Anway, I was expecting this anime to be really rubbish at first and I was pleasantly surprised at how addicting it was.
Story 9/10
To be honest, I thought this was a good exmaple of your run-of-the-mill reaching for your dream scenarios. I thought that watching Maya start off from the very beginning give you this warm fuzzy feeling when you watch her do so well. You follow her journey from the complete beginning and so you gradually begin to know her character a lot better as you progress through the story. the story starts when she's roughly 13 and spans across a 5 year span (I think). taking into fact that this manga was actually written roughly 3 decades ago does prove that it is one of your classic plots. It's quite a romantic plot as well, which is quite a bonus for a someone like me.
Art 8/10
being quite a modern perosn now, I'm always expecting the kind of anime art you see in some of CLAMP's work or looking a lot more modern than the large, starry eyed characters in the past. Again, I was pleased that the anime wasn't too old fashioned in their art approach to the anime and it was actually quite pleasing to look at. It wasn't the 'in-your-face' kinda of art, but more soft and pleasant (which I liked)
Sound 8/10
Well, the opening and ending themes were pretty cool and the pieces of music throughout the anime was pretty good. I did think that some of the music was a little but...over-the-top? I'm not sure why...but it was good all the same :)
Character 8/10
Again, I thought this aspect was well brought out through the anime and there were times when you could really feel what the characters were going through. I found myself on serveral occassions crying along with the characters and yelling at the screen at the character's stupidity and naivety. I suppose, it's great in the sense that it can play with your emotions. However, I did think that some of the charactersation was a little cliched for example, cold and evil looking persona on the outside with a squishy kind loving heart inside. Doesn't that remind you of Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (for you Austen fans!) or Ituko from Shugo Chara!
Enjoyment 9/10
I really enjoyed it and although it ended on a major cliffhanger (very annoyed) I thought it was a wonderful anime with emphasis on that you can do anything as long as you have passion for it and are willing to do anything to get where you want to be.
Overal 8/10
I thought that it lacked something... I'm not sure what it is. Maybe I was just a little disappointed at the end or a little disappointed at how they changed the manga a little bit more than I had anticipated. They cut out some major important bits (like a few kisses here and there, which is really annoying). But apart from that, enjoyable and well worth watching!
