Anime Meta-Review
Marriage
Index's
Home
Alphabetic
Quality
Genre
People
Recent
By Date
Support
Titles
Sources
History
Glossary
Notes
Misc.
This Page
Reviews
Title Info
- seen: 1-2 of 2
- type: OAV
- grade: watchable
- source: AnimeWorks
- form: sub
- dur: 60
- made: unknown
- Review created: Sat Mar 24 23:46:24 EST 2001
- mod: none
Um...well, it's a video about marriage. Not a subject I personally know anything about. But then again that's probably the market at who this strange little anime is aimed. But while it's certainly novel i'm not sure it's one of the greatest anime's i've ever seen.
Synopsis
It certainly isn't the most complex story in the world. Effectively there are 5 young (25'ish) girls who are good friends and work in different departments within the same company. And like any group of girls, in anime if not in real life, they keep an interested eye on what the others are doing. And at least one of the topics under consideration is the question of men, romantic relationships and question of marriage.
And while the loud and unsubtle `child' of the group is engaged, and the `normal' girls have steady boyfriends there are some problem cases in the group. One of the girls is quiet, shy and wears glasses...so naturally she's in need of help from her friends in finding a partner. Then there's the `serious' woman who seems more mature than her age. While she has less problem finding boyfriends she doesn't seem to be able to settle down. Still by sticking together, and with a little anime magic, the problems will be `solved' in episode 1 and 2 respectively.
Review
Perhaps one of the first questions is whether this is from a shoujo (female) point of view or shounen (male) point of view. The show is relatively subtle on this point, spending a lot of time with the girls and their conversation amongst themselves but also considering things from the male point of view. I would have to guess that it tries to appeal to both audiences, although there are traces of a `male' focus. This might well be because males are probably the most likely customers. Although it makes a none too subtle jab, with a disaster date, against Otaku's which is interesting.
Another possible question is whether it has anything to add on the topic. After all, marriage is not exactly an uncommon ritual. Well, it bolsters itself here by having some `tutorials'. The animation gets a bit simpler and Super-deformed and we are given some stats and guidelines on meeting and marrying your partner. Such gems as "women like gifts" are bestowed upon us. As well we get to see some of the fairly novel Japanese approaches, including picking up people in parks and electronic dating machines, described in these sections. It's interesting, but oh so weird, both the contents and having these sections in an anime. And i'm not even going to mention how I scored on the desirable attributes (i'm just going to rate this anime very negatively :)
ultimately, however, it's limited both as an informative anime about marriage and as a decent anime by it's extreme lack of depth. With two half hour episodes it flashes by very fast and without any feeling of realism. Many events happen in a semi-connected sequence but none of them seem believable and many are far too convenient. This is made more difficult by the fact that the `normal' lives of the girls, plus their personalities, must also be developed at the same time. As such it fails on all counts, the characters feel very shallow as a result of the shows strong focus, the scenes don't connect and the relationships have no foundation. Heck, a good shoujo series can spend 50+ episodes just starting a relationship. And the character and dialogue on this also lacks the complexity of the better shoujo material.
The animation strangely mirrors this. It's very bright but feels sort of flat and a bit lifeless. It's got the bright shoujo palette but not the same sense of style and focus. The women, and men, look quite attractive but once again their depiction is sort of offputting at times. The dialogue is relatively basic and, needless to say, there's virtually no action (you know what I mean). There's also actually very little romance, either due to the writing or the restrictions on time. As a result the whole thing is ultimately a bit `cold'. The voices are alright, the brash girl being suitable irritating, and the music is negligible.
Other Reviews
- Lord Carnage review Once again Lord Carnages encyclopedic collection of reviews comes to the rescue. In any case he likes it a bit more than I, calling it `interesting', although the review appears to only cover the first episode. He also mentions that it is based on a `dating sim' game which is interesting (3/5).
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:21 WST 2009