Plot
It is important to note that SoniAni: Super Sonico the Animation was designed as a marketing tool for Nitroplus to sell Super Sonico brand to people. Each episode we see a new day of Sonico’s life; she gets into different situations and different trials. It is an open secret that all slice-of-life shows don’t have a complex story;yet, it helps you to relax; that is why we watch SoL shows. In Sonico’s case, the show was sometimes boring; yet, it was a very funny experience for me.
Main Characters
Main Protagonist – Super Sonico - Voiced by Ayano Yamamoto (Nae Tennouji, Arisa Kajiwara) – She is an 18 years old college student that works as a model, a waitress at her grandmother’s restaurant and is in the band called First Astronomical Velocity with her two best friends; she has the position of the band’s vocalist and guitarist. Sonico always wears headphones and is never seen without them; she is easy to get embarrassed in front of other people, she sleeps so much that it requires someone to help her to wake up, she also can’t live without pasta. All in all, her character was funny for me: she tries her best to get the job done, even when it gets her into problems, she enjoys helping people with their problems and she always stays happy no matter what.
Suzu Fujimi - Voiced by Mai Goto (Pina Sformklan Estor, Chelsea Blankett) – She is one of the Sonico’s best friends and a member of the First Astronomical Velocity as its bassist and leader. She normally wears a pink nurse uniform and tries to get Sonico to wear crazy outfits for concerts; Suzu is very amusing character: she always has a plan to solve problems and tries to help Sonico with her problems whenever she can do it.
Fuuri Watanuki - Voiced by Mami Ozaki (Hana Isuzu .Elena Shiina) – She is also one of the Sonico’s best friends and a member of the First Astronomical Velocity as its drummer. She is very shy, always sleepy, or hungry. She was a very interesting character for me, as her indifference, has always caused problems to her friends and it was really funny.
Presentation
SoniAni has a very bright color scheme to draw the viewer to the life of Super Sonico, which is nice and fun. Alack, there were also some problems about the characters: the show focused on Sonico well, but the other characters didn't receive enough time for development, and it was a real problem of that show. The animation of the characters; on the other hand, is very well-made and looks great, except when it switches to a different style, when the OP and ED were shown; the animation in OP and ED was good, but for some reason, the animation in the anime was much worse.
The voice actors did amazing job and I highly appreciated it; their characters looked alive and realistic; it was very pleasant for me. Finally, the music part was is one of the best things about the show; the songs fit every episode well.
My opinion
SoniAni is one of the anime, which I can’t hate, but I found it difficult to enjoy a show so similar to K-on, IdolMaster and others. The anime did everything to make its music scenes similar to Love Live’s, but when it works well in Love Live, in SoniAni it feels very forced and not needed. While I know the show was a marketing tool, they could have done a better job of presenting Super Sonico to the public; the story didn't feature anything new, some episodes were boring to watch and the style of animation used for the songs was much better than for the anime. I did enjoy Sonico’s, Suzu’s and Fuuri’s characters a lot, as they really carried the show for me, but the supporting character were dull and boring.
The Verdict
SoniAni is an anime that can only be enjoyed by a fan of the brand; its lack of the story, the focus on Sonico and bad development of supporting characters (not saying that the show is cliché) ,will probably make it hard for most of the people to enjoy SoniAni.
