Anime Meta-Review
Child's Toy, Pilot Episode
Index's
Home
Alphabetic
Quality
Genre
People
Recent
By Date
Title Info
- seen: 1 of 1
- type: OAV
- grade: archaic
- form: sub
- source: fansub
- made: 1995
- Review created: Sun Feb 18 16:25:29 EST 2001
- mod: none
Made with the support of the manga company that ran the original manga this anime feels a lot like a test project. And while it's still got a certain amount of power it's also the case that it has been totally supersceded by the child's toy TV series. Especially because the content of this tape, and the first 6 episodes of the TV series, tell the same story.
While i'd rather extend my review of the TV series i'll give some basics of the story here. We get to meet the hyperactive Sana-chan, who while young has acheived reasonable fame as a child actress. She's great fun to watch as she bounces all over the show, but she's also been brought up to be independant and largely innocent of social conventions. She's also capable, at times, of being extremely perceptive. Although in this case all she want's is Hayama, a scarily intense boy, to stop causing chaos in class. As she attempts to reach this goal, in her not always so subtle manner, she comes to learn more about what made Hayama the person he is. And, being Sana, she's not about to leave a bad situation alone.
As I mentioned, if you've seen the TV series then you've seen this story. Since they're both based of the same manga they're very similar. The main difference is that the 30 minute running time of this doesn't really allow for the characters to come out strongly. It also means that the flow of events is very fast, to the point at which it is quite difficult to believe. This also means, given the need for pace, that Sana's humor get's less room to play, giving the OAV much more of a focus on drama than the more relaxed TV episodes. Still, even with all these negatives the OAV still has a certain power, and if you wanted to get a `taste' of child's toy this might suffice.
There are some differences in production as well. To start with the backgrounds are more complex but the characters often look simpler. It's also in a relatively realistic shoujo style, which admittedly means that as animation it's more practical than impressive. Many of the production tricks, and character quirks, are either absent or reduced although it is possible to see the foundation for many of them. The voice actors, who are different from the TV series, do a generally good job...although sana perhaps sounds a bit old at times. The music is functional, but unimpressive. All in all it looks like a moderately budgeted pilot, which I believe it was.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:16 WST 2009