Anime Meta-Review
Graduation
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Title Info
- seen: 1-2 of 2
- type: OAV
- grade: watchable
- genre: shoujo
- made: unknown
- Review created: Recently, but I didn't record the date.
- mod: none
This is a weird one. The first oddity is that it is derived from some sort of `life simulation' PC game. However, even more odd, is what happens in the third and fourth episodes. To find out what, and why it is in a seperate review, check out the Sailor Victory review. However, before that suprise let me tell you about what's in this one. This is a video in which five young girls are about to graduate from high school, and make some choices about the direction their life will take.
Yep, that's the whole story. Of course, having learnt that an awful lot can happen in the fine details, and because this is a relatively meaningful part of life (for some at least) it didn't phase me. And to be honest it's all fairly pleasant, the girls are good natured, the stories are simple frameworks for dialog and interaction and there are some nice thoughtful, atmospheric, moments. It doesn't get as deep as i'd like, partly due to the short running time, but I enjoyed what was there. Of course it would also be nice if the girls were a little less archetypal. It only took a couple of minutes before I was calling them by their names, being Ms. Rich but aimless, Ms. Common but Honest, Ms. Quiet but intelligent, Ms. Tough but Caring and Ms. Immature but cute. I guess that this part is inherited from the source, or perhaps enables the stories to proceed without too much character introduction. Still, you can't help wanting to know more, especially because a number of characters get only minor time and the anime ends quite suddenly with them seperating after graduation.
The animation is not really that important, but this is fairly solid and skilled shoujo style stuff. Attractive but minimal backgrounds, nice character designs and a decent feel for body language and facial expression. Some of the scenes were nicely staged and quite atmospheric. Extra points for reasonable technical detail when required (on a motorbike). The voice actors were fine, albeit fairly expected for the character archetype and the music was pleasant classical stuff.
According to `gatss' on usenet the source for this anime was a sega saturn dating game.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:19 WST 2009