Alternative TitlesEnglish: Abenobashi Magical Shopping District Synonyms: Abenobashi Magic Shopping District, Abenobashi Mahoh Shotengai, Magical Shopping Street Abenobashi, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi Japanese: アベノ橋魔法☆商店街
Information
Type: TV
Episodes: 13
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Apr 4, 2002 to Jun 27, 2002
Duration:
24 min. per episode Rating:
R+ - Mild Nudity
L represents licensing company
StatisticsScore: 7.511 (scored by 11749 users)
Ranked: #12662
Popularity: #558
Members: 21,722
Favorites: 119 1 indicates a weighted score
My Info
Popular Tags
comedy ecchi fantasy parody |
SynopsisImamiya Satoshi, "Sasshi" to his friends, has grown up in the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade in Osaka, along with his childhood friend, Asahina Arumi. Now, all that was stable in his life is in ruins. His family's bath house has closed and been torn down, and Arumi's family is moving to Hokkaido - and taking her with them. In the midst of all this, something happens to the framework of reality, and Sasshi and Arumi slip into a weird parallel world. It's still Abenobashi, but not their Abenobashi. Strange things are afoot, and Sasshi must find out their meaning, in order to reach a goal that he barely understands. |
Related AnimeAdaptation: Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai
Sequel: Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai Special
Characters & Voice Actors
Staff
|
Yamaga, Hiroyuki
Director, Script, Screenplay, Series Composition, Production Manager |
|
Kojima, Masayuki
Director |
|
Imaishi, Hiroyuki
Episode Director, Storyboard, Animation Director |
|
Hiramatsu, Tadashi
Episode Director, Storyboard, Character Design, Animation Director |
Reviews
|
|
Ranivus
90 of 124 people found this review helpful
|
13 of 13 episodes seen
|
| Overall |
9 |
| Story |
9 |
| Animation |
10 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Character |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai is pretty much Excel Saga meets Alice in Wonderland, with a suprisingly good story line thrown in for good measure.
The story pretty much surrounds two really good friends Arumi and Sasshi. Who happen to live in a rundown project area called Abenobashi Shopping District thats on the verge of being replaced with a new develpment complex. Of course noone wants to leave but then, everything just starts to go awry quite fast. This is where the 'falling down the rabbit hole comes in' Some seasoned anime watchers will be thinking this is alot like Excel Saga but the only connection will be that they are stuck in wierd (not random) enviroments. Beyond that everything will make sense the more you watch the show. Overall, the show manages to bring comedy, drama, action, fantasy, and even romance in to one nice fun 13 episode package.
When you hear people talk about how important having a good production company is for an anime, Abenobashi would be a perfect example. Gainax and Madhouse are two of the best companies in the businesss and watching this show you'll see why. Theres so many dfferent handpainted backgrounds, that i lost count at about 100 per episode. And the art themes and backgrounds are very different in every episode which makes this show such a joy to watch. On top of that the comedy gags are just so funny you cant help but laugh out loud. Some comedy shows can get by just by having a poor art and great characters, but if you want to see what a comedy can be like with high qualtiy art, this would be the show. I cant forget to mention that the shows characters all show such a diverse range of emotions (and body parts) that fit perfectly with every situation. They use comedy faces at the right times, drama faces at correct places, all of them are displayed with such timing and style its almost eerily perfect. Its hilarious how they manage to pull off so many anime, movie, and video game gags in such a small amount of time. Also my only gripe is that the cast sometimes talks too fast but thats also for comedy purposes
Another thing with the characters is that the voice cast are just perfect for this show, the two main characters are polar opposites from each other but sometimes on occasion they switch roles which makes them fun to watch. You'll manage to love and hate both of them in equal amounts. Most of the other characters are so hilariously good that you'll wish you can get them out of you memory banks. The ugly characters are rife with age spots and the youthful characters are filled with beautfy and sexiness. Speaking of sex theres alot of ecchi sittuations in this show, so if you don't mind a little skin with your comedy its there, Theres even a large amount of ecchi jokes that most people might find offensive but is still hilarious in their own right.
Usually when somone hears the same sound effects robbed from other places its a bad thing. But in this case, robbing or emulating the same sound effects are perfect for this show and whats makes this anime so top notch. It was so fun trying to spot all the different sound effects and spoofs and place them with their original place. The high quality sound actually carrys on to the songs. The background music cosists usually of big band style music perfect for a comedy pair such as Ayumi and Sasshi. The op song is perfect as its a very up beat fun song excellent to set you in the mood of watching the show. Whereas watching the ending song gives you almost a nostalgic feeling (complete with black and white japanese history slide show) which you should be feeling after watching one episode of Abenobashi with all the fun spoofs and such. I can safely say i've seen the op and ed every time and thats usually hard to do.
Overall, the show was paced perfectly, comedy was spot on, sight gags were more than perfect, more than enough media spoofs all throughout the show, and it was all just a generally fun ride throughout. Typically the general public views anime as a cartoon with slapstick comedy, boobs, and alot of screaming (like Akira). Thats a pretty good description of the show in a nutshell. This is one of the show's that would be perfect to show a new anime viewer. Everyone should watch this show regardless of their preference, because even if it sounds like the same formula (from Excel Saga) it is far from it.
Not a big fan of giving all 9's and 10's but that my honest feeling about this show.
read more
|
|
YourMessageHere
37 of 55 people found this review helpful
|
13 of 13 episodes seen
|
| Overall |
8 |
| Story |
8 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Character |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
Take Quantum Leap (or Sliders, your preference) and cross it with Excel Saga. That, in a nutshell, is Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade. A couple of kids, a bright but otherwise unexceptional girl and her male otaku neigbour and long-term friend, find themselves tumbling from one lunatic parallel world to another in what begins as simply an attempt to return to normality but becomes an attempt to make things in their own mundane yet beloved reality right. The presence of recurring characters, not only versions of people they know but people they don't, begin to clue them in to the method behind the madness.
The debt this series owes to Excel Saga is obvious and considerable, and wile I love both series, to me this has the edge in my affections. Sasshi and Arumi's efforts take them from one genre parody to another week by week, but unlike Excel Saga's scattergun "just because I said so" approach, the whole affair has a coherent and moderately serious storyline running through it, tying everything together. That one can maintain a single overarching plot through an RPG world, a kung fu world, a scifi world, a gangster world, a warfare world and so on is impressive enough.
But the fact that you needn't follow the plot, if you don't want to, is also pretty smart. If you prefer, you can generally ignore the overarching plot and concentrate on the humour, of which there is lots, and it doesn't really let up; none of excel's recycling here, no "cute animal anime skit number three". The exceptions are a couple of episodes that in fact aren't all that funny and are mostly concerned with the overarching plot, a bit of a weakness. Perhaps with a little more polish this element could have been spread across the whole spread of episodes, and as it is, it does require some concentration to fully 'get' the plot. No matter, I found myself laughing my ass off most of the time anyhow.
Graphically, Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade has nothing very special about it - but it's a rare comedy that dazzles the eyes too. Everything is however perfectly unobjectionable, with character design probably the most impressive aspect. All the supporting cast, the familiar faces from around the Shotengai, appear in a new form for every episode; it's easy to take for granted the way they all fit straight in to whatever setting, yet are instantly recogniseable, no small feat in actuality.
There's a mostly jazz-flavoured soundtrack, the BGM nothing incredible, generic but pleasing, and far from seeming out of kilter; like character design it is easy to take for granted its modification to fit the setting of each episode. The opening theme is infectiously catchy and great fun, one of my favourites among Hayashibara Megumi's many, many happy songs. The ending theme is also one of hers, and is gentle and lovely, the sort of music that makes you think of summer sunshine.
Basically, Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade is one of those rare things that is as complicated as you want it to be. It can be just a parody humour show, or a more complicated tale with serious points to make about urban decline and the loss of community feeling, and also about genre cliches, if you like, on top of simply being funny as hell. You gets more than you pays for, for once. read more
Recommendations
|
|
Both series are insanely fun, insanely awesome or just insane. Both seem like some screwed up story which turns out to be more than just nonsense.
Same studio and a good amount of parody in both titles.
alot of the same zany and wild comic approach. it you like comedys then you'll love abenobashi
Both animes are full of wacky situations, fast-paced animation, similar characters, and just a ton of fun randomness! Abenobashi has all the things that made FLCL awesome just with double the amount of episodes, way more allusions, a bit more ecchi, and Osaka accents. Can't go wrong with that. :]
wow, the comparison is so close that i thought this was a continuation of FLCL some how.
Abenobashi features some great animation direction from Gainax animators like Hiroyuki Imaishi, who made his first big splash with the mind-blowing visuals in FLCL. Both series also follow a boy's emotional growth, though Abenobashi's development is considerably less bombastic and blunt than FLCL's. And of course, both are full of hilarious otaku-centered humor.
If you like twisted plots, and funny scenes all the time. You'll like this series. It's made by Gainax too, and have many references to many pop cultural manga & anime stuff. It's a weird comedy, but you'll have a good time with Abenobashi.
Both are similarly ridiculous and have crazy art styles. There is some sort of underlying story in both, but i think Abenobashi's is more prominent.
First of all, both of these are not very mainstream, not the most original thing ever or anything, mut not mainstream either.
FLCL and Abenobashi look pretty similar, they both have kinda same kind of drawing style and stuff. Animation looks pretty much the same, both have pretty awesome animation, smooth but still very rapid at times. And on fast scenes there happens a lot of stuff and you have to be sharp to see everything.
If you liked FLCL, but thought it was a bit too confusing and you really kind of didn't get what it was about, Abenobashi might be the right one for you.
Also if you liked the humour on one, you'd propably like it on the other one. The way the humour is told is very similar too.
Similarities are propably because both of these are made by studio Gainax, studio that has produced NGE and PSG also. FLCL and Abenobashi are very stylish ones too, definitely worth watching, especially if you loved the other one of these.
Colorful, pretty absurd atmosphere and explosive characters. :)
The flow of how the story is told and unravels is similar.
Both stories also seems to be surreal, yet still have some ties to what used to be reality.
|
|
|
similar ideas - whole series revolves around the idea of "pick a theme for the episode, then have your protagonists attempt to fit into it with hilarious consequences".
Comedy non-sense on its best. Though Abenobashi is far easier to understand and get on with.
Excel Saga was rife with parodies and wacky over-the-top humor, and Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi delivers more of the same, taking on cliches from RPGs, sci-fi, old kung-fu flicks, and even American cinema. Much like Excel Saga, each episode picks a specific topic to focus on, and releases an onslaught of jokes and gags related to said topic. A very funny series.
Both series have a very random feel to them and they both parody a lot of other anime and manga.
|
Opening Theme"Treat or Goblins" by Megumi Hayashibara
Ending Theme"Anata no kokoro ni" by Megumi Hayashibara
| No posts for this board were found |
Fansubbing Groups
Which fansubbers do you like the best? Click + to approve of their subs for this show. Click - if you don't think they did such a great job.
Related ClubsFantasy Anime Club!, MadHouse, TMIE TRAVELLERS, Into Another World Anime & Manga, Hideaki Anno Fan Collective, Matsuoka Yuki is Awesome, MALs Comedy Club, The All-Over Otaku Club Okawari, HURRAY BOOBIES!!, The Luci Christian Fan Club!, Kansai-ben Research Fan Club, Marketplace Germany, Hideaki Anno Fan Club, Shiro Sagisu FC, Intense Anime Characters Fanclub , Anime Dimenzija, Mindfuck-Club, Parody Lovers!, Trannehsexualz: Haven For Teh Other Bodeh Parts, -Anime Realm-Photoshop ANIME FUN Club, Claim an Anime Studio Club! , Abenobashi Club, AnImE lOvErZ!!!, Missile Punch, Anime Unleashed, Chris Pattards, ♥ Baka Nation ♥, Horie Yui Fanclub, Chose a guy or girl of your pick to claim!, AnIme ArT AdDiCts, Red Eyes Fanclub, ~ Ecchi 4ever ~, Studio GAINAX Club see all
Recently Watched By|
51 minutes ago |
1 hour ago |
5 hours ago |
6 hours ago |
6 hours ago | |
7 hours ago |
8 hours ago |
9 hours ago |
10 hours ago |
Yesterday, 3:25 PM |
|
|
