Happiness!

Happiness! may look cheap or low budget and it probably is, but that does not hamper it significantly from how wonderful the story is. It is the best romance anime I have ever seen. The very premise upon which the story is built sounds like the best scene from "It's a Wonderful Life". The opening and closing sequences fits perfectly with the music and brings in summary the story to life or as a good reminder of the essence of the story that happiness and love are magic. It is hard to beat such poetic imagery displayed by the show's story. ... Though I can forgive it's frugal budget a bit, there are a few things that I can not which drag it down just a tad. The biggest drag on the show is the backstory reveal shown around episode 10/11 about why Yuma came to be where he is. It simply makes no sense nor is the reason why he was orphaned. No parent would accept that. On the other hand, the intention of some trauma being behind how Yuma ended up the way he did, does get across, I just wish they had created a better more logical and reasonable cause behind it. The tama chan episode is also a bit unclear and unsettling but it doesn't lose full points because it is also cute. Despite how sloppily written that part is, the rest is quite exceptional. The ending is spectacular. The beginning is one of the best especially for a magical romantic story. Haruhi makes a great girl next door type of figure. She is the kind of girl every well intentioned boy would dream about. The first few and last few episodes are wonderful, but sometimes the middle episodes stumble along the way. it still makes the intent of the story clear and does a fairly good job despite a few setbacks.

This series, I HAVE TO DECLARE: I stuck with it to write a review, and so I will write a shortcut way to watch this show at the bottom of this review. Some episodes in the middle were a bit unnecessary.

[Mood: light-medium, dull]
[Notable pickings: Magic: 7 l Comedy: 4 l Romance: 3 l Action: 4 l School life: 8 ]

Story:6
Hmm the story eh? Ep 1- 2 were sort of intros, 3-7 were more of character-based, and ep8-12 were with a plot.

The storytelling method is really really dull at times. I especially only appreciated about 30% of the content in eps 3-7 on ... average. The producer sorts of using a beat around the bush and slow form of presenting the story. I skipped soem parts of ep7 as a result.

The story plot is incredible. In the first few episodes we see a few Unidentified Characters (UC) around in some of the scenes. Argh if they were flying they would be UFOs D:. Character introduction is weak in some episodes, bringing confusion to what role they actually play in the series.

The story plot is really developed from episodes 8-12, especially 10, where some of the characters' past were explored. But isn't it too late? By that time many ppl would have dropped the series already...==. And ... the plot was sort of caused by a misunderstanding, and could have easily resolved by some explanation/ education of a few notable characters. Preventing should have been easy as well.

And till now I still dunno how the misunderstanding about Haruhi haven't stolen something precious to Ibuki came about. It was not properly explained.

One very big letdown of this series is that there is no real climax at all. The ending parts were lacking in action, and the music did not help the atmosphere as well. It just felt as if it was another complication.

O yea, and the ending parts were kinda confusing, I especially did not get what happened to Saya's dad in the end, he simply disappeared. Story incoherence there.

Art:7
The colours were sort of dull.
Pros:
Some special effects, like some magic, were of a higher standard than the usual standard displayed.
Cons:
Colour was dull for some magic effects too, so some magic didn't really seem like magic.
At times Jun's hair was shining when it wasn't supposed to.

Sound:7
OP and ED was ok. BGMs used were ok, but did not fully display the supposed emotions that were on screen. Special effects sounds were unimpressionable. Voice acting is good though, although Jun's voice was duh, a girl's, so I couldn't think of him as a girl.

Character:6
Character introduction was very weak in the front and back of this series. In the back a lot of characters came out but were barely explained. I could not understand some of their actions.

Now, about the character cast, I dunno what to say about Yuuma. About his hatred of magic, actually by the end I could think of a much better way to cure his magic-related probs rather than making him hate magic. [Trying to not include spoilers] Well, maybe they made the wrong choice then.

The other main characters were not really developed as well. Some development was made on a few, but often only non-consequential development.

But one problem is that the group of friends in the series are over-friendly with themselves, so the lack of conflict was rather dull as well. (I'm not including Ibuki and the other 2).

Enjoyment:4
Bad presentation. Severely dull. Ok-ok ending. The comedy in this series were a bit not very funny.
Usually I enjoy magic genre shows but... there was not a lot of exciting displays of it, like the clashing of magicians.

Overall:6
I did not read the manga, so I'm not sure if this is the original storyline, but this series is not very interesting. Watch if you think you need to slow down :p.
Draggy, roundabout storytelling.

O yea, in some episodes the timing of the voices and subs were off, I watch eng subbed eps.

OK HERE IT ISSS:
EP1-2
Jump to ep 8
EP8-12

(Some spoilers to fill on the info missed out in 3-7)
Ibuki is Sumomo's classmate and only friend in school. Saya and her brother are Ibuki's "servants". The group of friends want to putt Ibuki into e group. The one with the green Tama-chan is the Divination club president.

There are plenty of series where I've been unimpressed by the first few episodes, but grown to enjoy or totally love the result. It can be all about the writers hitting their stride, learning the characters, finding the new twists on old ideas that will surprise you, and somewhere in the middle there'll be a beach trip.

This is not one of those series. This is the complete opposite.

The writers actually started with a decent enough twist on the "magic high school" trope, and the first few episodes are "good enough" to make you want to see where it goes.

IT GOES NOWHERE! Instead, the writing spirals ... downward after about the third episode. The characters are completely two-dimensional (no pun intended). They're stupid to the point of absurdity, and it's only their stupidity moving the plot forward. That's the kind of cheap writing that you can get away with a few times in a series, but you can't build the entire thing on it. This isn't Hamtaro, for crying out loud, it's trying to be a "serious anime." I lost all suspension of disbelief somewhere around the time where we find out why the main character was adopted (something like episode 8). It was crap before that, and it's unwatchable after. Oh, and there's the antagonist who doesn't care about killing her allies until she accidentally injures one. I pretty much fast-forwarded the last three episodes just to find out the ending, which was predictably stupid.

I really don't like spoilers, so I'm trying to be vague about the plot points and describe the series in terms that will help you recognize what you're getting into. All-in-all, this series was barely worth having on as filler while you're doing something else.