Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge♥

Ater taking nearly 4 months to complete, this show finally got the last episode subtitled. So, what were my thoughts?

Story
The story started off great. Four guys need money to pay rent, so their landlord asks them to "turn this crazy girl into an actual lady". Eh, not an amazing story, but sounds funny. I'd probably have given it more than a 6 if it actually went anywhere. But, it didn't really progress, nor did we get to see much happen from the start until the end.

Art
Prepare to be swamped by constant chibi characters. Odd models and bland scenes..the art is something to be desired.

Sound
Nothing special. ... The opening and ending didn't stand out to me, nor did any background music. Could have been a lot better.

Character
The saving grace for this show. Without the male lead and the female lead, this anime would have sucked. I enjoyed learning a little bit about each character's past. I wouldn't say any character really evolves though, as they're pretty much static throughout. I guess the female lead changes a bit (doesn't she have to?).

Enjoyment
Funny, happy, I had a good time watching this. There are tons of "worthless" episodes that don't progress the flow of the story at all, but whatever.

Overall
If you're looking for a brainless anime that will make you chuckle every so often, check this out. There's better out there though.

Watching Yamato is like dating a someone (guy or girl) who looks like Borat in a mini-skirt. Prolonged exposure could leave you with a desire to gouge your eyes out, though on the plus side, you'll enjoy Yamato's hidden charm a lot more once yours eyes are bloody pulps on the floor.

Normally, art is a minor detail for me, but the atrocious art in Yamato cannot be ignored. While there is a lot to blame, the bland backgrounds, the sub-par animation, the dreary colors, and the overly constant use of chibi characters, one particular feature completely stands out.

The four main male leads are suppose ... to be some of the hottest men on the planet, and yet half of them make Golum look like a stunner. While I understand the typical trend of attending feminine characteristics to male leads in shoujo shows, and many shows like Host Club does it well, Yamato has taken the trend to its utterly grotesque extreme.

Toyama and Ranmaru come across as grotesque drag-queens who've spent the last 48 hours covering their eyes with dark eye-liner.It is hard to imagine how anyone could find such characters attractive. Every girl who showed Toyama to so far has shook her head in disdain, and every guy had a pulsing sensation hurl my notebook off the 5th floor balcony.

This is a real pity, given that animation aside, Yamato has potential. While there was little plot development, each character has some depth, and there are some scenes that can draw genuine laughs. The story itself also holds unique premise, telling the tale of a girl who dresses and behaves hideously, and four guys who try to make her realize her own hidden beauty and become a lady. It's just too bad that you don't tend to laugh very much when you feel like someone's sticking hot pokers in your eyes.

In the end, Yamato is an above average shoujo comedy, save for its abysmal visual design. Perhaps the creators were trying to make a deep metaphor between the anime and the main female lead. Alas, they would probably be better off redoing the anime in Flash with each male character replaced by a color coded stick figure. At least that way the comedy would come through, without the visual torture.

Having read the manga first, I can't help but compare the two. And, boy, does the anime score low. It's a classic case of good idea badly executed.

First thing I noticed is the sloppy art. In the manga the boys are beautifully drawn; in the anime, the artists seem to run out of steam by the time they finish drawing Kyohei and Takenaga - Ranmaru often ends up looking like a drag queen and Yuki grotesquely cute. The backgrounds are so simplified they are almost nonexistent and the constant use of chibis is distracting and annoying after a while. The characters we get to know ... fully are only Kyohei and Sunako, we get flashbacks of their earlier years and how they became who they are.

The story does not follow the manga copiously, which in itself takes away nothing from the anime, if anything, it makes it new and surprising for the manga fan like me. However, I was almost taken aback by the "perverse" scenes - this is, after all, a story about boys so beautiful that no girl can help but throw herself at them - but while they were more suggestive and just hinted at in the manga, here, they are on vulgar display. One scene comes to mind, where 3 girls rub themselves on a mannequin thinking that it belongs to Kyohei. Although scenes like this one aren't many, it still left me with bad taste in my mouth.

Despite its shortcomings, I did enjoy this series somewhat (maybe through sheer will power?). I suspect that if I hadn't been exposed to the manga first, my final score would have been higher. As it stands, I can only give it a 6.

When I first found this show, I thought to myself: "It sounds just like Ouran!" And proceeded to watch about 10 episodes that day. Now, however, I'm finding it difficult to finish it and here's why:

Story: 7/10
It's similar to shoujo anime's like Ourah High School Host Club in that there's one girl surrounded by gorgeous men and doesn't seem to appreciate it. This story is a bit different in the fact that the men have to change her from a horror movie loving loner to a lady or they are forced to pay the rent. It definitely has humor and romance, which ... is what most people look for in shoujo's to begin with. The reason it's only good is because I think that the story never went any further than that. They keep trying to turn her into a proper lady and each episode (so far) is completely stand alone. (Keep in mind that I'm still trying to finish it and therefore this review could change if I find out that the story ever developed into something more interesting. In fact, one of the reasons I'm struggling is because the story is so stale right now.)

Art: 3/10
Where do I begin? As everyone has mentioned in all the reviews of this anime that I've read: the art sucks. It's not just that the guys look like girls; it's that all the main characters look the same. If you were to have all the "dazzling creatures" in this series and take away their hair and draw them in black and white; they would be the same character! There is no telling the difference at all! You can draw beautiful characters and still be able to tell who they are and what gender they are without their hair; Vampire Knight (my favorite art-not story- as far as anime and manga go) is proof of that. Another complaint I have about the art is that the characters all are drawn poorly. I don't mean the chibi characters, or the Goth Loli sisters (though those are also awful) I mean the eyes of the characters. They are too wide and too large on the face. Basically it would be as if I were to draw a face shape and fill it with only large eyes and large lips. I know it sounds harsh, but that's what I think. Why didn't I give the art a lower score then? Because the frustrating thing is that there are good moments in it! When Sunako is drawn at her full height and given the same art as those around her, the style of everyone improves. The eyes become slightly smaller and the lips a little less full. There are also more details in those small moments. But I think you get the idea; I'll stop ranting now.

Sound: 8/10
The music was the sole saver of this show; the only reason I still want to finish the anime at all. No, I am not talking about the opening and closing songs; I disliked those as well. I'm talking about the soundtrack itself. It was written by the same composers behind Jigoku Shoujo (Hellgirl), Yasuharu Takanashi and Hiromi Mizutani, and those two work amazingly well together. Sadly I can't find some of the themes from this anime that I enjoyed, since the J-drama's soundtrack seems to have all the attention.

Character: 6/10
Well, back to the bad I suppose. The male characters all had interesting back stories, in a way. The same could not be said of the females, especially Sunako. The fact that she became a depressed antisocial lunatic because one guy called her ugly is stupid. Yes, words can hurt and guys are stupid, but after a few weeks you get over it and move on. Every other girl, however, seemed to have no deeper motive than having one of the beautiful men fall in love with her, no matter what. Characters like that embarrass all females. But both the male and female characters, whether they had interesting back stories or not, did not develop in the 15 episodes that I've made it through so far. Not a single step forward has been made by anyone aside from Kyohei, who is simply developing a crush on Sunako, for more than half of the show. In other words, unless the show makes a drastic change in the last 10 episodes, the characters will have been bland, flat, and similar to each other all the way to the end.

Enjoyment: 4/10
Sorry, but this anime isn't that enjoyable, aside from the music and the humor.

Overall: 5/10
I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for something that requires minimum thought to watch.

In closing, this review may seem mean, but frankly, this anime isn't worth it aside from the music. From what I've read in reviews, the J-drama is much better, so if it's the story that interests you; I would check that out instead.

Kyouhei, Ranmaru, Takenaga, and Yukinojo are four gorgeous guys who make girls swoon without even trying. Alas, they are not immune from financial woes and are in danger of being kicked out of their benefactress's mansion unless they do her one favor: teach her niece, Sunako, to be a lady. This isn't as easy as it sounds, because Sunako is a slovenly shut-in with macabre interests and no desire to change. Her best friend is an anatomical model named Hiroshi, and she can't get close to a good-looking boy without getting nosebleeds and fainting. The boys aren't sure how to cohabitate ... with her, much less give her a makeover. Directed by "Excel Saga's" Nabeshin, the bulk of the show is pure situation comedy, charting the uneasy friendship that develops between Sunako and the boys, particularly their prickly leader Kyouhei. And it also makes a few well-intentioned, but toothless attempts at commenting on the nature and perceptions of feminine beauty.

The show's visuals are very strange. The boys are supposed to be super-attractive, but are drawn in a garish style that makes them look anything but. For the purposes of the comedy and easier animation, the action will often switch to super-deformed character designs, so simplified they're practically stick figures. Fortunately, the cheap visuals don't impact the shows strange but undeniable charms, and the series is at its best when it's at its most surreal. The characters turn out to be genuinely likable and the show's message is a good one: beauty is all about self-confidence and self-esteem, so you can't change for anyone but yourself.

To be quite honest, when I first came across Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge (YNSH in following text), I never had a slightest intention of viewing it. It may be that I don't have a thing for reverse harem stories, but, nevertheless, I didn't really think about it.

Still, while reading some recommendations, people said they had a blast of laughter throughout with a dash of romance so I decided to pick it up. I kind of regret it, but, at the same time, I kind of am not.

To be honest, story is tragically bad, at least in my opinion. It never actually moves anywhere until ... the last 2 minutes of last episode, so it's kind of an annoying segment of anime. It's basically about four beautiful (...) guys trying to convert an ugly girl into a lady. The story does seem kind of ... stupid, but it had potential. The first couple of episodes were actually quite good, possibly leading to something great, but, in the end, it never really gotten anywhere. If you want to go into this anime for its amazing storytelling, don't. We do get bits and pieces of the background story from two characters, but overall, not much.

Aside from the story, YNSH has a lot of humor. For the first half of anime, I was laughing my ass off; still, in its latter half, the jokes became old and repetitive. Constant nosebleeds, kidnappings and dazzling quickly grew old and plain and it barely got me to finish the series, hoping for a satisfying ending (nothing there though).

Art ... art is annoying, to be honest. Even after watching all 25 episodes, I still couldn't bring myself to accept those freekin' lips on the guys. They just seem out of place (REALLY OUT OF PLACE) and quite ... freaky to be frank. Also, the fact that Sunako spends 80% of the anime in her chibi form doesn't really bode well with me. Still, her scary faces and whatnot were quite well done - I was actually impressed. However, most of the time, backgrounds are plain and uninteresting with little to no imagination put into them. As I said, I couldn't get used to the art even after finishing anime. Sure, there are some pretty girls here and there, but since the main focus are guys, it's quite unbearable to stare at them for longer than 2 seconds because you want to puke.

While we are at the character department, I also have some complaints. The characters lack ... any kind of development - I mean ANY KIND. The way you see the characters in episode one is the exact one you'll see in episode 25 - even our beloved Sunako, to whom this "transformation" is directed. We have bookworm, playboy, "cutie" boy, loud and annoying mouth-worm, annoying but lady-like aunt, goth-loli (don't ask), cute but love-struck girl, scary, ugly and overall plain girl and ... oh, it's enough. First of, if you're looking for the characters you can relate to, move on. It's impossible. Either they're super-uber-dazzling or they're just plain ugly. Of course, this servers quite well for some comedic moments, but ... it gets annoying after awhile. Even Takano, the only character that gets more than two lines of his past, is impossible to relate to since his "sad past" is derivative of utterly impossible circumstances.

If I say that I enjoyed this anime throughout, I'd be lying. Sure, I had my share of laughs of course, but a lot of times I was just withering in agony, waiting for SOMETHING to happen. If you're into massive, impossible and CONSTANT nosebleeds, sparkling men and ugly goth-loli girls, you will have a kick out of this series. I swear, it's impossible to count the number of nosebleeds in this anime. And they're not the simple ones; just the ones that can manifest the pool of blood.

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge is not a bad anime, don't get me wrong. However, the bits and pieces that are fun, original and hilarious are often overshadowed by its ridiculous setting, situations out of this world which are impossible to relate to, characters that are definitely not human and non-existent story. Still, it's worth the watch if you have nothing else major to complete.

Okay, I though that I would try this anime because Vic is one of my favourite voice actors, but I started it, I have nothing against the plot line or the characters, I just can't stand the drawing of the characters, I might try to pick it back up and look past the bad drawing. I am not trying at all the bash the makers of this anime, it could be one of the best animes ever, but I don't think I can get past the drawing. I feel like I would get hate for this, but I am very picky about what animes ... I watch, and if they don't have at least drawing that is sort of good, I probably won't watch it.

I dont know very much of anything about the anime itself, if other people like it thats fine, I won't hate on you for liking it, I don't really care but if you are picky about the drawing in animes like I am, you might be able to tolerate the animation in this, but I can't. Like I said, I might actually pick this anime back up, although I can't be sure.

What can one say about this anime?
Well i can say that i really like the main goal of the serie.That a group of 4 "handsome" guys are given the task to turn a hidden unkept woman into a real lady.

But the story drops that really fast as the guys seem to give up trying after a couple eps and usually just accept her odd behavior. Its heartwarming that they do but the main goal was to turn her into a lady.

The anime starts to overuse chibis after a few episodes and thats a bloody shame cause they girl in question is very pretty and it ... would be more fun to see her panic in normal human form.
Instead we get to see her mostly as a chibi beeing treated like a 5 year old buy the guys.
The guys are drawn very feminine and it can be offputting to many, including me.
Also overuse of nosebleed..cmon, after a week or two she would start getting used to them.
But the humor and my wanting to see Sunako and Kyouhei get togheter held me watching.

In the end i will give the anime a 6 cause while the style and chibis was offputting i enjoyed the characters, the humor and kept wishing for the two to get togheter.

All i can say is: Be patient with the anime and you will start to enjoy it.

I love funny anime. YNSH is a very light anime that has a plot which is not at all complicated. It's good if you want something pretty cheesy and mindless to watch after a long day. Unfortunately, it wasn't as funny as I hoped, and the humor that was there was not at all witty and in fact pretty lame sometimes.

Story: very simple plot, only a microscopic bit of romance. The premise makes you expect that at every given chance, the four boys will be trying to force Sunako to become a lady, but they don't really try that much. In ... a way this was good because the subliminal message is accepting people for who they are and liking people because of how they treat you, even if some of their hobbies are "scary" or "weird" or even if they are supernaturally good-looking.

Art: All the characters spend a good amount of time as featureless chibis. When the characters were in non-chibi form, I thought the art was pretty bland, and I didn't like the male character designs. They were all angles, plump lips, girly faces, and not at all manly. Some anime characters can legit make me swoon. These men looked too girly 99% of the time, and I was totally turned off to them 5 minutes into the first episode.

Sound: I liked the opening and closing songs (the 2nd closing song better than the first). I actually really like the BGM. There are little themes in the BGM that play during certain moods or types of scenes and I thought it gave the series some continuity. It's also kind of fun sometimes when you hear a certain little jingle and you can think "Oh, Sunako is going to go crazy in a second" or "yup, the boys are going to start dazzling any moment", and then you are right.

Character: The development is a bit more subtle than in some animes, which I didn't mind. Sunako definitely grows more than any of the other characters. The male characters are typical male anime tropes: "cute and girly" pretty boy, tall-dark-and-stoic, player/lover-boy, and hunky bad-boy. It was interesting to see how they all felt differently about their looks. In some reverse-harem animes, the bishies all know it and they love it, so it was refreshing to see that sometimes their good looks even caused some problems! It was also nice to see how very different personalities got along, and neat to see how they had to learn to respect each other's feelings and boundaries.

Enjoyment: after a long day of college classes and work, when I'm feeling pretty brain-dead and blah, this was ok to relax with and got me laughing a few times.

Call me superficial, but I could not stand the art. It's probably one of the ugliest (if not the ugliest) anime I've ever seen. At times, it was comical and at others it wasn't. Also, I didn't see the story going anywhere, really. I was expecting it to be something I could get into, considering that it was recommended for most of the shows I watched and loved, by this website and others. I couldn't find really any reasons to enjoy this show, no matter how I looked at it.

I realize that these may just be me, but I really wouldn't recommend this ... show to anyone. I don't know how it's constantly grouped with shows like LoveCom.

such a stupid weird silly anime. yet i couldn't stop watching episode after episode and ended up binging the entire show in one day

story: 6/10 hot guys tries to make a weird creepy girl to a fine lady for free rent. a stupid concept it's interesting. a lot of inspiring and pretty emotional stuff in the anime but because they're never serious, really ruins it. i get that this is mainly a comedy light hearted anime but if you're gonna implement stuff like those get the characters to be a little more serious or it just comes off as forced and cringy.

characters: 5/10 again, ... honestly pretty decent on the base(?) i see can see their stories and they make sense but how they present it is so stupid. take main girl as an example, she became a shut in with low self confidence because she got called ugly and rejected when she confessed to her crush, plus she has odd interests. but she also has a loving family, her economical situation is also great, she couldve gone to therapy or some shit lmao. they shouldve shown why she likes the guy so much that his words made that big of an impact.

sound 6/10 p good. the voice actors matches their characters well and they did a good job. the sound effects were nice, a lot of them were just so generic but it's a comedy anime there isn't a need for something spectacular lol. the op was pretty Eh but it grew on me.

art 6/10: im sure a lot of the complains are from the lips but honestly it didn't bother me lol. overall the art is decent. the little chibi and simplistic comedy animations deliver well and made the scenes funnier so that's nice. nothing super good but nothing bad either i think

enjoyment 6/10: ngl i don't remember the first half of the series bc there was just nothing memorable or good enough to remember. humor is really predictable so most of the times the jokes fall flat but i genuinely couldn't stop myself from watching an episode after another so i guess i somehow enjoyed it ?