Ranked #4429

Photokano

I feel like I'm enjoying this show way too much for what it is.

Because really, the plot is pretty average, the humor isn't really funny at all, and the development of the characters is just straight-up not there. It's pretty average. So, I guess you could assume that the rest of the anime is pretty bad too - which is where you'd probably be wrong. For some reason, it's really quite well animated, everyone is drawn really cute, and everything flows pretty nicely. Not only are the characters drawn really well, it's not the stereotypical fanservicey type of art where you basically have a face and various styles and colors of hair, the characters are genuinely drawn pretty well. The soundtrack's alright as well, it's not bad, but in some places, I've found myself surprised at how decent it was.

But, I suppose, I should have seen this coming. This is an anime adaptation of a dating sim, and really, the only reason why you would be playing a dating sim, is to stare at really well drawn cute girls that you would probably never get a shot at anyways. So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Photo Kano is full of moments where I felt like I was literally playing a dating sim. But if there's one thing that I am surprised about, is how much I found myself enjoying those moments.

I'm not really sure what I enjoy Photo Kano, really. Maybe it's the fact that I can see so much of myself in the main character. Then again, that's probably a selling point - the dude is practically an everyday normal guy, anybody could paint themselves onto him. That being said, I suppose you could call this a fault, because like Photo Kano itself, the guy really just doesn't seem to have anything interesting about him. That's probably why the most interesting thing about him, is actually that he gets to take lewd pics of all his cute high-school classmates.

I suppose I should be called a pervert then, because I've enjoyed all I've complained about in the above.

But really, what else is there to enjoy? Because let's all admit that any plotline adapted from a dating sim is probably going to be bad. It's a shame too that it's not all to great, because the idea of using photography as a central theme is something that hasn't been tried very often, and when pulled off right, could probably make a decent storyline. It's too bad they didn't seem to even try, because the photography element is what really makes this anime what it is, or rather, what it could be. If Photo Kano was actually well produced in terms of a story, it would probably be known for highlighting photography in it's storyline.

Of course though, we're only halfway through, so it could get better. Hopefully the storyline takes a departure from its current generalisms that Photo Kano has attempted to build it's storyline on thus far, and makes use of the unique nature of it's central theme.

But unfortunately, with the direction it's taking, it seems like Photo Kano is going to take the approach of telling the story of every single girl in the anime one by one - and what's bad, is that we're 6 episodes in, and we've only done cute Niimi-san, and to an extent, the student council president. That basically means the show is either going to skip half the cast, or do one girl per episode - which is going to be terrible. However, it does mean that we'll probably get to the main character's little sister soon - which I'm sure will please some viewers. She cant be that cute, right? read more