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Momoiro Sisters
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Title Info
- seen: 1-4 of 24
- type: mini
- grade: weird
- source: fansub
- form: sub
- dur: 20
- made: 1998
- Review created: Thu May 10 11:25:13 EST 2001
- mod: none
Well, it's certainly an unusual experience. These short episodes are done in a shoujo/comedy style and focus on mundane events. Although this show rushes straight for the boundaries of taste and decorum and keeps on going.
Synopsis
Hm, a synopsis is a short summation of the global story...in which case this series doesn't need a synopsis. Being another example of the 5 minute episode anime it's a tough vehicle to express a meaningful story, and this anime doesn't even seem to try. Effectively we follow two sisters, being the momoiro sister, and a younger sister who acts as narrator and observer. She generally uses signs, or helps with scene changes, and is more of a stylistic device than a character. The sisters are primarily important because of the different worlds they inhabit. The older being an O.L. (office lady) and the younger a high school student.
They're fairly similar in character though. One is clearly meant to be the `real world' character, the one who has traded in innocence for experience. The other is `innocence', uncertain and inexperienced but having more possibilities ahead of her. The common fact is that both are interested, and the stories are focused, on fairly basic concerns. Indeed the focus is strongly on things like breasts, the `first time', sex in general, sexual politics and even funny medical conditions like a student with bad hemorrhoids. It's sort of like an animated version of a lightweight, sort of risky but definitely shallow, woman's magazine.
Review
Hey, I'll admit to being a bit of a prude in some ways, and perhaps some of the jokes in this show cut a bit too close to home, but I'm really uncertain whether we need this sort of thing. I partly like anime for telling moving and inspiring stories that are like a crystallized dream. Watching a bunch of school girls discuss whether or not anal sex is a good idea might well be a dream of some, but I don't think it's mine.
However I will admit that, because it cuts so `low' on the spectrum there is a sort of power to it. The human curiosity for all things related to sex and body exists in us all. Likewise the urge to compare ourselves to the scenes presented, or watch the characters compare each other, does have a sort of guilty attraction. As such the show, if it is not banned, will probably have a sizable but silent audience. And if you wanted to make it look respectable you could even applaud it for bringing more `mature' subject matter and more `realistic' models of people (although mostly women) to the field of anime. Then again one character is a female anime otaku, complete with yaoi doujinshi, and I'm not sure whether that's a strike for realistic or weird.
It ends up being a question of taste. The show is undoubtably unusual and has a sort of power and attraction to it. On the other side whether it says or adds anything of meaning or value is definitely open to question. However the fact that it is clearly intending to trade off a certain `shock' value, and doesn't have too much in the way of story or character, might encourage an ultimately negative view of the producers intent.
Certainly the production is unexciting, which is sort of interesting. Considering the number of fan-service scenes we get the choice of a quite simple, cartoony style is interesting. It certainly reduces any danger of `erotic' to the proceedings, while perhaps seeming to indicate that the original intent was humor. It also leads to the suspicion that the budget was not large. The final possibility being that the air of humor, and cartoony style, allows them to get away with a lot more. In any case the production is relatively simple and unlikely to interest by itself. The voices are quite good, music is marginal to non-existent.
Other Reviews
There's precious little information for this title on the net, which is one of the reasons I'm risking a review from such a little taste. One suggestion was that the english title was "pink sisters", but I couldn't find anything (apart from lots of porn sites) about the anime using this name either.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:22 WST 2009