Shuffle!

This is going to be the shortest review I ever write, because Shuffle! is a piece of crap that doesn't deserve even 50 words describing it. It starts out as a harem comedy, and is mildly entertaining until about the half way point, whereby it has already trapped you in its mediocrity and you are now a victim to find out what/who the (very terrible) main character eventually chooses out of all the girls.

Once you make it past the halfway point the show devolves into a burning trainwreck that will eventually leave you with an aneurysm. The majority of the cast ... eventually disappears from relevance about 3/4 of the way through. What was once a light hearted harem romp is now a ridiculous anime soap opera drama. The main character is terrible, indecisive, and enjoys ruining other peoples lives. Many stereotypical harem leads at least do SOMETHING for the girls in the harem - make their lives a little better, somehow. Rin does nothing. It is frustrating to watch him. The only lead I can consider worse than this guy is that retard off School Days or the guy off Ichigo 100%. Protip: Don't watch those shows either.

The girls are just as frustrating. Their motivations for liking the guy are pretty bland and basic - one of them has a more solid reason that is touched on towards the end of the show. But the girls are unbelievable. They get rejected and cling until the end of the show. All their worries and development is washed away by the finale. They each love the main character because he is 'kind' although to the viewer he is very obviously a loser.

Do you enjoy ecchi? I guess you might enjoy Shuffle. The sluttiness in this show is laser guided. Whether it's an alternate personality, little sister character with see-through top or crazy ass yandere that just wants to bang, there's a different girl for every taste. There are better harems out there though. Like if it has "harem" listed as a genre it is probably a better show.

Yea, I'm done. Fuck you, Shuffle!

Shuffle! is a classic Supernatural, Harem, Romance, Comedy, Drama that feels fairly average to begin with but it’s full of surprises as you go on. My overall score may be somewhat biased but this show is just truly amazing. ^_^

The story is just your basic harem anime as it follows a male protagonist (Rin Tsuchimi) an average high school boy who lives with his childhood friend Kaede (girl). Of course to make this a harem there are more girls included into the mix (5 in total) and not to forget the all important supernatural element to the show, by adding gods and demons to the ... plot. As the series begins it is your typical Rom/Com with plenty of cute and hilarious moments and heaps of casual fanservice. It is until halfway into the series that the drama kicks in, bringing forth a great deal of heartfelt moments, which will get most viewers all teary eyed and plenty of character developments.

The characters themselves are compelling and fun to watch as they all have something unique about them, including the guys. It’s true that the set-up for the girls is pretty clichéd (childhood friend, eccentric, tsundere, shy girl, loli) but they all bring something special to the story. What’s more amazing is that the male protagonist also brings a great deal to the story, including deep-rooted jealously that all us guys feel whilst watching the series.

The animation quality for Shuffle! was somewhat unique, with its own style and having subtle differences with similar anime. This allows the animation aspect of the show to excel amongst others; with amazing environments, well animated character expressions/emotions and most importantly the superb character designs. One thing I noticed is how most of the characters wear around 5-10 different outfits throughout the series, which is rarely seen in your average harem. It would be perfect but there were instances when the quality of the animation degraded.

On another note the music for the series was great and went well with the mood of the situations (comedy & drama), nevertheless it became somewhat repetitive. At least there were some really good insert songs.

Overall Shuffle! is the epitome of what a harem romance anime should be; one guy + cute girls = a variety of romantic outcomes. The best thing about the show would have to be the characters because they are all developed incredibly well and their actions aren’t always questionable, seeing how it suits their personality. And because the male protagonist isn’t a worthless guy, there are numerous romances and a number of possibilities. The series managed to end well without relying on too many clichés. So in the end this is a classic series that most romance anime fans would enjoy.

^_^

Demons, Gods & Humans. Five beautiful Girls & One Guy. The story of 6 lives, filled with jealousy & hope as well as with hope & joy.

At first I was hesitating to watch this series but it provided a lot of fun for me. The story didn't become boring either due to the fact that you get to know more and more of everyone's personality, character and history.

:: Story ::
When I read about this series and noticed that Gods and Demons play a roll in such a rather typical human environment like school life, I was doubting if I would enjoy watching it. But I ... did. And that's because the story line is not just a straight line from the beginning to the end. There were moments I was surprised about, moments I laughed my butt off, and moments I couldn't really believe what I saw and heard. If you aren't too biased about the scheme you will enjoy the story, I'm sure. It's simply not an action packed anime. Rather a calm and funny one. Yet, you might find yourself surprised sometimes - just like I did.
~8 out of 10~

:: Animation ::
It's simply beautiful. The Characters, the environment, little details like water and leaves look great as well. Very nice art.
~9 out of 10~

:: Sound ::
Haha~. Certain Character's ways of speaking still put a smile on my face. There's not much to say about sound - I didn't have the impression that there was anything that sounded not like it's supposed to.
~8 out of 10~

:: Character ::
Each Character is different. They are all beautiful and have their ups and downs.
~9 out of 10~

:: Enjoyment ::
I would have dropped it if I didn't enjoy it. But instead, I enjoyed every single episode and was always looking forward to watching the next one. This anime will get a special place in my collection - but maybe that's just because I'm into these kind of shows.
~9 out of 10~

:: Overall ::
As I said, this anime is special to me. I'm really glad I decided to watch it and will surely check out the 'sequel' -"Shuffle! Memories"- as well.
~9 out of 10~

*I know it's a rather short review, but it's also my first one so bear with me. I'll do my best to write better ones in the future.*

Originality in harem anime is an oxymoron. It simply doesn't exist anymore nor will it ever exist again. Shuffle! is the same, but despite all odds, it manages to put a few chinks in the chain of mediocrity with some suprirsing twists.

Unfortunately for potential viewers, Shuffle's raison d'etre won't make it's presence known until a little more than halfway into the series. Until then, enjoy a plauge of mindless expositional filler, all for the sake of seeing under every girl's skirt. Yes, even the loli's. This curse comes with a gift though in that the series progresses with an ambiguous nature toward who our hapless ... harem hero will eventually end up with. Then, when the twists kick in the series manages to redeem the crap it's put you through up to then. That is, unless you're already fed up with it. In which case, it won't matter much.

This relatively bland narrative is naturally helmed by a gaggle of too-good-to-be-true jailbait. While some of the girls are somewhat interesting (especially when you know everything about them), they are for the most part harem stereotypes.

The animation is nothing spectacular. Being standard harem fare, it's only right the animation be mediocre as well. It's rough and choppy in places where a lot of action occurs, which tends to make some of the best scenes rather ugly. My biggest concerns though are the backgrounds. They look like standard H-game background frames. No attempt at being anything other than mediocre here.

The sound is pretty lackluster as well, like it took about an hour and a half to compose and it was all recorded through a synthesizer.

It's definitely not a must-see but there were definitely points that made me feel like what I was watching wasn't an entire waste of my time. Since Shuffle!, all generic harems are following its lead and attempting some dark twists to make them more interesting. If you're in it for the dark twists, it's worth a look. But if you're in it for panty shots, you're more likely to come out a little happier than others.

Overall, I give Shuffle! a 6 out of 10.

I just had to write a review on how disappointment I was in the time i wasted on Shuffle!

Story - 1

Some out there (like the small amount of posts on the forum) seem to have liked the story.. But seriously it is so full of plot holes and terrible planning I can't begin to explain. Some of you have actually seen this may see this as a total hate, but honestly it isn't. The beginning episodes got me into the show - and I really only stayed for the humor and the princesses (I liked there personalities - they were a little too overcharged emotionally ... but they had nice differences). Sadly the humor completely dies off - no real reason (The hilarious fan clubs just stop..).

The story arcs are sadly very underused. There was honestly so much potential that could have been utilized in the story... instead it's all wasted on stupid emotional charges and of course the large amount of echii (I'd be lieing if I said I hated Echii -_^). I could go on and on.. but seriously it's not worth the time waste.. there are so many plot holes where characters disappear as if they died and later resurrect, and without spoiling anything, IT JUST MAKES NO FREAKING SENSE!.

Art- It was pretty well done, it never bothered me.

Sound - The music was so-so, it helped at some parts that were too overcharged with fake emotion.

Character- The main character is awful, he is just the single worst Anime character I have ever come across. He has literally no personality, they make you believe he might gain some, but never does, instead to me he is a total jerk. If you somehow decide to watch this - you will quickly realize that. That said, it managed to gain a 5 because the girl characters all had fairly different personalities. While a certain someone is my least liked of the girls - ahh s - it was still not too bad. The princesses are appealing in the sense of who they actually are - not the pathetically crafted love for Rin.

Primula (what a terrible name) is easily one of the most adorable/lovable anime characters I have run across... it's just something about her that would make one want to do anything to protect her. She is honestly the only TRULY bright light of wasting time on Shuffle!

Enjoyment - First 10 eps or so were pretty enjoyable for the comedy.. which is sadly what got me to continue watching hoping it would return in full force.. It's obvious my stance. The rest of the eps become so pathetically overcharged with fake emotions, story lines and ridiculous drama, so ridiculous I view it as a really lame joke.

Overall - 1. I understand a 1 really isn't all that fair, I truly do. However the amount of plot holes, missing dialogues, fake emotions, ridiculous drama, terrible main character and numerous other flaws have led me to hate this so much as to be the worst Anime I've ever watched. Given my rage is a little reflected from wanting it to be good - I guess thats a redeeming quality. However I don't play into the "Oh for being based off a H-Game its pretty good" is just weak. Honestly I just hope I save at least one person from wasting time on this. Please do not understand my review as being subjective - Unless you're really itching for some heavy Echii (Yes, Nudity and explicit shots are aplenty - pointless even) then move on... just move on.

This is a review for the first volume (disc) of Shuffle! It was so bad that I just had to say something about it, so here it is. :P there are spoilers BUT you will be warned before i get to them

- Story -

This anime is about a regular Japanese high school boy who lives with a girl who is his childhood friend in his house. I'm not even going to mention their names because that is how forgettable they are...

She makes food for him every day and has been doing this since they were kids it seems. The twist to this show is ... that Heaven and Hell have connected to our mortal realm in the middle, and now people from heaven and hell are immigrating to our dimension. The only visual aspect of these other-worldly beings is their ears (they don’t have clichés like horns or wings). People from Heaven have pointy ears that point up, and people from Hell have longer pointy ears that hang down. Surprisingly the people from heaven don’t act like goody-goodies and the people from hell don’t act evil, they all act like any normal human. They do have magic powers, but this is only shown once in disc 1. The theme of this whole Heaven-and-Hell thing is barely involved in the first episodes, and becomes quickly irrelevant. I do not know if it’s supposed to be subtle or if this is just a lazy move, but it’s leaves me wondering why they even bothered to put it in the plot in the first place if the creators won’t even use this plot device. You won't even get to see what Heaven or Hell looks like (at least for the first 4 episodes), nor will you see anything super-natural except for pointy ears and 1 magical attack (at least for the first 4 episodes).

The main ''protagonist'' boy gets two new neighbors: God and Lucifer. God and Lucifer act like normal people and are even good friends. They both have an only-child-daughter. The daughter of God and the daughter of Lucifer have encountered the main character boy on one occasion when they were all very little. The guy was kind to them one time, and they’ve both had a crush on him ever since. Now God and Lucifer are offering the guy their daughters to marry him so that he may become the next king of either Hell or Heaven, and so he is stuck with this choice of which girl he wants to be with. There is also a very little girl who has come to Earth from Hell. This little girl named Prim has heard all about how nice the guy was (one time) to Lucifer’s daughter, so she likes him too. However, he completely ignores this huge choice he has to make, and decides to try to live his life normally. He gets annoyed when anything interferes with his normal life. He's kind of a jerk.

The guy doesn’t seem all that interested in girls. He’s got something like 5 girls who want him but he doesn’t care at all. He has no interest in girls. I swear something is wrong with him. His super-perverted friend is envious of his position.

There are a lot of things that bother me about this anime… One thing that bothers me about Shuffle! is that the main character guy is portrayed by the director as a ‘nice guy’, but he expects the girl he lives with to cook for him everyday and a whole bunch of other stuff, and she obeys. If she doesn’t do a good job then she feels guilty and he is disappointed. At one point he thinks to himself something along the lines of, “I feel kind of bad not helping her out with the housework and cooking…,” but instead he decides to continue sitting on the couch (literally). That is the only single moment he even considers helping her out with stuff. I think she even cleans his whole freakin house.

I have no idea why these girls like this guy besides him being nice to them 1 time years ago, and the fact that he looks like every average anime boy. He has no skills, no hobbies, no interesting past, no talents; he's just a guy. That's the only way I can describe him; just a guy. Perhaps he has no traits because the creators of the show wanted a blank slate that male viewers can use to feel ''in-the-show'', but the reason why the girls want him still eludes me....

Whoever made this show has a twisted perspective of the world, and thinks that what defines a ''nice guy'' is a guy who looks average, acts average, has no brains, expects women to do his bidding and [SPOILERS] is allowed to punch his best friend in the gut with all his might (really happens in first episode).

[SPOILERS] Let me elaborate on that ''punching'' thing. The guy and girl are walking to school. The guy opens the door to the classroom and his best friend jumps out and embraces the guy, thinking he is the girl as he shouts her name. The guy then punches his best friend in the gut with a great amount of force as a shock-wave can be heard and seen votrexing out from his best friend's back. This is portrayed as a comic relief, but I wasn't laughing... Anyways...

Since this guy has so many girls wanting him, there are armies of perverted creeps who are jealous of him. I’m not exaggerating, there are literally hundreds of perverted guys who stalk him and try to abduct him and/or kill him in mob-formation, and they insult him every chance they get. They come out to ambush him at his school and in the streets, and chase him. They are in stereotypical ‘manly’ groups like jocks or delinquents, etc. They are in every episode I’ve seen and they freak me out. They also stalk the girls once in a while, peeking up the skirt of Lucifer’s daughter at one point. This makes me sick. They are drawn with ugly faces and creepy expressions.

The girls don’t seem to mind the competition of one-another, as if this guy is soooo great that he is worth the self-esteem they have to put aside for him. [SPOILER YOU SHOULD READ] One episode is about a picnic that the group is planning. The girls all want to cook a meal to impress the guy. However, the daughter of the Devil doesn’t know how to cook and is feeling worthless. The guy tries to reassure her, but instead of saying something encouraging like “Don’t worry, it’s the thought that counts,” or, “I don’t need a fancy meal or material objects to know that you care about me,” instead he says something along the lines of, “I’m sure you’ll make a great meal for me.” He says this with a smile. I was like, wtf? What an ass. And so they have their picnic and he expects to eat all the girls’ food that they made for him.

One of the only things I liked about this show was [SPOILERS] the comic relief that the daughter of God brings to the show. Whenever God says embarrassing things about his daughter, she somehow appears behind him with the nearest heavy/sharp object and hits him over the head with it, knocking him out. She then drags him home. I thought this was hilarious.


- Art Style -

The characters’ faces are drawn in a subtlety unique style that I have not seen before. For example, the girls in Air TV and Kanon have an identical style to how their faces are drawn, but I have not seen the faces of Shuffle! anywhere else.

The animation is average, meaning it’s not so great that I noticed it, but it’s not so bad that I noticed it either. It’s meh. Nothing to note here in animation quality, background paintings or graphic quality.


- Final Score -

This anime is extremely shallow, the girls are dumb and the main character guy is a free-loading jerk. He doesn’t do anything to make him a jerk, but it’s what he Doesn’t do: he doesn’t care about the girls almost at all; he doesn’t feel guilt for not helping the girls with things like housework or food preparation or hurting their feelings; and he doesn’t show any sincere compassion or deep thoughts (this guy’s head is totally empty). The story is just about a bunch of girls wanting some guy who was nice to them on 1 occasion, years prior. The whole Heaven and Hell thing barely exists in the story in the beginning, and is completely unimportant after a few episodes. If you want to see hot anime chicks then by all means watch it, but that’s all this anime is: hot anime chicks, nothing more or less. [Shuffle! in a nutshell: a bunch of girls like some guy and he doesn’t care, and they don't care that he doesn't care.]

Worst of all (and the thing that horrifies me the most) is that this show takes itself seriously!

For the unique cute faces of the girls and the comic relief of God’s daughter, I can only give this anime a Horrible score of 1/10 (a generous score imo). Those are the only things keeping me from giving this 0/10.


If you're a female with self-respect, or if you're a male who respects females, I would NOT recommend this anime for you. On the contrary, I'd tell you to stay away from it. It's grotesque. It's disgusting. It's degenerate. I hate to offend fans of this show but it's hard to deny what the show is trying to impose on its audience, which is ''Women belong in the kitchen.'' If you're into that, regardless of your gender, then by all means, don't let my review dampen your spirits. It's just my (strong) opinion :P

However, if you're a female who wants to cook, clean, etc. for your man who doesn't show you any affection, or if you're a male who thinks females should cook, clean, etc. for you without any obligation, then this anime is Definitely for you.


Granted, I only reviewed episodes 1-4 so there might be things in later episodes that contradict my review, but come on, the first episodes were a hugely distasteful first impression, and 4 episodes goes beyond giving the benefit of the doubt. This show has told me what it's about and I'm dropping it. It got it's chance, and I even gave it the benefit of the doubt by going all the way to episode 4.


It's shows like Shuffle! that give anime a bad name, and allows mainstream media to politically attack otaku culture as vulgar and in poor moral taste.

Shuffle is a harem anime with a mix of Angels and Demons, that really peaks ones interests... at first.

The anime starts off innocently enough, theres the required single male character, and a plethora of female leads who all want him to be theirs. Typical Harem stuff. One of the girls is a childhood friend, one is a mutual friend of him and the childhood friend, one is the daughter of the king of the demons, one is the daughter of the king of the angels, and one is an off limits loli choice with a spoiler background.

During the first half of the series or so ... the show is typical in its course of harem, having funny situations with the occasional serious bit of romance going on.

Then the main character makes his choice as too which girl he likes.

The other girls don't take it so well, with one of them becoming mentally unbalanced due to his choice. The series rapidly falls from typical yet funny, to overly emotional and bad. I do like some emotion in my anime, but when the conflict between characters becomes so over the top that that actually attack one another... in a romance anime? No thank you.

Overall, it had a decent begging, but a horrible ending that killed it. If it went on as it was in the begging, I couldn't foresee anything special happening that would have pushed it up to being a stand out anime, it was forced to be one of the average rated harems for all time, but then it had to go and mess that up on itself, ending up on the bad side of things.

I'd say most of us have better things to watch.

The show starts as usual with introduction of the female candidates from Rins point of view, Rin is the narrator giving their opinion on the characters and development along the way. At the start there will be plenty of ecchi and school comedy like any other Harem but Shuffle! is much more then that, soon more girls are introduced and a couple episodes later the dark pasts start to be uncovered and, as we learn more about the girls the show changes into a more dramatic development, not everything is happy and Rin always being kind and helpful tries to help everyone solve their problems ... and make them happy.
The indecision last for most of the show as usual but the episodes are used to give the viewer a deep understanding of each girl, their personality and traits are fully explored and explained.
The character development is long but well constructed and even Rin develops so expect changes and a decision towards the end. Both the comedy and ecchi scenes are very good separating right away Shuffle! from your standard harem, the beauty of this show lies in the development and the strong emotional load although, the characters are interesting and as mentioned, the development is very good, the change into a dramatic plot, featuring dark pasts and some of the stronger sad moments I ever watched is a fresh breeze in this genre. Its also easy to fall in love with the charismatic characters.
The girls and the clothing are expertly drawn, all beautiful, fit perfectly composing a cheerful environment.
The soundtrack is another plus, the music accompanies and leads the situations portrayed not only as a complement but defining the scenes and taking them to another level. The opening and ending is of the best I have seen and blends right in.


As a side note Shuffle! was based from an hentai game, a non hentai version was also launched for ps2.
This is the king of the Harem style, technically superb and featuring interesting characters and plot Shuffle! defines its own style carrying great scenes in several genres: romantic, ecchi, comedy and drama, the character development is good and everything together makes it stand out from the crowd and shining on his own merit. If you like strong dramatic scenes this show will specially interest you, features some of the best I ever seen.
It immediately became one of my personal favorites of all time, I never dreamed a ecchi comedy could ever reach such high quality overall and Im afraid my words alone aren't enough to display its beauty.
The only negative aspect I can possibly squeeze is the first half of the show which episodes are only "normal" ecchi harem style and may discourage the viewers to continue watching.
The ending also feels a little light but that's just because its right after some really heavy dramatic scenes and you pretty much know who he ends up with a couple episodes before, so despite being a good end pales a bit next to the episodes right before it.

I personally am a sucker for tragedy so I might overrate it a bit but it was so unexpected that hit me that hard. Must watch if your into drama or like me eager for an ecchi harem with deeper content.

-Story

The story takes place in an alternate reality where people from the world of the gods and world of the demons can live together in peace in the world of the humans. It revolves around the main character named Rin who is a 17 year old high school student who just happens to be an inexplicable stud that girls can’t seem to get enough of. One day two attractive female students show up at Rin’s school to confess their love to him. Sia and Nerine are the princesses of the world of the gods and the world of the demons, respectively. Each girl fell ... in love with Rin when they were young children who traveled to the world of the humans for a day. There are three others girls in the mix for winning Rin’s heart and this is what sets up the premise of the series.

The first eleven episodes are what you’d expect from a typical harem anime. The girls are each trying to win Rin over and there is a nice amount of comedy involved. The series starts off fairly entertaining but does a complete 180 about halfway through. This is where things get bad. The series decides to get serious out of nowhere and the scenario leading to this serious tone is completely random and not well explained. I won’t go into detail to avoid spoilers, but this is the only time we get a glimpse into the world of the demons. Just a brief look into a secluded laboratory residing in the that world.

Shuffle introduced us to the interesting concept of various worlds but the idea is completely abandoned for no good reason. It would have been great to explore both worlds and see what makes them unique and how the gods and the demons live and interact with each other in their own environment. Unfortunately, we get no insight into these worlds. Other than being a polygamous society, which is mentioned countless times, we know nothing about the gods or their world and we get very little information about the demon world as well. One of the things that set apart demons and gods from humans is their ability to use magic which is hardly ever explored and only used two or three times.

Eventually the first serious predicament comes to a resolution, which is achieved with no explanation and things just “go back to normal.” The series then goes back to a more light-hearted nature for a couple of episodes and resumes the girls pursuit of Rin. However, most of the girls are literally thrown on the back burner from the get-go. Rin makes his decision out of nowhere and his choice is certainly unexpected. Shortly after the serious tone comes back into play. More random revelations lead to a bunch of drama that eventually results in a terrible ending.

-Characters

Sia is the princess of the gods. She has a bubbly and playful personality, but packs a mean punch. Her reasons for falling in love with Rin are about as stupid as they come. One day when she was nine (approx. 8 years ago) she got lost in the human world where she ran into Rin who played with her and helped her find her way home. Of course it makes sense to fall madly in love with a kid you’ve met once when you were nine, so naturally you would leave your own world to confess your love and marry this stranger. Sia is a likable character but her personality is one-dimensional and her reasons for loving Rin are straight up senseless.

Nerine is the princess of the demons. She’s very introverted and has a shy and innocent personality. She fell in love with Rin for very similar reasons as Sia, however, thanks to one of the random revelations in the latter half of the series her reasons for loving Rin are even more illogical than Sia’s. Ultimately, Nerine is a dry character who contributes little to the story and is often shoved to the side and forgotten.

Kaede is Rin’s roommate and childhood friend. After Kaede loses her mother and Rin loses both parents in a car accident, that occurred when they were kids, Kaede’s father takes Rin in and they’ve lived together ever since. Kaede is the most dull character in the series and one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Her only reason for living is to take care of Rin who clearly has no interest in her and often treats her like crap. She rarely displays any emotion outside of the occasional whimpering for Rin and has the personality of a rock. I think they want you to fell sorry for her but I find it very hard to feel sorry for a character who is so dense and emotionless. Later in the series her personality takes a massive turn. I won’t give anything away but the transition is out of the blue and made me go from feeling indifferent to her character to flat-out disliking her. But of course she just snaps back to her old dull self like nothing happened later on.

I don’t have much to say about Primula. She’s a cute and likable character but she possesses little in terms of personality and feels like a supporting character with little to add to the series (other than the random turning point).

Asa is my personal favorite. Her personality is similar to Sia’s, bubbly and energetic, and she seems to have the most genuine reasons for liking Rin. She displays a wide range of emotions and receives the most character development. However, the stubbornness and sheer stupidity that she displays in the last couple of episodes is quite annoying.

Finally we’ve got our main protagonist, Rin! Rin has a dull personality, he’s extremely indecisive, and is often an asshole to girls. He often leads the girls on and then displays random spurts of affection that come off as disingenuous. Rin is, simply put, a terrible lead character.

There are some supporting characters as well. Two of them are the king of the gods and the king of the demons, Sia’s and Nerine’s dads, respectively. Both of the dads add great comedic relief to the series but, unfortunately, after the first eleven episodes they’re almost completely forgotten. Itskui is the typical pervert who is Rin’s best friend and also does a fair job of adding some comedy to the series. Itskui’s sidekick Thyme is the “flat-chested” girl who is always keeping Itskui in check and one of the few females in the series who isn’t head-over-heels for Rin.

-Art & Animation

Nothing to write home about.

-Sound

Average at best. The opening is pretty good.

-Overall

Shuffle had some potential. It took a unique approach to the Harem genre by taking a very serious tone to the series. Its also one of the few Harem anime that results in the protagonist actually choosing a girl to date. However, it abruptly switches gears from a light-hearted comedy to a serious drama. The transition is random and alarming. I don’t mind it going in this direction and as I mentioned its actually a unique and an unexpected approach to the genre. Unfortunately the plot becomes convoluted and relies heavily on unreasonable events, poor character development, and random shock value. There are countless plot holes and interesting concepts that were introduced in the beginning of the series are abandoned and never revisited. Most of the characters take a backseat to Rin and the girl that he chooses halfway through the series and any vested interest in those other characters is gone with the wind. The last few episodes crank up the drama to full-blast and in true Shuffle fashion slams on the breaks and delivers an ending that feels random and out-of-place.

-Final Verdict

I give this series a 4 out of 10.

It would be hard for me to recommend this series, but if you have a lot of free time on your hands and want to watch an unconventional harem I guess you can give it a shot. Just remember to keep your expectations very low.

I'll start out my review by saying this is my first review, and it is all my personal opinion, and I wanted to write this review because I find the other reviews to be too optimistic and praising of this somewhat mediocre anime.

That said, lets begin the review of Shuffle!

Story - 6/10
Shuffle! is a Harem/Romance series mostly, and although it has an ecchi tag it's only minor, and the fanservice is very limited. (Honestly, I've seen more fanservice in non-ecchi series.) In the beginning of the story, the main character gets introduced to a couple of girls who want to be with him, and so ... the average harem story begins. The first 18 or so episodes, it's very unoriginal and actually quite boring to watch, and only after that it gets "serious". I can't really say what happens without spoilering it, but this arc in the story is pretty good and there's plenty of suffering. However, this does not change the fact that the first 18 or so episodes were absolutely horrible and the fact that I gave the anime a 7 is thanks to this last arc. Without this last arc, it would probably be a 5 or even lower. So it is worth it to grind your way through the first part of the anime.
Sure, there is character developement but it's nothing major or groundbreaking and it's also quite vague why all those girls like the main character. (Seriously, liking someone because he played with you one time eight years ago?)
There's also this story of the world being linked with the word of Gods and Devils, but this is very forgettable and it seems like the only reason they added this was to have girls with pointy elf ears. Only one time in the story these linked worlds are actually apparant, and it's not even something great or cool, they just go there for one episode and it's never mentioned again.

Art - 7/10
Although it's not really my taste (I like the more modern anime style more) it's pretty good but nothing outstanding.

Sound - 7/10
Nothing too special here either, the voice actors were pretty okay and they fit their character. OP/ED were not noteworthy, background music was okay.

Character - 8/10
The fact that I gave it an 8/10 does not mean all characters are good and well developed. I'll start by saying the most negative things; the "God" and "Devil" characters are complete retards who do nothing noteworthy the entire story, and are only there for comic relief. How people like that came to be the King of Gods/Devils is impressive. The main character is also very dense but near the end of the story he gets his act together and actually does some good things.
Now there's the girls, the daughter of God and the daughter of the Devil are your average MC-liking girls, and while they do have somewhat of a backstory, it's nothing that develops the story in any way (or interesting).
The girl who lives with the main character, Fuyou Kaede is very kind and has a somewhat interesting backstory. There's also the energetic Senpai who is deadly ill, and while she can recover any time she wants, she doesn't want to for some reason which is never explained. (I can't elaborate without spoilering, just watch it and judge.)
There's also the usual perverted friend, and for some reason every boy in the school is out to kill the main character just because they like his girls too.
Overall, this show has some good and really bad characters. Most girls are likable too and in my opinion the best one won, but I feel bad for the one who mainly lost.

Enjoyment - 6/10
I honestly do not know why I kept watching this anime. As I've said, the first 18 or so episodes are absolutely horrible and only after that the story gets good. I kept watching with the hope of something interesting happening, and to my enjoyment the last story arc was pretty interesting.

Overall - 7/10
Shuffle! is an allright anime. The first 18 episodes are just horrible and unoriginal while the episodes following are interesting and good. I can not recommend this anime to anyone, unless you have the time and patience to watch through the first 18 episodes and get rewarded with an allright/good-but-not-excellent last arc. The story ends with a winning girl, but a potential season 2 hint is also included (although eight years later they probably won't make another season).
The part about Gods and Devils adds absolutely nothing to the story and there is little Ecchi to speak about. If I were to name the genres for this anime they would probably be ["School", "Drama", "Romance", "Harem"].

This anime isn't good and isn't bad. I honestly have to say that it's in between in terms of what they did right and wrong with this series.

First of all, making an anime series based off a visual novel is definitely a difficult thing to pull off, especially a visual novel with "explicit" content. Not only do you have to somehow incorporate each character into the story, whereas in visual novels it typically focuses on just one character, there's the ending where the main character eventually ends up with only one girl.

This usually throws off the entire idea of a visual novel where you ... control the character and the choices he makes.

To start off this review, let's go over the plot of this anime.

The story evolves around a typical visual novel character named Rin Tsuchimi. He's indecisive, fairly dense, moderate in terms of looks and talent, and of course a lot of girls that are in love with him.

Rin's parents died when he was very young, and moved in with Kaede and her father. Although he was never officially adopted, they still live under the same roof.

Rin lives in a world where the angel's realm and the demon's realm met up with the human realm, and they all started living together because we all love peace.

When he turns seventeen, however, he meets two girls who are the princesses of their realm. There's Sia of the angel realm and Nerine of the demon realm. Each met him when they were only nine years old and he helped them when they were lost in the human realm. Now that they are of age to marry, they both choose Rin as the most suitable candidate.

Of course, there are a lot of other girls in this anime who fall in love with Rin, and in the end there can only be one. Who did he choose out of the girls that were in love with him?

Well, I'm not going to give off any spoilers, but I'll break it down for you as much as I can without giving too much away. And this is the part of the anime where I review what was good and what was bad.

First of all, the comedy in this anime is perfect. Most notably the parts where the king of the angel realm and the king of the demon realm hang out together. That's right, they're best friends.

These two made such an incredible combo, and they could have made an incredible spin-off series just based on these two characters. But alas, we only have the original anime.

Rather than the royal duo (see what I did there), there are a lot of moments where you'll laugh out loud rather out of irony, coincidence, or simple second-hand embarrassment.

However, what truly ruined this anime for me was the character and plot development.

The beginning of the anime seemed like pure filler after the first episode. For the first twelve episodes, there's nothing but comedic relief and a few parts that make you connect to the characters.

It isn't until the second half of the anime where the series tries to create a real story and develop the characters more. Did they pull it off?

Absolutely freakin` not.

The character development was rushed and made absolutely no sense at all.
That, or it completely made you lose hope in the character all together since they turned out to be someone that they're not.

All in all, the character development was overdone, senseless and extremely melodramatic. Not to mention the unnecessary fan service parts. It completely ruined the characters and any hope that I had in the anime.

I can't even begin to talk about the protagonist. All I want to say about him is that he's simply a pathetic human. And if this is really the kind of guy that a "perfect" girl will fall head over heals for, then there is no more hope for humanity.

Remember how I said earlier that there can only be one girl in the end that the main character falls for?

Actually, I can't really say who it is, even though I want to tell you so badly
since there's rules on this site that tell me I can't give off spoilers. But if you
absolutely want to find out, read the first column of this paragraph.

Without spoilers, though, the character which Rin falls for wasn't incorporated into the story that well. In fact, she felt more like a side character rather than the girl Rin should have fell in love with. Again, I refer to this anime's terrible character and plot development.

In conclusion, I now find it easy to believe that any anime that's based off a visual novel, or any echi-style anime. Only a few anime's I know based on a visual novel or a harem setting worked out. One of them is Clannad, but even that anime had a few problems in terms of story development.

I definitely would not recommend this anime. It was a complete disappointment despite it's excellent comedic.

THE VERDICT:

+ Great Comedy
+ Good Animation/music
- Pathetic Lead
- Terrible Character/Plot Development
- Unnecessary Fan Service
- Too Much Filler

SCORE: 3/10

Do Not Watch!

Alright, I'm going to try to hit all of the bases with this review because Shuffle! has a wide range of mixed views and I can see everyone's point on why they did or didn't like it.

Plot: Me being a Fantasy lover, I did enjoy the plot. In Shuffle!, there are two worlds that parallel the human world, the world of the Gods and the world of the Demons. Each ruled by a king, who are actually best friends and each one has a daughter that at one point in their lives, comes to the human word and falls for a guy named Rin (pronounced ... R-EE-N). Both of these girls wish to marry him. With this being a harem anime, there are also many other love interests involved such as the girl Rin lives with and one of his best friends he's known for a long time. They all go to the same high school and they are friends, but each one has individual secrets that are revealed throughout the series.
Since I am not a fan of girls throwing themselves at a guy, but I love the idea of the different worlds, so I gave the plot an 8.

Art: I rated the artwork a 10, because it was original and the characters didn't look anything alike so unlike other anime, it was difficult to get them confused. The art was a ten for me, but the high amounts of fan service was ridiculous and ruined some of the anime for me, but not enough to stop watching it, because the anime itself was original and I wanted to finish it without regrets.

Sound: I have to admit that the opening and ending songs got stuck in my head, so I gave the sound a 10.

Character: This is where many people found that Shuffle! failed many viewers. (I'm trying my best not to include spoilers) Rin himself is surrounded by beautiful girls and each one goes on individual dates with him at one point or another, and yet he never tells any of the girls his feelings. It frustrates many that he is willing to lead girls on with no emotion whatsoever. I myself found it frustrating.

Some of the characters later in the show develop glitches in their personalities that ruins the individuality that I can to love at the beginning of the show. The sweet character turns a complete 180 and turns into an aggressive crazy chick, which I can only compare to School Days (I really didn't like that anime btw). One of the characters that I enjoyed because of her independence turns not only clingy, but slutty as well.
The other characters kept to the personalities that they originally started with. Because of my love for the characters toward the beginning of the show, but the unfortunate let down towards the end, I'd have to give the characters a 6.

Enjoyment and Overall: My love for certain characters throughout the entire series is what kept me going, and I still have to say that it wasn't TERRIBLE, but it doesn't make my top 10 when it comes to characters and outcome. Certain aspects of this show will stay with me and I might even watch the first episode every once in a while or listen to one of the songs now and again.
To summarize it to just a number: 6.5 (rounded up to seven)

I hope you enjoyed my review, thanks for reading!

To start off, I must start by saying that if you are having second thoughts about Shuffle; give it a try. This review also contains spoilers, so beware.

Plot: Shuffle is definetly one of those animes that you can easily predict what will happen next. I found myself scene after scene saying to myself... "OMG SHIT'S GOING DOWN NOW!!! __________ is guna happen next and 9 times out of 10. It happened, However Shuffle makes up for this with it's very amazing character development

Characters: Some of the characters such as Shigure, Asa and Mayumi, Thyme completely make the anime into an amazing comedy. I won't ... reveal any of the scenes because I'm not into spoiling animes.

I understand this review short, (to ur standards maybe poor), and doesn't really go into depth, but to tell you the truth if you looked at my review and said to yourself, "You know what, maybe I will watch this anime and have myself a good laugh and see who Rin chooses in the end."

My goal for this review is to get the reader to make a second decision. If you are thinking about skipping this anime I strongly recommend that you reconsider. Shuffle is full of classic comedy, and i can promise you that you will find it enjoyable. My main inspiration of writing this review is after seeing yet another anime where the main male character falls in love with every single female character that he meets in the harem. To me, that's just like a middle finger to us viewers. Now don't get me wrong, those types of animes are still very enjoyable. However, after a while they do get repetitive and Shuffle is a nice change of pace. I can guarantee that you will like what Shuffle has to offer.

At first, I didn't really want to watch it either. What I loved about this anime is that in the end main character Rin Tsuchimi needs to decide who he wants to spend the rest of his life with. I admire how they dont just end the anime with all of Rin's lovers deciding that they are all going to love him together like in the ending of To Love Ru, Asobi ni Iku Yo!, etc... I tend to dislike the animes that just give up and say, "Hey, let's just make all the girls fall in love with this one guy." Shuffle is different, as I said earlier our main character, Rin, needs to make one of the biggest decisions of his life.

Thanks for reading my review, it's literally my 3rd review and I don't really have much experience. But as long as my short review got some sort of reaction in you then that's what I was aiming for.

Now do us all a favor:
1. Open a nice can of Mountain Dew
2. Turn on your laptop (or if you have a ps3 or Xbox (Netflix) )
3. Watch Shuffle for at least 6 episodes
4. You will definetly get hooked
5. Get another freaking mountain dew
6. Finish Shuffle XD

Story: I've read the sypnosis of Shuffle and I was like "wow!". Then, first few episodes I've seen I was like " gotta be patient, it should get better soon". Exactly at the 20th episode I was like " I should have done my nails instead". The story was so shallow...... yeah shallow couldn't think of a better word to describe it.

Art: Great.. its the only thing that got me to finish the anime.

Character: This is why I had the urge to write a review. I'll start with the protagonist. Fine.. he is kind thats why everybody is going gaga 'bout him ... but his indecisiveness is really lame. I've seen quite a few harem type animes and this is the first one that got me really annoyed about the protagonist. There isnt really a strong force that would make you feel attached to his character. And then the girls.. I guess their characters are fine except for being martyrs.

Enjoyment: I had a fairly good laugh once in awhile.

Overall: Poor. Not a good recommendation to anybody. Well I have to move on now.

The Greatest Show That Everyone Forgot (vLR)-
A full 43,000+ word retrospective that nobody asked for;

Shuffle! is a 2005 anime adaptation of a visual novel by the same name. The anime did decently well in Japan, garnering enough attention to later receive a recap series and in the West receive a good quality dub however has since faded into obscurity, becoming the sort of show that long time anime fans might suggest to you but that is unlikely to come up in general discussion.

This lack of staying power combined with a somewhat mixed reception in the West has left the show in a somewhat unknown possession. ... Few reviews of any real merit exist in video or essay format and most of the ones that do spend large amounts of time being somewhat ironically butt-hurt that their favourite 'Waifu' didn't win, or my favourite review here on Mal ( Which somehow has the most likes for this series), explaining how the show is bad because Rin is indecisive and in doing so completely missing the point of the show but I digress.

Talking all this into consideration I think its high time someone, amateur or otherwise, wrote a half-competent review and analysis of the property (Unfortunately I'm the only person available), one which I personally think is one of the best in its genre, nay, the Evangellion of the Harem high-school, Visual Novel Genre (Try saying that 3 times in a row). Shuffle! as an anime (Which is all we'll be addressing here, not the original visual novel) is packed with layers of visual story telling, animation abuse and fantasy metaphors for real life illness. Its first and foremost a cleverly written and entertaining harem Romcom but secondly is a fascinating deconstruction of the genre it belongs to. It isn't afraid to call out it's audience on topics as delicate as Lolitas, yanderes and even the time honoured 'best girl debate'. Its received unsurprising levels of flack for these bold moves, from people who hate its intentionally flawed main character, to others who think a yandere with a serious Co-Dependency Mental illness deserved to 'win the day'. On the other spectrum you have those who write the show off as "Soap opera Crap" with "Forced drama and conflict".

For this essay I'd like to stand in Shuffle's corner and fight it's side of the debate, hopefully with-out getting tangled up in the semantics of preferable 2D fictional girls and the merits of wish fillment characters to much. Writing this actually proved to be somewhat difficult as how to divide up the various strands of the show and the ridiculous layers of depth can be daunting, as such I'll divide this into segments or 'arcs' and cover characters as we go along and in further depth later on. To anyone still reading this who hasn't seen Shuffle yet, now's your time to bail as heavy spoilers are ahead but take my word for it and go watch Shuffle with an open mind, give it the benefit of the doubt and you just might be pleasantly surprised. I'm aware my usual reviews have a more detailed spoiler free segment but on this occasion all that needs to be said is that this gets my highest of recommendation. If your unconvinced after watching it, feel free to come back and read the rest of this retrospective and if your not convinced after that, shoot me a message and let me know why. Now then without further ado-

****Just a little further ado actually, as Mal seems to dislike me, turns out there's a word cap around the 11,000 mark, as such you'll need to go to my Blog (https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=860551) here on Mal for the rest of the retrospective. With that said, everything that's here will also be there so you may find it easier to read the whole thing over there and if so make sure to hit the 'helpful' button at the bottom of this review segment. Please enjoy.****


Arc 1 - The Fairy-Tail Arc (Ep 1 - 11);
You can divide Shuffle's 24 episode run in multiple different ways either by character or plot but for the sake of this essay we'll call episodes 1 - 11 the 'Fairy-Tail Arc', episodes 12 - 16 the 'Awakening Arc', 17 - 21 'Honest Feelings' and finally ep 22 - 24, the 'Redemption Arc'. These titles are by no means official but should make it easier to categories the various episodes as we go along.

So keeping on topic, the fairy-tail arc has a somewhat self-explanatory name, in the interest of this not becoming one of those monotonous recap reviews, I'll try to keep story breakdown's short where possible. This first arc rapidly introduces us to the world of our story and it's characters. Based in a small Japanese city it becomes quickly apparent most of the setting parallels our own real world bar that after an unknown event, the walls between Earth and what is essentially Heaven and Hell have weakened, allowing for travel and commerce between the 3 worlds. As such we find ourselves in a educational setting where humans, Gods, Demons and hybrid combinations there-in, all attend a generic high-school anime. This in true harem fashion is all conveyed in quick succession within the first episode and clearly left vague for the sake of mimicking other shows in the genre and perpetrating a sense of mystery.

While the world of Shuffle is generally pretty fleshed out, it is seldom the focus, instead that is always on the characters, in fact even the intro song goes to great lengths to reinforce this fact with it opening on a close up of each girl, followed by shot's of the town deserted with no vocals in the background to effectively communicate at the start of every episode that this is a story all about people not places, but more on the title song later.

Moving from this were introduced to our lead players over the course of the first two episodes; Asa Shigure, Nerine, Lisianthus(Cia), Primula, Kaede Fuyo and Rin Tsuchimi, there is also a number of decently fleshed out side characters but again if you've not seen the series and you've read down this far, I'd again advice you finish the show and then come back as this is about as much exposition as I'll be giving out.

With all that table dressing out of the way lets get to it. As mentioned the fairy-tail arc generally requires the least to understand, this isn't to suggest its any less layered then the rest but instead this arc is intentionally written to give the show a solid foundation and set up each of its cast members. The brilliantly natural drama of the shows second core can only function as well as it does due to the leg work put in by this first arc. The arc also does a marvellous job of foreshadowing for future events which can make rewatchs of said episodes feel like an Easter egg hunt as you try to spot all the tell-tale signs the show lays out to hint at its true direction and intent. I won't spend to much time on the episode's of this first arc as I'm sure I'll reference them in more detail during more specific character breakdowns, however I will draw a few scenes to your attention now as I feel it helps better with understanding character themes we'll be referencing a lot later.

Ep-04-Egg Omelette of Happiness;
With-in this episode we get a microcosm of what's to come. During it we see Nerine attempt and learn to cook an omelette for Rin to show him her affections. Straight away we start to see an interesting transgression in the show's portrayal of architypes. If your unaware Shuffle's characters do actually qualify for the general stereotypes of anime romcoms, this is more obvious for some then others, for example Primula's physical appearance makes her the clear Lolita type, meanwhile Nerine seems to be a obvious DereDere at the series open ( With Asa - Tsundere, Kaede - Yandere and Cia as the Tomboy { Sometimes more recently tomboys have been refers to as 'Bakadere' } ) however Nerine straight away shows one of the core beliefs of the show, the characters are people first before tropes.

In Nerine's case we see this in her inability to bake and her somewhat pampered upbringing. Generally the DereDere type is highly devoted (often for shaky reasoning) a great cook, a competent homemaker, of a quiet disposition and usually will be the least aggressive girl of the harem. But like we said the whole episode's premise revolves around Nerine not being able to cook and we see on multiple occasions that she's hopeless at housework. Non of this is to say that Nerine isn't a DereDere but to simply reinforce the fact that the show in each of its character's premises is already going against standard anime conventions.

Now with all those traits in mind lets go back to episode 4 where we see Nerine in the cooking club room attempting to...cook. She cuts herself with the kitchen knife only for Asa to enter the room, she immediately produces a plaster from her pocket and helps out Nerine with her cut finger. After some quick consoling, Nerine asks for tutoring. In the following ten seconds the show manages to tell us everything we need to know about both characters in a matter of frames. Asa shows herself to be an experienced chef, at home in the kitchen and even more important are her motherly tendencies. Despite only being vague acquaintances at this stage in the story, Asa immediately goes to help and furthermore carries plasters clearly for similar accidents with other underclass-mates (we know she at least also taught Keade) rather then for herself.

Meanwhile Nerine is shown to be reserved and shy, unwilling to initially ask for help. She's somewhat naïve in her thinking and clearly a little clumsy. This goes further thanks to their clothing, as will talk about more as we go, clothing is often used to show development or as literary short hand throughout the story, here its used to quickly establish the duos relationship with the kitchen and to reflect parts of their personality. Nerine's apron is 'girly pink' and frilly, I'd go as far as to say ill-fitting. It reminds us of her status as a princess and her baking in-aptitude, meanwhile Asa wears a plain green well-fitted apron with no frills in sight. Aside from being colour-coded to her hair, it represents her level-headed no nonsense attitude and practical, motherly nature. This is all wonderful visual characterization.

The first arc is full of subtle moments like these that help to further develop and make for sufficient short form character growth, we could talk about these at length but the point in hand is to illustrate how the show with quiet visual ques and minimal dialogue, conveys its character traits and habits in a natural way which seems a far cry from more modern anime's blunt approach. Putting this short scene aside the episode also has another scene that greatly helps to illuminate another important staple of shuffle, its double ended foreshadowing.

This comes at the end of the episode where Nerine re-confirms her devotion to Rin and is seemingly the obvious conclusion to the episode, except as becomes apart later on, this scene takes on a whole new meaning after it's echoed in ep15. When Nerine says "Is it ok if I fall in love with you" she is essentially realizing for the fist time her own feelings, as up until this point she was simply pursuing Rin out of a survivors guilt complex towards her twin/clone sister Lycoris. While we can't know it first time round, this line acts as an early clue that the Nerine we know isn't all she seems. This is further compounded by the fact that where Cia constantly references her childhood memories of Rin, Nerine comparatively rarely does this and while this initially seems due to their disproportionate screen-time, on a rewatch this line makes far more, almost tragic sense.

The first arc is littered with foreshadowing like this to come, another example of both the above topics from episode 4, presents itself in-

Ep-09-Survival at the beach;
Here we see what will soon become standard fare for Rin, when, while believing himself and Cia to be stranded offshore and under attack by a wild animal, Rin offers in an altruistic fashion to stay behind and buy Cia time to run away. On the surface this seems like the right thing to do and you'd be forgiven for initially thinking as such, however the prevailing theme of Rin's arc is that doing what seems socially right rather then what's actually best for the person in question isn't always for the best. Will see this in a far more important way during the Awakening and Honest Feelings Arcs but Rin's short-sighed thinking is a recurring cause of hurt for the whole cast. Using the example as outlined above, what would Cia do if she did run? Ankle injured and seemingly marooned on an island, without Rin her chances of survival seem slim but more then that emotionally speaking she would surely be distraught and the real important thing is in actuality neither of those two factors. Rin's self sacrifice idea is bad because its not what Cia wants, she wants to be with him, weather that's deserted alone on an island or to die to some terrible wild beast, all she wants from him is his companionship, which in the moment Rin can't see.

That's far from all that could be said about episode 9, the fact alone that Rin and Cia temporarily find themselves in an Adam and Eve type situation while a heavenly choir sings in the background is probably worth a more detailed discussion but for our purposes, this first example of Rin's misplaced altruism is the important feature of the episode.


Aside from that there isn't to much more to draw particular attention to in the shows opening act that we won't bring up later in a more in-depth look at each character. I'd be remiss not to at-least mention the first 8 episodes wonderful display of a short arc for each character, ep 11's well placed comedic break for background character development and of course anime's best long running joke, the KKK ( Not the guys in sheets, the 'Knights of Kissy Kaede' ) who are rather appropriately phased out more and more in the second act as the show's tone begins to darken.

One final note on the first arc for the time-being would be to mention the shows use of the traditional Japanese family unit. As the whole arc revolves around setting up an idyllic world, where you, the stand-in protagonist is surrounded by attractive girls and magic as well as fun, wacky adventures, we also have a family unit to add to that fantasy. Que Kaede and Primula, who become a comfortable stand in for Rin's adoring housewife and well-mannered daughter. The show paints the trio expertly as an almost make believe young family, while always making sure to use enough Dutch camera angels and cut away shots to remind us how unrealistic this found family really is. This comes to ahead in the aptly named-

Ep-06-Smile!
This episode is Primula's spotlight moment, like Ep4 was for Nerine. It revolves around exploring this newfound family dynamic and starts to hint at Primula's true nature. Primula is an interesting one and will discuss her far more when addressing arc 2 but it should suffice to say her deadpan architype is a mirror for Ruri Hoshino who is in turn a homage to Rei Ayanami who is... well you get the picture, like in those shows and long before the likes of 'Heavens Lost Property' would re-popularize it, the episode revolves around Primula's lack of emotions and an almost inability to smile. I must say its one of the shows strengths that they get this part of her character established so quickly and don't feel the need to linger on the smiling thing for to long and while its most probably a coincidence, this being ep 6 is the same episode in which Evangelion's Rei first smiles but I once more digress.

The episode also heavily features Keade (and Rin but that's the case for all episodes bar 11), which is logical considering her surrogate mother status. Kaede in these early episodes more accurately fits the childhood friend or DereDere architypes better then any other, thought we see fairly frequent foreshadowing for her impending breakdown, epically in some rather chilling scenes during episodes 5 and 10. All in all though will address her more in her own arc as her role is mostly secondary in ep 6.

As mentioned the episode deals with Primula, first off showing us some brilliantly simple cinematography where during school hours we see that Primula essentially wonders Rin/Kaede's home as thought she were little more then a ghost. These quick cuts start with a skewed top view of Primula walking towards the camera, looking minuscule in the house's large porch area. They move to a short montage of shots showing her moving along hallways and the kitchen. The lack of music and the stationary camera lend this scene an eerie feeling as it becomes increasingly clear what the shows trying to say. When Keade and Rin aren't home there's no funny comedy skit or secret hobby that Primula takes part in, she just exists. Like a doll or lingering spirit she simply stops being relevant without the presence of the others.

The show further hammers this home when we see Primula aimlessly channel hoping on the Tv, her reflection prevailing through the images of flamboyant Japanese daytime programming, the shows are hollow, devoid of soul, manmade for a shallow purpose, simply thoughtless entertainment. And then she turns off the telly and the shot lingers for an uncomfortably long length on her face's reflection on the Tv's screen. If you still haven't picked up on the metaphor, the show has one more image in its toolbox as it shows Primula 'Playing' with her cat doll, its held up in front of her so that the sunlight shines through the window on to it. It's illuminated while she's covered in the shadows of the dimly lit room. The light on the doll is representative of how to Primula it means 'Love', her only keep sake of Lycoris or anyone for that matter, while meanwhile her being in the dark reminds us (at-least on rewatchs) that she's unnatural, inhuman and unloved. She stares at the doll not like an imaginary friend but as though she expects it to prove her very existence, all tieing into her characters theme of neglect.

Now following this we get a somewhat controversial set of scenes including a partially nude Primula and a laundry shopping scene. There's actually a lot that can be talked about here and in terms of the morality and appropriateness of the scenes, will talk in greater detail on that when we address the show's theme of 'Maturity in Nudity' (Catchy little title am I right?) but to give some surface level thoughts and clarifications on it, Primula is not a 'loli', least not in the modern or traditional senses of the word. By the end of the show she has become one but especially in the story's early stages, she's clearly meant to be a child first and foremost and as such Rin repeatedly expresses a lack of interest in her romantically (Even after ep 15 this doesn't seem to change much at all). The langerae shopping scene is really quite mundane and by anime standards markedly tame, additionally the idea of people dressing kids up as "mini-mes" is by no means exclusive to Japan and if anything is used to show how much of an outsider Primula is to the group and how uninterested or non-understanding she is of the whole affair. All told it works for some cheap laughs as well as playing an appropriate story function so I can't really see how you can draw to much issue with it if you've ever watched ANY other anime with a token Lolita character in it.

Again I don't want to get to bogged down in it but as for Bra-less Primula in the rain, I think it's really important to acknowledge how the scene is highly important to the narrative. From a few seconds of a flash and Rin's reaction, not of embarrassment for seeing her breasts but shame for not considering his stand in daughters needs, we better learn a lot about both characters. We learn Primula has an almost child like understanding of relationships, gender, sexuality and even common sense clothing etiquette. As stated, for Rin it reinforces how Primula isn't an object of sexual desire, shows his integrity/maturity and shows us just how out of his depth Rin really is when it comes to trying to raise a child at such a young age.

Could this of been communicated differently? Yes of course, simply have Keade ask Primula to try on one of here old tops, while Rin is sitting watching Tv, Primula would comply immediately swishing off her current top, revealing her undisclosed chest, which to the audience would be obscured by a chair or Rin's now flustered face and a funny scene could ensue with Kaede and Rin lambasting either each other or Primula for not addressing this earlier. Would that or something similar carry the same weight and quiet sense of nuance? Probably not and that's something that becomes re-occurring in shuffle. Raw story telling through nudity, natural drama or heartfelt dialogue is how the show operates. As I first mentioned we'll go into more detail on this later on but the show never gives us call to think these scenes are done with 'lustful intent' and I think shuffle more then deserves the benefit of the doubt.

The episode concludes with Rin gifting Primula a replacement stuffed cat doll, aside from some fun jokes mixed in like Keade fainting (twice) or the 'Nyan-dam', the resolution scene is sweet and rather straight forward. Rin gives Primula the cat which for Primula symbolizes 'Love' and not some twisted meaning of the word but instead it in its most base form, the sort one feels towards a sibling or parent. This familial love is ironically one of the only emotions Primula seems to have a true grasp on, thanks to Lycoris demonstrating it to her with the first cat plushie. This is enough to further her and Rin's bond and close the episode out an a smile. In Rin's own words to Isekei "Your ability to turn something innocent into something obscene, amazes me"


So while Ep06 alludes to and overall helps explore the dynamics of Shuffle's fantisiful family unit (Something Clanned would rather more famously go on to do in more detail a few years later, albeit in a different style and message of story telling) episode 12 would be the start of the end for this make-believe-scenario. It should be noted that if Shuffle was just an 11 episode harem it would still be an above average, but overall generically serviceable show but with the changes alluded to in ep 10 and hammered home in ep 12 we move into the second arc and the real heart of the story.

The Awakening - Arc 2 - Ep12-16
Unlike Arc 1, the title I've taken to using for arc 2 is a little more opaque. In essence shuffle's second arc revolves around acknowledging our personnel short comings and to accept that life isn't a fairy tail, were shown this through Nerine's survivors guilt, Primula's harsh reality, Cia's self worth insecurities and Rin's naiveite in believing he could live in a fairy-tail scenario forever with out hurting anyone. Unlike arc 1, from here on will be looking at things with in a more episodic manner rather then on a broud strokes basis and with a finer comb for the details of individual scenes. With that short intermission out of the way, lets address the impending end of Summer.

Ep-12-Frozen Summer;
-sees our now familiar gang of characters going about a fairly unremarkable day, its the end of summer and as such Rin, Cia and Nerine are working on completion of Holiday Homework, while Kaede and Primula go about more mundane house-work chores. All seems to be in order but from the get go the show drops two small hints of what's soon to come, there's the most obvious one which comes when we see Primula pouring a cup o' tea only for said tea to momentarily crystallize. Its a brief affair, a second later the tea returns to water, with little more then Primula's expression to prove it even happened. Interestingly, on watching this scene blank for a first time, one would be forgiven for thinking this would be the start of a set up for a generic anime arc where the young character loses confidence in their magical abilities, only for the protagonist to help them out and for the two to grow a little closer in the process but Shuffle has other plans.

To further implant this idea of a standard light-hearted anime arc, we get the second hint scene. This ones a little less apparent and almost seems out of character for both Rin and the property. While studying with Nerine and Cia, we see Rin become aroused and make one he*l of a pervy face in reaction to some 'fan-service'. To me this scene stands out so much that it was clearly intentional, as aforementioned, it initially stands to disarm us into thinking this episode will be a repeat of ep11's lighter, more comical and fan-serivicy tone, furthermore though, it serves to show how comfortable Rin has gotten in his daily life. The original troubles and issue that arose of suddenly finding one's self with a gang of female groupies have mostly been resolved, his surget family is running along smoothly and he is enjoying the summer of his youth. In shoen terms, this is Rin letting his guard down to disastrous effect.

Moreover we now start to see episode 12's wonderful use of literary short hand, firstly in terms of simple characterization, it makes logical sense to see Cia and Rin as the two least prepared for the new school term additionally that Keade is most ready in advance but putting this surface level observation aside, the show makes further use of it's usual 'parrel storytelling'. Will talk about this more in greater detail later but for the moment it should be noted that Rin's study group consists of the 'otherworlders' Cia and Nerine. These two contrast and parallel each other in many ways and the show likes to use them to highlight moments that are fantisiful or unrealistic, like for example the very scene we're discussing. The two have the most unnatural hair colours to help them stand out and Cia in particular is by far the most 'fanservicy' character in the show. So as mentioned all this builds up to disarm the audience alongside Rin in preparation for the what's to come. It might also be note worthy that Primula is not in this scene, this may seem like a given as she doesn't attend school yet, nor is she considered a member of the harem till about episode 22 but with her running theme of neglect, it's always interesting to see the show make an effort to separate her from the 'other-worlders' of the group.

In comes one of my favourite scenes in all of anime for its brilliant use of literary short hand and simplistic but effective visuals. Cast your mind back to the stage, Primula basked in the summer rays stands watering sun flowers among other plants, in the Fuyo residence's garden. She seems content and why not, she's found a family, a place to belong and has even started taking an interest in interacting with life (As evidenced by the plants which Rin implies later, that Primula planted and nurtured of her own volition) and then it happens. Its been a long time in the making, we'd been told that magic can be unstable, volatile, as evidences by Nerine and we'd had foreshadowing a plenty to indicate Primula being something more then a normal demon (as normal as you can get when talking fantasy at-least) and so in a matter of moments, we watch a circle of ice spiral out from Primula, enveloping the whole garden, all her work and rendering her unconscious but to put it that simply is to do it a major disservice, so lets break this down a little more thoroughly.

First off we see the hose Primula is wielding, eject ice rather then water, this immediately frightens her and she lets go of the hose almost involuntarily (In much the same way as is happening with her powers). It wrights violently imploring snake like imagery (Which should come as relevant considering the shows use of religious iconography) before we move to a close up of her, as a cruel white light emits out from under her on the ground and here's the first big instant of short hand. The image subconsionly brings out an idea of bed wetting, further added to by Primula's childish get up, dungarees, pigtails and all. In a lesser show this might come across as perverse but in Shuffles case it's used to subtly implant the idea of a loss of control in the minds of the viewer. If a child wets the bed its frowned upon and if a young teenager still does it, they'd be seen as immature maybe taken to a Doctor (Something that presently happens to Primula in a sense).

There's no moment where Primula or anyone else in the scene has to convey the fact that she's lost control. Far to often in anime characters will explain what's going on in any given moment or battle but here with the simple use of her expression and the visual bedwetting metaphor, all the information we need is seamlessly communicated without any dialogue what-so-ever. But the scenes still not done. For one lets talk about the choice of magic the writers use. In the case of all other magic users in the show, were shown vague explosions, particle effects and the like but Primula seemingly quite deliberately uses some form of 'Ice Magic'. The use of this cold blue tone acts as further short hand as it brings to mind the numbing, cruel and lonely sensations and emotions that modern media has come to make us associate with ice.

Rounding out the scene, as already mentioned, we witness the flowers Primula's poured her time into, freeze to ice, along with the garden tree, patio door and with a specific focus on both the sunflowers and the/a shattering cicada. Now here we have a few more things of significant but subtle note. Flowers and sunflowers in particular are used as a theme of sorts through-out the show, as will discuss in greater note later but it should be clear to most that there freezing helps to represent summer ending at Primula's hand, in an unnatural, unplanned way (Another running theme of Primula being her unnatural nature). It should also be pointed out, that while flowers are often used to represent how the other girls are in the bloom of their youth, Primula is stagnant, she isn't a fully fledged person like the others, she has quite literally stopped the blossoming of the flowers and herself (This even extends to her depictions during the intro song).

The shattering Cicada is a fairly 'anime/Japanese centric' piece of imagery. Anyone whose experienced the likes of Kagura Project or Higarushi will already be aware of the broud range of symbolism these noisy creatures are often used for. Here the shattering initially serves to convey the end of summer, same as the frozen sunflowers but it goes a step further, acting as foreshadowing towards the lethal nature of Primula's magic. It lets us know straight away that there's a chance for her to hurt those around herself and with hindsight, represents how her magic may very well be deadly to herself as-well.

To end on our primary analysis of this scene's use of visual metaphors and literary short hand, lets come back to her ice magic, as-well as the whole result of the frozen garden (Or frozen summer if you like). Something else we can interpret as the scene telling us is the unique nature of Primula, as stated primarily that she's not natural, a construct of some sort but we can get more then that. The scene helps to reinforce the idea that Primula is something dangerous, almost weapon like, 'something' to be wary and cautions of. The frozen garden of plants, she tried to grow, inspires sickening imagery of failed live, as though primula constitutes infertility, an inability to feel emotions or be human, an inability to lead a normal life and someone who can never give life.

It's some pretty heavy topics, that the show doesn't ever try to address head on but instead in more metaphoric and quiet ways.

Bedrooms;
On we move to Primula's room. Straight off the bat there's some nice parallels to be drawn between her room and that of the other characters and this is also an appropriate time to address the use of bedrooms in the show as a whole. Its by no means unique and something of a favourite thing of mine to see in anime, each room in Shuffle tells us a little something or other about the character who inhabits it. As we go along will dip into more detail on this but to be brief;

Cia's room is dominated by her mirror for obvious reasons, as well as being neater then we might except from our resident air-head (an effect of being the housekeeper no doubt). Keade's room is pretty much empty, this will be important when talking about Primula's soon but to summarize this clearly represents her totally reliance on Rin, she has no hobbies outside of looking after him and no need for excessive amounts of clothing unless it specifically helps her in her unhealthy goal to please Rin. Asa's room is choc full of two things; cloths and stuffed toys, along with a tidy little work/study table. This rather nicely tells us that she's got far more hobbies and likes to be interested in then the other girls, she takes a proper interest in cooking and fashion and as for the stuffed animals, they act both to extenuate her less tomboyish side and to remind us of how much time she's lost to her illness. In a sense some of her room is still stuck in/held back by the past, so despite it showing her greater number of interests in her daily life, its also a bittersweet reminder of her ever present disability.

So then did Primula simply drew the short straw of the design budget with her barren blank room? Well for starters she hasn't actually been around for that long, only moving in somewhere in the region of 2-6 months prior, still that's a long time not to accumulate some trinkets, especially for a girl her age. No rather as mentioned, Primula's room draws some interesting parallels to Keade's. It's empty because of her lack of hobbies or interests, in fact arguable more so because where Keade has her unhealthy devotion to Rin, Primula has nothing. She isn't just disconnected from reality, she has no interest in life itself. This goes to help with her characterization as an empty/soulless doll, with the only company she keeps being the two cat plushies, which to her are gifts that represent far more then any sentimental toy could.

While were still fresh on the topic of toys and parallels, Primula and Asa's rooms both have a focus on stuffed animals (Primula because its all that's in her room and Asa because of the sheer quantity of them) and in both cases there's a good argument to be made that they represent the love others have shown towards them, with it being clear that Asa's plushies are mostly gifts from her mother to comfort her during her sickly childhood, which again mirrors Primula nicely as she to is ill due to roughly the same reasons and both teddys represent the short flash's of love she's been shown. "Its like Poetry".

Finally on this elongated tangent is actually some nice references to Keade's brief stint of sickness, the shots in places are almost identical to when Keade was temporarily bed-bound, with even the same face flannel placed on Primula's forehead. It serves to remind us of that scene, of how that moment affected Rin and Keade and of how serve that was, due to simple over-working. Now with the setting out of the way and to steal a phrase-

And Again, He Returns from Whence He Came;
In this section will go over the events of episode 12's second half and the aptly named 'house of twilight', starting in Primula's bedroom. As mentioned we see her conditions is clearly very harsh, with the gang crowded around. Something to note immediately is the framing of the scene, Rin and Keade (Primula's surget guardians) are constantly framed together while the other girls are left just out of shot and only shown during panned and wide shots. It's a nice touch to remind us of the family dynamic that we're seeing here and as already mentioned, while shuffle is no 'Clanned; After Story' it certainly puts its own spin on that formula during these episodes, with the story going out of it's way to portrait the trio as a family going through a major crises. This is further spurred by Rin's expressions of anguish, especially when he clutches the two cat plushies with the look of a helpless, grieving Father.

Some more interesting framing comes through out with the use of - or lack there of, eyes. the most prominent example being when Rin first asks Primula to go home to the Demon world, the camera shoots just his mouth, just the hollow words, half an expression.

While Rin himself is initially hesitant, with a push from Nerine who breaks down and proclaims she won't lose anyone else, along with advice from the Kings of both the Demons and the Gods (Who act up till this point as somewhat goofy father or uncle figures), Rin gives in, he prostrates to Primula and begs her to go home and we as the audience can only watch as she's literally carried away.

Before we move to far on from it, small side note is Nerine's breakdown, this is after all technically Nerine's arc too (Will get into it more shortly, ep14 in particular has a far greater focus on it then 12). What I like here is Rin's reaction, its a small detail but Rin never out right asks awkward or insensitive questions. This is great as for one its far to common in anime but secondly it wouldn't fit into Rin's character. As we learn in greater detail later on, Rin's lost his fair share and he's the sort who can understand that feeling of loss, as such he never asks Cia or Nerine about their apparent lack of Mothers, nor does he ever directly inquire about Asa's Father, this all adds to that natural sense and feel the drama takes on. This does have a downside for him as he is less aware of Primula and her condition because of it but in scenes like this, its great to see Nerine say "I can't lose anyone else" and to have Rin simply comfort her, rather then cutting immediately to dramatic backstory time.

So getting back on track, we're far from done with ep 12 (I did say this was a busy one right?). While we've already touched on the family unit aspect and Rin's grieving Father display, we now get into some of the more nitty gritty of the show, as-well as Rin's character itself. First lets start with the property's use of fantasy metaphors to tell stories about real world illness. Primula is probably the most straight forward in this regard, her illness is a terminal one with no known cure and little in the way of warning signs. Like a fast on-setting cancer Primula is rapidly taken ill and the only treatments are experimental, this is what makes up the conflict of the arc. If you were terminally ill and the only treatment was a low chance trail cure, only being preformed in a foreign country away from all your friends and new found family, would you take it? For some that answer is easy, many would say the smallest chance is worth a shot but for others, they may choose to spend their remaining time at home surrounded by those they love, rather then risk dieing alone under a strange ceiling.

This is what's facing Primula, take away the fantasy elements for a moment, replace the Demon world for America or Europe and you have much the same conundrum. Primula herself has already decided, in fact she probably did a long time ago, her lack of interest in life, the fate of Lycoris and the other test subjects, it would of all cumulated to a mind set of little regard for her own life. Her vehement resistance to going back to the Demon world isn't spurred by fear or cowardice but instead by a wish to die with the family she's finally found, a wish which Rin for all intensive purposes, unwittingly quenches.

Primula's developmental journey is an interesting one by any standards. On the one hand it mirrors Asa's in that she is essentially not in need of personal development but required to overcome an external challenge however this isn't quite true as unlike Asa she isn't a complete or healthy person regardless of her illness. This in turn helps her mirror the others a bit more as a large part of her arc is to become a fully fledged person in her own right (Something which parallels Cia, Nerine and Keade). However it even goes a step further in that she mirrors Rin's arc in so far as his defect doesn't seem wrong on the surface but is detrimental on a deeper level. One of the reasons I believe Primula is at the core of the whole show is her similarities to each character's progression, but will talk more about that later.

So speaking of Rin's arc, lets link it back in here. We already talked about it a little when refereeing to episode 9's beach story and it's a story that doesn't really resolve till the end of the series, though it certainly is most apparent during the awakening arc. Rin is altruistic to a fault, like in ep 9, he's always ready to do 'what's right'. Rin sends Primula back to the Demon world not because it's what she wants, not because it's what he wants - but because it's what he's told is the right thing to do. Just like trying to buy Cia time, or as will see later, his extravagant date with Asa, Rin is easily peer pressured, bending to the whims of what's socially acceptable, not quite to the point where I'd say he's trying to keep up appearances or anything that vain but rather in an misguided attempt to help/please all those around him.

This adds into what I'll tentatively call one of Shuffle's main themes - Deconstruction. I say 'tentatively' as calling it a theme isn't quite the correct terminology or an apt use of its etymology but to categories Shuffle as deconstruction or parody genre anime would also be equally incorrect. Let's for those uninitiated clarify what I mean. A parody anime is one which riffs on and makes light of it's inspirations, often times breaking the fourth wall, a well know example of this would be Konosuba, an older one would be Martian Successor Nandesco. Alternatively a deconstruction is more concerned with the deliberate breaking down and analysis of a source genre or form of story telling in order to either expose the flaws of such stories and/or to in turn tell new stories, the best know recent example of this would probably be 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'(Or just 'Madoka' for brevities sake).

Both these genres can be really interesting in their own right but I don't feel Shuffle fits in either, instead its telling a well written genre specific story, while making use of some deconstruction techniques to intentionally and often unintentionally show the flawed thinking and fantisiful escapism of its contemporaries in the same genre. The most famous example of this story telling would no doubt be the original Neon Genesis Evangellion, which while you could list as a deconstruction, is in truth a really well written real robot and phycological narrative which through it's superb quality ends up unpacking much of the logic of it's own genre. A possible exception to all this is 'School Days' where-in the original story isn't necessarily a deconstruction but rather has a myriad of bad ends, where as the anime adaptation is almost without doubt a deliberate attempt at harem anime deconstruction.

Overall it should suffice to say that Shuffle is not focused on being a deconstruction but is happy to show up it and other shows of its nature and maybe no-where more so then Rin Tsuchimi. Rin's faulty altruism is clearly an extrapolation of the standard harem protagonist, who conversely are usually self-less individuals, always ready to put themselves on the line for the heroine. In Shuffle we see this mentality questioned as to weather its all that safe an idea, so often we see a protagonist solve a female love interests problems for them or fight on their behalf but how often do they ask first? Or actually take into consideration the girls feelings on the matter? Referencing the highest ranked Mal shuffle review again, we see a fascinating comment about how Rin fails to help any of the girl's. As we'll talk about this topic at some length this is both the point of his character and a strength of the show. It fascinates me that people would of preferred that the female characters were weak, rather then the strong individuals that are instead presented.

In Rin we see this personality flaw taken forward and it makes for interesting viewing, especially when you consider it's all informed by his childhood, where in he selfishly (We will come back to that) lied to Keade to break her out of her mental instability/depressive-comatose, only for this decision to have her form a co-dependency syndrome towards him in two detrimental ways. However, interestingly enough this is one of the things I see people count against shuffle more often then not. I can understand it, at-least on a first viewing and without having watched episode 13, one could be forgiven for thinking Rin did/has done nothing wrong. By sending Primula home he's risen her chances of survival, just like how fighting off a 'tiger' in episode 9 might of, or telling Keade he'd always need her in episode 5. It's a continuing theme and while these decisions might at first seem right, maybe honourable even, is Rin really asking himself what they want or more importantly what's best for them and himself long term? What he wants.

If your one of the many I've seen at-least here on Mal who don't understand why Rin's decisions are bad or for some bewildering reason think Keade should of 'won', ask yourself would that be a healthy relationship? Is a traditional harem story that overlooks these flaws and has a fairy-tail ending with the hero rescuing the girl from a tower, better then one which deals with its own hang-ups and asks you as the viewer to think about said flaws and do the same?

In case there's still anyone not quite on board, let me use a popular anecdote. "There's always someone weird when you get on a bus, maybe they talk to themselves or dress strange. If you get on the bus and find that person isn't there - then your probably that person". If you truly believe that everything which Rin does is for the best and that Keade should of 'won' the series, then ask yourself this; are you who's Shuffles talking about?

So with all that in mind we move into ep 13. Primula has been succonded back to the Demon World and the rest of the cast is left to deal with the consequences of this decision. A part of this whole thing which I love is the whole level of responsibility being presented to us. The penalty Rin receives for prolonging his fantasy family unit is a steep one, not physically and no one really judges him for it (bar the odd jab from Isekei or the KKK) no its a little more complicated then that. See the family unit Shuffle presents is very 'Traditionally Japanese', that's not to say its hyper accurate to that or anything but its certainly conforms to it. Keade cooks, cleans, prepares lunches and does the bulk of the child minding. Meanwhile Primula is an 'ideal' seen not heard kind of child, impeccably well behaved and helpful around the house.

By all rights this should put Rin in the position of family/household bread winner but due to their circumstances it doesn't. In fact as we'll talk about in greater detail later, Rin is essentially flaunting around the place with other women, right in-front of his partner and child. There's something perverse, almost sickening about it when we see it more in episodes 18-20. More pressingly in eps 12-13 we see Rin finally embody his outdated 'Man of the house' role when it comes down to him to decide Primula's fate. It isn't something he's ready for and while Keade is framed by his side through most of it, it eventually comes down to being Rin and Rin alone to choose. The Kings, fantastical magic other-worlds and adults defer to him, his friends plead their cases and then ultimately all responsibility falls on his shoulder.

As mentioned he chooses the seemingly right option but as episode 13 progress, with the kids attending their everyday school life's, we see the real affect that this is having on them all, in particular on Rin and Keade. Some of it is tropey but I can appreciate a well placed "I made an extra lunch by accident" line, its a tried and tested cliché and sure to pull on the heartstrings while also quaintly communicating that there missing her more then they would of expected. Again it's no Clanned but I find it impressive just how much they manage to do in such a short time.

Continuing this 'man of the house theme', you'll also note how Rin is meant to hide his emotions, the others can cry or lament but Rin is shown actively trying to be resolute, brave for Keade and the others sakes, the most pain he shows is some brooding in the school park, this also ties back neatly into his altruism complex as he does all this and takes all this responsibility without ever actually having him or anyone else utter a word to acknowledge it or rather more importantly ever ask for him to do it.

There's another piece of great cinematography I just want to quickly mention here, as it doesn't really fit into the flow of the rest of the review and that's when Rin learns that Primula is never ever coming back. There's some interesting stuff here, including some great questions of morality and more characterization for Rin as well as the Kings with Mabou delivering his best line in the whole anime - "We did it because we knew there'd be no one to grieve her" which sums him and Gin up in one but, mostly I just want to very quickly address the framing. Rin stands face away from the camera looking towards the Kings of the Gods and Demons who are basked in an almost heavenly glow by the sunset outside, eyes obscured by the light. They simply tell him that he can never see her again.

So with the responsibility firmly on his shoulders, condemnation from actual God and Satin and some serious guilt to cope with, its then that Asa strikes(see what I did there Eva fans?). Or not as the case may be-


Asa Keeps Spoiling The Plot;
Lets take another moment to talk in more detail about young Miss Shigure. As my somewhat fatitious, slightly hyperbolic title implies, to those paying attention Asa has a habit of letting us in on the real plot of the story in small ways. A big example of this is episode 7 where-in Asa gets repeatedly asked out by the soccer team Captain. Very quickly as I didn't discuss this in my Fairy Tail Arc section, I've always liked how the Captain is just a nice guy, it's necessary for the story but also adds credence to it's message and in most other harem/romcom anime, it would of probably ended in a fist fight between the protagonist and the captain which the protagonist would lose only to cause the heroine to swoon out of appreciation for the effort or some such.

Anyhow, getting back on topic, as the Captain seems to be a genuinely nice guy, the question soon becomes why not? Its addressed from Kareha (The Oh la la girl for those who need a refresher) to Asa and the answers actually pretty important. She doesn't like/love him. It's as simple as that and that's not to say she hates him or finds him unattractive, she just plainly isn't interested in him in that way and its in this that we can see in someone else - Rin. By the series close the choice of potential partners for Rin has been narrowed down to Nerine, Cia and Asa with Primula and Keade still learning quite what that sort of romantic love is. So why pick Asa? Well aside from their brilliant on-screen chemistry, it's simply because she's the one he likes.

Now while will come back to that in due course, Asa lends another helping hand to the plot in episode 13. After witnessing a depressed Rin, Asa (Who's been fairly surplus to this storyline despite having some secret familial connections and similarity's to it) takes Rin to a park bench for a chat. We see through-out the show that many people (Including Miss.Mou the teacher in episode 11) relie on Asa's level headiness and common sense for advice. In Rin's case this is especially apt as she is both the childhood friend and senpai character in his life. It's also just nice to see her comfort and listen to her friend woes in his time of need. It isn't dramatic or shot in some dazzling way, instead its an almost mundane setting, it makes it feel a little more realistic.

After a short conversation we get another of my favourite moments of the show, Asa doesn't slap Rin. The whole way through the scene you expect it, a generic slap before Rin comes to his senses and goes crusading off to 'rescue' Primula but that moment never comes. Instead Asa just talks to Rin, because really that's all he needs. Not to be judged or lambasted but to be reassured that he has the Right to make a decision that he believes is right not what everyone else thinks is right and it gets better as Asa accompanies him home and even helps him with convincing the other girls, its really great and helps too both foreshadow their romantic relationship and solidify their union as best friends.




Arc 2, Episode 15 - What was Regained;
For now we're going to forego discussing episode 14 for a minute as with it's advent we have mostly all the pieces we need to talk about Nerine's character as a whole, so let's put that aside for a moment. Episode 15 of Shuffle is in an interesting position as by standard narrative conventions it is the climax of the story, logic follows that everything afterwards should be falling action but as anyone who's watched the show knows, this is far from the case.

The plot loosely revolves around the gang of Rin, Cia, Nerine, Keade and in a sense Lycoris (Nerine's dead clone sister/twin) going to 'rescue' Primula from the Demon world/realm. I say rescue but really it's more like a hospital visit that turns into a retrieval. The actual plot is fairly simple all in all, Primula's condition suddenly worsens and threatens a repeat of the first experiment's catastrophic melt-down. Meanwhile Rin with assistance from Lycoris helps Primula feel loved and in doing so saves her and everyone else present. From Primula's perspective we see a cross between her introspective consciousness and flashbacks, along with some interesting sunflower field imagery. Breaking all this down opens us up to some dense symbolism and as I'm a rank amateur's in terms of cinematography and so on, there are almost definitely better suited people to analyse these scenes. Non-the-less I can't find anyone else doing so, so I shall do my utmost to fill this role


Lets start with the very first scene of the episode, it's a short clip of a dragon like creature swooping across the screen before a cut to some forest and our gang of heroes. The scene is by no means superb but still impressive to look at and works on a few levels. For one its an example of the show's many 'Shuffle points'. Based on it's own name-sake the show frequently changes the tone or direction of the show via an aesthetic, often short lived art-style change. This is definitely one of those and overall the moment works on three distinct levels.

Firstly for the casual audience it communicates that we've left of the realm of earth. It's the obvious assumption but also a well made one. Had we just cut to the gang walking through the forest, you could conceivable mistake it for somewhere like the amazon, instead the dragon clues in anyone who may have missed the previous episode or is simply not paying attention, that this isn't Kansas anymore. Secondly it works as some small worldbuilding. Aside from flashbacks and cut always we spend very little time in the demon world other than in this specific episode so using this opportunity to show us a completely detached location that helps flesh out this world is a nice touch and I always appreciate the extra effort put into a small detail like this.

Finally however is the aforementioned 'Shuffle Point', by showing this as our first scene of the episode, in an episode that specifically decides not to include the usual opening title song, the tone is immediately set that this episode is going to be a departure. Prominently gone is the sombre tone of the previous 3 episodes, replaced with one of a quest, an adventure in to an unknown land. Note how the dragon and surrounding area come across as hostile secondly but primarily as awe inspiring, a massive world which other shows might be content to explore in great detail. With this we're prepared for a fight and a triumph because episode 15 is a reward for Rin. He criticizes himself in monologues, became depressed and than took responsibility for the actions he's taken. With help from Asa (As represented brilliantly by the double entendre red ribbon she gifts Rin) he's learned from his mistake, made a decision based on what he believes is best for Primula and done his best to take Nerine's feelings into consideration as well.

It's also another example of Shuffle! harnessing its animated medium. To capture a 5 second shot like this in live action would be incredibly expensive. From the vivid colours of the set piece's pallet, including the blue sky and bright canyon, to the creating of a dragon that isn't just a CGI monstrosity, replicating the tone this achieves in live action would be no small feat. While of course you could communicate something similar in a book format, words often don't have such an ability to rapidly bombard the audience with such intriguing rapid fire imagery. It should suffice to say that I appreciate these opening moments a lot.

Moving on there's plenty more to talk about, from the King's who break convention and simply let our hero's pass, to morally bankrupt scientists and a surprisingly epic/grandiose battle styled scene but for now lets hone in on Primula's involvement throughout. As I said at the top, she displays an internal struggle throughout the whole arc as portraited by the white void which was once her room and barren rainy fields, alongside sunflower filled meadows. It's some great imagery and to talk about it in proper detail lets first address shuffle's motif and use of colour.

Colour Motif;
It should be obvious to the most casual of casual viewers that shuffle indulges in the usual anime candy coloured hair scheming and while its in no way unique, I think how shuffle uses it in its character designs and storytelling is pretty interesting. First off there's the hair colours, it's worth noting that they nicely match the characters who wear them, Keade the most human is ginger (It's very bright but that's kind of standard in anime, see Lieutenant Matilda for an early 80's/late 70's example of overly bright ginger hair colouring), Rin has brown hair and a dark green hue to his clothing pallet, meanwhile Asa initially seems flamboyant but by the end of the series her hair colour makes perfect sense. Then we have Cia's crimson and Nerine's magenta, representatively of their otherworldly nature, the fact that they aren't human and certainly don't act like it.

This actually extends to the side characters in a fun way to. Isekei is human and his hair shows this in it's standard chestnut brown colouration (Matching his uniform design two which is a nice design choice), Mayumi is a half-demon and her design gives that off, she's short with discoloured eyes and a darker hair tone, almost imp like features translated into a cute girl design. Finally there's Kareha (Oh la laaa) an actual 'God'. She's got long blond hair tied in petite ribbons, a pale skin and a tall build, almost like a fairy, angel, or elf might be described (Further aided by her frequent comical glowing in more light-hearted scenes).

Aside from these nice considerations in characters designs, the motif of colour goes further, invading the OP, the title logo and the story. For example almost every third line of my notes seems to mention some use of lighting to represent the characters feelings or emotional state and this goes doubly if not triply so for Primula. Due to her reserved nature even near the end of the show, the bulk of her emotional communication is simply done with lighting changes often reflected off her/a deadpan expression but in the awakening arc we see it used further. Unlike is usually conventional, Primula's internal world is far from black, instead it's a pitch white room with the white, an absence of colour, representing her loneliness and isolation. Primula herself is even lit a little brighter in most of these scenes to further increase her own appearance's closeness to white.

After all Primula's design in terms of colour is grey, a shadow of colour but with two red ribbons tied into ponytails, indicative of the brief moments of love she's felt throughout her life. The white in her room or cell even, is drowning, there's no real borders, no way in or out, just the endless sea of nothing until Lycoris appears. With Nerine's signature Magenta hair colour, her very presence alone illuminates the room and brings life to Primula's brief existence. Will see more of this through-out but hopefully this short segment has helped to communicate the importance of the shows use of colour within and outside of it's characters designs.


****A quick reminder that your only a fourth of the way through our retrospective adventure. For the rest please refer to my Blog page(https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=860551) here on Mal or to my YouTube(https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQHiCKlIWTRl9ZsGK1DuWTKxEEe-AIAZi) channel where an audio version is being posted. I really hope you've enjoyed reading this thus far and would be humbly pleased if you pressed the 'helpful' button below ( If your on mobile, press the button in the top right, next to the browser url and then press 'desktop mode' in order to find the "helpful" button). Thanks for reading!****

Shuffle
"The story of an ugly man surrounded by a group of women who all want a piece of him!"

Storyline:

This is a world where demons and humans get along just fine. So fine that they live together and what not all peacefully! A teenage boy named Rin gets extremely lucky one day. He becomes the main character of a freaking harem Anime! To begin, he lives with his childhood friend Kaede, but his new neighbors are totally in love with him too. He has many admirers: the daughter of the Gods, Sia, and the daughter of the demons, Nerine, are both deeply in love with Rin ... after having met him the past. Along with his friendship with older woman Asa and his encounter with the silent but cute Primula, Rin has much on his hands dealing with the affections of all of these insane girls who love him way too much.



Reactions:

Well personally I thought that this Anime was so-so. Seeing as it is based on a triple X wtf eroge game, I kind of figured it was about one guy and a lot of women surrounded by him. To begin, the guy was kind of ugly and his personality was meh. If I was a woman I would personally go for another guy, but of course as you can see...they all love Rin. Each of the girls has a different type of personality from childhood friend to hyper-active upperclassmen...etc. Which kind of makes it fun, but then again most of the time they are all catering to this lame, pathetic excuse for a man Rin. JUST FREAKING DITCH THIS MAN ALREADY PEOPLE. He sucks.

This plot totally makes no sense. It seems rather dry because all that the character do is...CATER TO THIS MAIN CHARACTER. I'm sure they catered this to the average man who would want girls on their hand and foot like that. The whole Anime feels rather fake. Maybe they should make these girls more 'realistic' ya know?

Rin only ends up with one person in the end of course. But who? Well I am going to have to make you watch the crappy drama and what not to find out. Too bad, I can't spoil the Anime for you.

Overall, this Anime is like some kind of funky Japanese Soap Opera. It has its ups-and-downs. Watch at your own risk. I was about to drop it myself, but I was just curious as to who the jerk would end up with!

However, if you do not want to watch it because I would never, ever want to watch it again...look it up online.

I recommend this Anime for guys more than girls in the end. It is more of a guy anime than a girl anime.


Happy Anime Hunting!~ The above review is my opinion and it may not be the same as yours. I respect other people's opinions because one person's vision of an Anime can be totally different from another vision. People perceive things in different ways.

Shuffle!

Story (7/10)
Shuffle is your stereotypical harem. There's one guy and five girls and they all want to win his affections. There's really not a heck of a lot of originality put into the plot or the back-stories of any of the girls, either, but they're different enough save for two that it doesn't get repetitive. The good thing about the story is that it's straightforward -- you can really turn your brain off and stuff enjoy the ride and have the emotional thrills, laughs, and sadness. Despite being so stereotypical in its setup it manages to incorporate a good variety of emotions.

The best thing story-wise ... about Shuffle was unlike most harem you never know which girl the guy is going to pick until he picks her. That's one of the core things that kept me watching. I kept hoping he'd pick the girl I was rooting for. Of course I won't spoil who Rin picks in the end, but I'll just say keep watching, because you're constantly guessing at it throughout the entire show.

Art (7/10)
The art in Shuffle was nothing spectacular. It was nice, and that's really all there was to it. Sometimes it can get kind of choppy but most of the time it was fairly nice and flowed well. No real complaints here. Although I do have to say I love Aoi Nishimata's art and the character designs were cute.

Sound (8/10)
The sound was good. Again, nothing special, but it was good. The seiyuu did a very good job (I personally think Kaede's and Primula's seiyuu were the best) and the music was okay and fitted the anime nicely. The opening song was incredibly catchy though! Will forever be on my top 25 most played, probably.

Character (8/10)
Since Shuffle is a harem, all the main characters are different broad archetypes of personalities and looks. Thankfully, instead of the characters just being empty stereotypes, they have fairly interesting back-stories and just a little more to the archetype with their own little individualities. As I said above when I was talking about the art/animation, the character designs are cute and Aoi Nishimata does pretty good artwork. It's almost guaranteed you'll come out of Shuffle liking at least one of the girls and having a favorite that you wanted to win Rin's affections, whether this girl was the winner of the war of love or not.

Final Thoughts
Enjoyment varies from person to person. However, even though Shuffle is a stereotypical harem with generic character archetypes, merely decent art and a good dose of ecchi, which usually isn't for me... it was fun. It was a very fun ride. Shuffle has this mysterious element of enjoyability to it. So if you're looking for a fun romance with a good deal of comedy and ecchi (though it has a good deal of very serious bits too) try and pick up Shuffle.

Overview:

Shuffle is an early 2000s Harem anime based on an eroge. I was recommended this title by an offline friend and my initial expectations couldn't possibly be lower. I was expecting "Girls Bravo" or "DearS", or at best something like Monster Musume or Sekirei. Instead I got an anime that while flawed...wasn't actually that bad. Stocks are rated each quarter based on whether or not they met expectations. Shuffle is basically like a small cap stock that wildly surpassed expectations. I kind of have to give it a decent rating!

Pros:

1.

Shuffle, unlike most harem anime I've seen, actually has multiple characters that are likeable! None ... of them are Naru from Love Hina clones (THANK GOD). None of them were complete morons with no characteristics besides boobs. Personally I liked Sia, Narine, and Asa. Sia is the princess of the "Gods", although it is never explained that they created our world and are actually Gods. They are likely just an alternate dimension. Sia is fiery, athletic, and a bit of a bonehead. However, she cares deeply about her friends and respects the feelings of her romantic rivals. Narine is the princess of the "Demons", although they don't seem to torture the souls of dead humans and have nothing to do with traditional demons. She is a shy, intelligent, and introverted girl who wishes to court the main character to fulfill the wish of her dead sister, who had a crush on him. In many ways she predictably serves as a foil for Sia. Then there is Asa, who is constantly sickly but maintains a positive attitude despite the rough hand she has been dealt. Asa is generally the voice of reason in the series and the most reliable person to talk to when our MC male has problems.

2.

Shuffle is a harem anime where the MC actually picks a girl at the end! Not only that, but he picks a choice you wouldn't initially expect. I was blown away by this. This may seem trivial, but in all my years of watching Harem anime I've never actually seen both of those things happen in the same show.

3.

Shuffle doesn't have the black bars of doom or steam clouds of frustration. You want tits and ass? BAM! There it is! You don't even need to buy a special DVD. You get everything up front and in today's market that is damn refreshing!

4.

Shuffle not only brings the comedy with its self awareness and slapstick, and the eroticism with its constant nudity, it actually has some surprisingly touching moments. The last thing I was expecting was for an eroge harem to take me on a "Feels Trip". Well played Shuffle!


5.

Shuffle actually has a well done "yandere" character. She never does kill anyone or go on a rampage, but you constantly worry she might hurt the MC or herself. Unlike a Yuno Gasai where you know exactly what she is going to do next, this Yandere is truly unpredictable and that makes her much more nerve racking to watch. She also feels much more like a real person and less like a Loony Toons character. All of this...from an early 2000s eroge harem. I'm speechless.


Major Flaws:

1.

The last 2 episodes are TERRIBLE! This is a series that could have ended with a strong resolution in episode 22, but just HAD to have 2 extra episodes and shat itself. The plot is extended thanks to a melodramatic and out of nowhere sub-plot that could have been solved immediately, but the usual voice of reason girl decides to act completely out of established character in order to stretch out the series. I can't think of much worse writing sins than having sudden "character derailment" for the sole purpose of extending the plot.

2.

The series is 24 episodes, but in all honesty it could easily have been 13 with maybe 3 OVAs like a Baccano or Spice and Wolf. This is supposed to be an ecchi romantic comedy. This is supposed to be fun. I should NEVER be feeling bored, yet there were some parts I found both boring and totally pointless beyond the aforementioned final 2 episodes.

3.

Fan Disservice. Of all the characters, the most pointless and least developed was by far the underage token "Loli" character. I realize almost all harems have this character because Tenchi did it with Sasami, but I think it's time to stop. If you aren't going to even give her character development and are just checking off a box, don't bother doing it! Also it was a REALLY bad idea to give this character full frontal scenes. At least most harems are smart enough to figure that out. Shuffle wasn't. I know it was the early 2000s and the anime industry was probably at their most lax when it came to underage nudity, but this was still stupid. Yeah some anime I like are guilty of this. The Berserk manga has its cringy as fuck "Schierke service". Elfen Lied had Mayu and Nana's totally pointless bath time. At least those characters were NEVER romantic options for the MC. Primula on the other hand was a possible sexual partner in the game and is clearly an official part of the harem in the anime. Damn it Japan!


Overall:

Is Shuffle the 2nd coming of Christ? No. Obviously not. However, it is still far better than the average harem anime and actually is worth watching. If nothing else you can compare it to the harem anime of today and see what has changed for the better and what has changed for the worst. Shuffle is a time capsule of the early 2000s and is the kind of anime that couldn't have been made either before or since. If you are interested in anime history and progression, and you want a harem that doesn't totally suck, Shuffle is a strong choice.

Shuffle!


Story: 9/10.

The story is about a Japanese Highschooler named Rin Tsuchimi. He's been living with his childhood friend who's been taking care of Rin for a while now. Her name is Kaede Fuyou. But one day Rin meets 2 girls from his past named Sia and Nerine. But soon after the girls fall in love with Rin.

This anime is full of heartwarming and heartbreaking moments. A story of one man's decisions and adventures, full of love triangles, and memories.

This story is loveable because it has Comedy and Drama in it all at the same time. The story should deserve a 9/10 because it's ... a heartwarming story of love and hate and it's twists and turns.

Art: 10/10.

The art for Shuffle! is flawless. Thanks to Suzuhira, Hiro and Nishimata, Aoi for creating the characters. They all look gorgeous, stunning, perfect. It makes it realistic and believable, just like any good anime should. The scenery was what it should be. Japanese neighborhoods and homes, Japanese schools, malls, train stations, rainy days, sunny days. Watching the sunny days on my moniter made me feel all warm. It was complety real. Good job! <3

Sound: 10/10.

The OP and ED were perfect. It fitted the story plot/theme. [: Yuria is a good singer, I love that song "You" by her. The lyrics were genius. Also the people who did the voices for the charaters. It really did fit the charater's apperence and personailty. And they really did show emotions in their acting, which is sometimes hard to do.

Character: 9/10.

The characters in Shuffle! were ah-mazing. They were alive and realistic, more than you can ask for. I loved every character, and none of them felt boring or dumb to me. Also, their outfits and apperence were great. I loved the hair and the eyes. :D But, I gave the characters 9/10 because sometimes I just felt that there wasn't enough information given on them, they really needed to show who they were in the inside and outside.

Enjoyment: 10/10.

I loved this anime so much. It made me laugh it made me cry, it made me feel what I should feel, and that's what makes up a great anime. Of course, a person who doesn't like Comedy, Romance, Drama, Harem, and Ecchi animes might not like this one, but don't get my wrong, this is a fantastic anime. Shuffle! was truely addiction, every single second of it was splendid.

If you liked Shuffle! I suggest you try Shuffle! Memories. It's basically a lookback on Shuffle and more. [:

Shuffle! is a generic romance harem story, featuring most of what is generally accepted to be good and unfortunately bad about its type of show. For those who have never seen a show of this genre, it's probably a good place to start to accumulate a background on the common traits of these types of shows. Besides that it's a pretty unexceptional show, and a rather poor adaptation of its related visual novel (having experienced both, I will immediately tell you the visual novel is by far superior).

Starting with whats good, this show is not particularly animated most of the time being more on ... the lines of slice of life (although there are a few notable exceptions). That being said it's mostly an aesthetically pleasing show with well drawn characters, and of course, it can't really hurt to have a lot of beautiful girls in the main cast can it? A few dramatic moments here and there did get some good visual emphasis as well. The voice actors (both English and Japanese) are pretty well chosen for the most part, and fans of the visual novel can at least appreciate the reuse of the same Japanese actors. Being based on an eroge, this show does present some obvious nudity, but for the most part it's not overdone, and it's usually humorous, so it generally shouldn't detract from your viewing experience much, if it even does.

The visual novel doesn't necessarily have the best plot ever, and unfortunately one of the problems with this show is trying too hard to fit too much all at once. Besides the fact that obviously Rin is only supposed to end up with one of the girls, the way Shuffle! attempts to translate all the routes into some kind of relevant single story ends up leaving our main protagonist Rin a very weak and indecisive man. This above all else is the single biggest flaw of Shuffle! the anime, a horrible main protagonist who is never willing to commit to anything, leaving many many people hanging and feeling desperate. This alone makes most of the characters (namely the girls and Rin) have seemingly shallow motivations, and is a primary reason why the visual novel is superior, since there is no indecision on Rin's part when you as the player make all the important choices.

For the most part the show generally tries to cut and paste stuff that happened from the visual novel into the show. To be fair though, a few things like Kaede's background and maybe to a lesser extent Sia's as well do get directed in a more interesting way than the visual novel presents. So for the sake of saying whether or not the anime does anything to separate itself from the visual novel, there is something to consider.

All in all Shuffle! is a fairly average show. It's mostly okay, a few good moments here and there, and unfortunately the show is held back by a lame protagonist, who as a result makes much of the plot a lot more lame than it should be. If you're still curious about learning what the romantic harem genre has to offer, this show is definitely one to consider looking into.