Alternative Titles
Saishuu Heiki Kanojo: The Last Love Song on This Little Planet
Information
Type: TV
Episodes: 13
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Jul 2, 2002 to Sep 24, 2002
Duration:
25 min. per episode Rating:
R - 17+ (violence & profanity)
L represents licensing company
StatisticsScore: 7.711 (scored by 4406 users)
Ranked: #4452
Popularity: #198
Members: 7,793
Favorites: 139 1 indicates a weighted score
My Info
Popular Tags
drama romance school sci-fi |
SynopsisShuuji and Chise are third year student at a high school in Hokkaido. The shy Chise is finally confessing to Shuuji, and finally two of them are starting to exchange diary awkwardly.One day, Shuuji tried to escape from a sudden enemy air raid on Sapporo. While desperately escaping from the air raid, Shuuji saw a scene that he could not forget for his life. He saw Chise, with a huge weapon looking as if it was part of her hand, shooting the enemy fighters down one by one. Apparently, Chise is the ultimate weapon with destructive power which is important for the war. (Source: AniDB) |
Related AnimeAdaptation: SaiKano
Side story: Saikano: Another Love Song
Characters & Voice Actors
Staff
Recommendations
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While Iriya has a much lighter tone through the first few eps, they both share a similar premise and similarly heart-wrenching developments.
same story.. the girL is the ultimate weapon and the only hope of the earth(ufo no natsu) or the country (saikano) ..then the girl fell in love with a guy who cant do nothing but support and pity them..they also tried to get away with their destiny or thinking bout their own happiness .. but their conscience cant do it so ends up with sacrificing theirself..
both are about a very sad love story
both are talking about the girl protecting the world, making decision to use her own life to protect the one she loves
the boy are useless and also helpless
Both are about a desperate struggle against alien apocalypse, banked on a single hope found in a teenage girl born for this purpose. Both series focus less on the wars but on the tragic characters. Iriya is a superior production in terms of story cohesion and credibility in my opinion.
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Trust me. If you liked Saikano, you will love AIR,
Both shows are like an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish, and both are equally heart-wrenching. In a good way.
Both are incredibly sad anime, and i could go into further detail of how they are somewhat similar, but it would have to include spoilers, so lets leave it as that.
At first glance Saikano and Air do not seem to be very alike, the first having a post apocalyptic setting and a plot that focuses heavily on war while the second takes place in a peaceful village for the most part, yet they are soul mates in how they handle a sheer dose of tragedy that dominates the later part of these series. The slice of life moments, heart felt romance, cute character designs mingled with nostalgia are more arguments that establish Saikano and Air as epics of sadness.
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Reviews
| Overall |
6 |
| Story |
6 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
5 |
| Character |
6 |
| Enjoyment |
6 |
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Sep 19, 200813 of 13 episodes seen 28 of 35 people found this review helpful Saikano has all of the best intentions for a tragic romance, and it sets its story up really well. And that, dear readers, is where all of my positive remarks end for this emotion-milker.
I do not fault those of you who call this one of the most moving anime out there. Far from it, it's full of emotion. But there is such a thing as pacing and this is where the anime conks out. Saikano's story is so diligent in making sure it's viewers never forget that unspeakable tragedy is inevi...tably nearing, even from the very first few episodes. The world being at war and countries falling daily, it's only a matter of time before the hellfire reaches our two young lovers. The problem is that matter of time takes forever to get here. The series does its best to retain a sense of tragedy throughout, but the results are hardly worth the excruciating wait. By the time tragedy did strike, I just didn't care anymore.
This is not made any easier by the cast. The focus of the story is Chise and Shuji. Chise, being a walking weapon of mass destruction, has the weakest of personalities. Her primary habits include being slow, dull, and average except that she can sprout metal wings. This girl's positively transparent, and Shuji is not much better. His indecisive attitude only fuels the series into dragging on and on. Though he finally grows past it, it just seems futile afterward in context to what is happening in the world around him. Akemi, the only relatively interesting character in the series, is otherwise squandered as the show demands so much focus on Chise.
The art is definitely the highlight of the show. It's impossibly delicate which surprises me because this is from the blatant CG glutton GONZO, yet there's practically nothing in the series that looks as such. It flows nicely and always looks beautiful. Definitely a plus.
The BGM was forgettable as it was mostly renditions of the forgettable OP and ED. Not bad, but not good, and certainly not enough to warrant further attention.
Overall, I feel Saikano had the potential to be great, but ended up overstaying its welcome. It's got a great start and a somewhat decent finish, but a neverending middle that sucked my emotions dry before it could make a difference. If your eyes are bottomless wells for tears, then have at it. You'll probably enjoy it a heck of a lot more than I did.
Overall, Saikano gets a 6 out of 10. read more
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| Overall |
9 |
| Story |
9 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Character |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
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Oct 31, 200713 of 13 episodes seen 30 of 39 people found this review helpful Title: Saikano , short for Saishu Heiki Kanojo (My Girlfriend, The Ultimate Weapon)
Manga, Movie, Anime: Saikano was originally a manga authored by Shin Takahashi, and ran in the Shogakukan publication Big Comic Spirits from May 30th, 2000 to December 25th, 2001. It totals at seven collected volumes. It has been released Stateside by Viz, and the final volume was released January 3rd, 2006.
A live-action movie was released January... 28th, 2006, and has yet to be licensed Stateside. I'll be covering this later in the review.
The anime itself was produced by Gonzo (famous for Gankutsuou and Red Garden), and directed by Mitsuo Kase (famous for directing the first seven episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory), and ran on Japanese TV from July 2nd, 2002 to September 24th, 2002. Saikano has been licensed Stateside by Viz, and the fourth and final volume was released November 9th, 2004.
Story: So, there's this couple, Shuji and Chise, who've just started going out, and they're so amazingly awkward with each other, the way you first are when you're just starting to go out with someone. There's a war going on, but they're somewhere near Sapporo on Hokkaido, the northernmost island in Japan, so it doesn't really affect them, up until the day that Sapporo gets bombed. There's this gleam of light that absolutely decimates the enemy bombers, and Shuji ends up following it when it crashes and it turns out that it's Chise, who's more or less been turned into a cyborg.
The rest of the series focuses on their relationship, and how Chise's being turned into a weapon affects that, juxtaposed with the war that's going on.
I am going to warn you straight off the bat; this is probably one of the most depressing anime in existence. You're going to want to keep anything you can hurt yourself with far away from you as you go through the series. There is a lot of death. You get to watch Chise lose her humanity bit by bit. You get to watch Shuji utterly unable to do anything about the former. You watch them trying to keep their relationship together while all of this is happening.
And it's everything that makes it depressing that makes a good story, really.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what happened in the last half of the last episode. This may be just me. But it is a bit confusing that way.
Art: The art style for this is a bit simpler than most of Gonzo's productions that I've seen; it seems closer to the style of a manga, in terms of the way characters are rendered. In fact, when I took a look at the manga covers the other day, it seems almost exactly the same. So that's a nice touch.
Gonzo uses a lot of reds, blacks, grays and dark colors, for the war zones, and brighter colors for Hokkaido, though that ends up turning more sinister as the story goes on.
Also, the CG is excellent, as expected from Gonzo. And luckily, it blends very well with the general style.
Music: The OP is amazing; I didn't like the song all that much, but it grew on me, and the segment itself is black and white, with the occasional highlight of bright color, and has random bits of French text throughout. The ED is also made of awesome; didn't pay too much attention to the segment here, but the song itself is done by the same artist who did the OP (Yuria Yato), which is a rare thing in an anime, because the contrast between the two really shows her range.
The background music is mostly variations on the OP and ED, but seeing as they're both so good, it's nice to hear. There's also an insert song that Shuji always hums, and when you finally hear it sung in the last few episodes, it's really a nice song, even if it ends up being a terrible thing for Chise.
Seiyuu: Chise's seiyuu also was Firiel in Nishi no Yoki Majo, which was a nice touch. As ever, the seiyuu did an excellent job; no issues here.
Length: Perfect, because it allows for just the right amount of depression, but stops before you actually consider killing yourself. Any more and I wouldn't have been able to take it, any less and it wouldn't have seemed right.
Movie: Saikano was turned into a live-action movie in 2006 by Toei. Aki Maeda, younger sister of Ai Maeda (who was Kino's seiyuu in Kino no Tabi, which she also did the OP/ED for) and also played Noriko in the live-action adaptation of Battle Royale, was cast as Chise.
I didn't like the movie as much. It was basically a digest version of the series (which was to be expected, as there was no way they could put all the material in a two-hour movie), but the thing was that some of the most emotional scenes from the anime ended up having little to no impact in the movie itself. Maybe it's because the build-up was missing; maybe it was becasue of the acting. I can't really tell you what went wrong here. And even though it went about things differently, it still had the same ending as the anime, which made even less sense, really.
Overall: It's depressing as all hell, but it's good.
Story: 9/10
Art: 8/10
Music: 8/10
Seiyuu: 8/10
Length: 9/10
Movie: 7/10
Overall: 49/60; 82% (B) read more
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| Overall |
9 |
| Story |
9 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Character |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
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Feb 13, 200813 of 13 episodes seen 6 of 8 people found this review helpful There's no 9.5 option when you come to reviewing, so I guess that a 9 will have to do. Ok, I discovered this anime purely by accident - don't you just love it when that happens? Anyway, a recent purchase and I couldn't wait to watch it. For those who don't know anything about Saikano - the story is essentially a love story, albeit a very tragic one. The anime focuses on the lives of Shuji and Chise, two high school students in Hokkaido who have recently became a couple. However, the happine...ss that comes along with finding someone to love is very short lived. The world that they live in is at war, in the anime it's unclear just who Japan is at war with - but in my opinion that didn't really matter.
When the opposing army attacks Sapporo and seals large scale destruction to the city, Shuji is shocked to discover Chise standing amongst the rubble with machinery 'growing' out of her arm. Sometime later, Chise reveals to Shuji that some people came to her house one night and said that she would be a perfect candidate... to become the ultimate weapon. The details as to why this is isn't made clear until the OVA, but I guess that's good to keep the viewer's guessing. The anime then focuses on how the two cope with this revelation, and how Chise struggles with herself on how she is changing into a 'machine' and becoming 'less human'. You'll hear the phrase "I'm sorry" a LOT in this anime - so be prepared for it!
The animation quality is pretty good, it's one of those really nice flowing styles that seem to draw you in. It's certainly easy on the eyes, and I have absolutely no complaints about the music either. The opening theme "Koi suru Kimochi" a really beautiful song, the same can also be said for the closing. Both themes remain the same throughout the series.
The only real problem that I actually have with this anime is that it tends to get slightly repetitive in some cases, what with Chise's constant apologising and Shuji's slight indecision and denial in some cases really get on my nerves. But in saying that it all ties in with the story. In all honesty, the anime pretty much follows the manga fairly accurately. However, I've only read the first 3 volumes of the manga so far, so I'll have to wait and see how it all ends. If you're into the more tragic love story, then I can't really recommend Saikano enough. It's an anime that I actually cried while I watched. There is also a live action movie, if you're really into this anime (like me) which I also recommend as it gives a different perspective on the two.
One thing that I think that I should mention though, is that the ending is pretty confusing - but if you're going to watch this anime, or have seen it... I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. read more
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Opening Theme"Koisuru Kimochi" by Yuria Yato (eps 2-12)
Ending Theme"Sayonara" by Yuria Yato
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