung by the characters that were okay, but again not very noteworthy. On the other hand, the characters had a good voice cast who fit the personalities perfectly.

Characters - 6/10

Another selling point of a SOL series is the characters, and the studio does a solid job here. They are likable, but as with so many SOL characters, they are cookie cut archetypes with no development.

We have the lead, Natsumi, who is the athletic and capable girl of the group. Saki is quiet and cool, but passionate about her friends (as the series often says directly, but I'm not so convinced). Then we have the over-the-top energy ball Yuka, who has big dreams but low motivation. Finally, the quiet, silent type Rinko with obscure interests rounds out the group for the full 4-girl SOL cast.

To me, they cause a lot of easily preventable problems for themselves, are oblivious to solutions, and are an all around pretty unintelligent lot. I understand they are just in middle school, but it still is a little troublesome. Otherwise, they are likable enough, but you've seen them all before if you've watched more than a few series.

Enjoyment - 6/10

This was the type of show where you want to scream at the characters not to be stupid. It had its charming moments, but by the "touching" end I had unplugged all emotional investment and was ready for it to stop. It is somewhat saved by the couple of episodes in which situations arise that show the (somewhat lacking) character of each girl, and how they think among themselves to achieve the best outcome.

Other Thoughts

With sixes across the board, I recommend looking for another similar series to spend your time on. Natusiro Kiseki is by no means bad, but it just isn't that good either.

giovanny.baumbach - 2013-05-18 10:39:35

The cute-girls-doing-cute-things type shows seem to have become a staple of anime. Often shallow and juiced up with pandering content, those shows are widely derided for good reason. It's ironic though, that while moeblobs like "K-On!" continues to score reasonably well across anime databases on the internet, a genuinely good anime like "Natsuiro Kiseki" comes along and is instantly dismissed as just another piece of cute-girls-doing-cute-things (abbrieviated as CGDCT from here on in) trash. The premises of "Natsuiro Kiseki" is about four school friends Natsumi, Saki, Yuka and Rinka and their whacky adventures during their summer holidays. This particular summer is special not only because it's their last summer together, but also because they found that this rock from a local shrine is capable of granting wishes. The first episode captured my attention because of how natural the dialogue and the character interactions flowed. Choosing to start the story with a fall out between Natsumi and Saki, "Natsuiro Kiseki" ran the risk of becoming bad melodrama like AnoHana. Unlike AnoHana though, it treads the fine line between good drama and melodrama very well (though in retrospect the root cause of the conflict is a little contrived). Because I did not read the synopsis, the supernatural element at the end of the episode 1 caught me by surprise. I like my slice of life shows to be down to earth, and I was initially worried that the supernatural element would play a big part in the show and end up ruining the potential for a good slice of life.I needn't have worried. The supernatural did play a big part, but "Natsuiro Kiseki" managed to incorporate it in such a way that it made things interesting while still keeping the show feeling down to earth. The episodes take on a mostly wish-of-the-week structure. Earlier episodes use the wishes as a crutch for characterisation, throwing the characters into circumstances that, more often than not, reveals or refines a facet of the one of the characters' personalities. As we begin to know the characters better though, the later episodes were often able to carry itself without resorting to the supernatural (and in fact arguably the best episode in the series did not involve wishes). And this is what sets "Natsuiro Kiseki" apart from the other CGDCT shows - it feels sincere. The show isn't being dictated by how best to pander to viewers and filling its content with silly, ditzy moeblobs that eat "kei-kee" all day. Instead, it's more about the characters and their friendship, and making them feel believable. Rarely does an episode goes by when I don't feel like I've learnt a bit more about the characters, or one that doesn't colour the proceedings with the melancholy of a group of friends trying to make the most of their remaining time together. It may not be completely free of moe, but at least those elements are an aside rather the drive behind the show, and even the potentially abusable yuri undertones are kept (mostly) low key and subtle. The art style reflects the restrained style, with all the girls sporting a normal kind of look, free from the kind of distortions that usually comes with the territory.Accusations of characters being one dimensional are wide of the mark - I suspect people see four girls with different hair colours and immmediately attach them with the "architypes" tag without giving them a chance to shine. A closer look reveals that there are more to these characters than just being "loud" or "ditzy". Rinka is the only character who is a bit flat; she fits in the quiet girl architype a bit too comfortably. Yuka seems more one dimensional than she actually is; her loud and annoying personality is a bit over-emphasised, overshadowing her other characteristics such as being the glue of the group. Natsumi and Saki though, are the most well realised characters. They don't have any over-dominant characteristics, and their personalities are so nuanced that it's hard to summarise them in a short sentence. Coming back to the supernatural element, I think it's more than just a tool for characterisation; it's also used to add some fun factor into a show that might otherwise have felt too dry. Seeing the characters trying to deal with the unpredictable outcomes of the wishes is often highly amusing. The variety of situations helped keep things fresh, and it's no coincidence that the episode during which they reused a previous idea ended up as one of the most boring. The early ideas generally felt fresher than the later ones, which were clutching at straws a bit. Also, the later episodes had a tendency to use gimmicky ideas involving time that have already been done in other shows, two attributes that make a poor combination. The last episode is a good example of this, although they did turn it around into a solid episode eventually through the strength of character interactions.The sound department of "Natsuiro Kiseki" is notable for featuring Sphere, a J-pop idol group made up of voice actresses. The members voiced one of the main characters each, and also performed the opening/ending/instert songs (which were nice but nothing remarkable; the singing is competent in the very least). I'm not really familiar with any of the Sphere members other than Haruka Tomatsu (Aoba from "Cross Game", Anal from AnoHana) who voiced the hyperactive Yuka. She managed to impress me for sounding completely different to the other roles she had played.To summarise, "Natsuiro Kiseki" is a CGDCT anime that manages the epic feat of actually being good. It's good because it doesn't subscribe to what make these shows so annoying - making the characters as artificially cute as possible, and focuses instead on having believable character interactions. I haven't seen any other shows from this season yet, but "Natsuiro Kiseki" certainly looks to be the underappreciated show of the season. But hey, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that it's good. After all, this is made by good old Sunrise, and not Kyoto "Pandas 'R' Us" Animation.