Kaoru Hanabishi, a college student who lives alone, met a beautiful but bewildered girl dressed in kimono at train station. He volunteered to guide her way to the address she was looking for, which looked like in his neighborhood but turned out to be an empty lot. Not knowing what to do next, Kaoru invited the devastated girl to his apartment and asked for additional clue -- a photo with two children whom Kaoru immediately identified as himself and Aoi Sakuraba, his childhood friend. It turned out that the girl in front of him is Aoi Sakuraba herself, his betrothed fiancée who came all the way to Tokyo to marry him. Her revelation was not only surprising but also reminded the deepest part of Kaoru's memory for why he left the Hanabishi family in the first place.
Well, what can I say? The romance between Aoi and Kaoru is really the heart of the show and I was really rooting for those two to get together and make it last with the drama of their families keeping them apart makes it more interesting, like a rendition of a classic love story……….
BUT………unfortunately, as the series starts strong, it limps into almost Love Hina/any harem category when the main plot is sidestepped by the additional characters of the story. I get that reason for their existence is that Kaoru can have someone as family to him considering his mother abandoned him and his family kicked him out of his home and I would be fine with that, if the characters weren’t just the basic harem archetypes…but then again, it could be worse.
Also, I’m impressed with how long they kept the secret of Aoi & Kaoru being together from the tenants as some other shows would have somebody knowing about it halfway….that or some of the tenants aren’t that bright.
But like I said, the only interesting characters in the show are Aoi and Kaoru and yet, there are some things that I don’t like about them. For example, Aoi is about as adorable as a character can be, but she is more like an otaku’s waifu dream and that’s not a good thing. She’s more of a fantasy self-insert character that only wants to be that guy’s wife and nothing more. Kaoru is the more reserved character but not the generic passive, simpering moron you see in most harem shows although that does lead to the next problem of why so many of the girls in the show are attracted to him. First, there’s the token American character Tina Foster, the very energetic and loud character whom loves animals, drinking a lot of booze, and can often play grabby hands once it comes to Taeko, the accident-prone and ditzy bespectacled girl who’s only purpose in the anime is being either cosplay fetish…..oh, did I forget to mention that she has big breasts? Miyabi, Aoi’s bodyguard, is the one character who at first, I thought I would hate but actually she’s one of the better characters of the show….well, her and the pet ferret. Mayu, the prodigy, is the worst offender of them all as she is the most annoying character of the show, up to Love Hina levels, as she keeps going on and on about being with Kaoru and often fights with Tina, which makes her more bearable in comparison and last is Chika, Taeko’s cousin, who looks up to Kaoru as an older brother, but thankfully, not in a creepy way.
The animation by J.C. Staff is very artsy in its own way. The scenery is like what most amateur painters would want to capture in their own canvas. There were a few mishaps in some parts of it, mostly the gag-based animation, but it still holds to being alright. The music is sweet and gentle as the show fits although the opening and ending themes do nothing for me other than skip through them.
The Pioneer (Geneon) / Bang Zoom dub was more of a miss than hit. Michelle Ruff as Aoi was convincing enough to enjoy it and Dave Wittenberg was listenable as Kaoru but Wendee Lee’s portrayal of Tina Foster was just unbearably obnoxious and grating as she tries to sound like a drunken Texan; Karen Strassman (or Kirsty Pape) and Sue Beth Arden’s performances were a bit too high with their voices and mostly irritating, coming from Strassman’s performance. There is also an unrecognizable Kari Wahlgren (Kay Jensen) as Chika and honestly, I thought it was some other actress doing that voice….and I checked the VA’s of this show beforehand.
FINAL VERDICT: The show does feel like another harem clone in the making if it weren’t for the romantic love story angle that kept the show from being bad, but you should give the show a chance to look at before judgment.
