Kiniro Mosaic

Shinobu Oomiya once left Japan to participate in a homestay in England. During her time there, she became close friends with Alice Cartelet, the daughter of the family she was living with. However, when it was time for Shinobu to return to Japan, the two were able to express their sorrow despite the language barrier between them.

Five years later, now a first year student in high school, Shinobu receives a letter by air mail in a language she does not understand. This letter is penned by none other than Alice, detailing her own homestay in Japan. In fact, Alice will be attending Shinobu's high school and living with her! Alongside their friends Youko Inokuma, Aya Komichi, and Karen Kujou, the five girls attend school together and learn about what their different cultures have to offer, day after day.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kujou, Karen Main

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Komichi, Aya Main

Taneda, Risa Japanese

Cartelet, Alice Main

Tanaka, Manami Japanese

Inokuma, Youko Main

Uchiyama, Yumi Japanese

Oomiya, Shinobu Main

Nishi, Asuka Japanese

Karasuma, Sakura Supporting

Satou, Satomi Japanese

Matsubara, Honoka Supporting

Suwa, Ayaka Japanese

Oomiya, Isami Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Inokuma, Mitsuki Supporting

Murakawa, Rie Japanese

Cartelet, Grace Supporting

Ohara, Sayaka Japanese

Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Producer

Hayashi, Youhei Producer

Kawamoto, Sachi Producer

Yamazaki, Fumiki Producer

Reviews

Sep 4, 2014

Voyagr

Recommended

First review!

Overall, not a bad show, but not a fantastic one either. Let's get into it!

~Art & Sound~
VERY cute/moe/sparkle-y art. Nothing breathtaking, but no real problems. Has some cute moments in alternate art styles.

OP and ED were pretty good, but nothing really special. Not much to comment on. However, it is worth noting that sometimes, the ED would randomly play, like, 8 minutes into the episode. Then there'd be ~13 more minutes of content after it, and THEN the episode would end. It was weird. Why did they do this? WHO KNOWS.

Both Art and Sound ... - 8/10.

~Characters & Plot~
The characters are supposed to be the shining, glorious star of slice of life. This show didn't really have that. The characters weren't BAD, but for a slice of life show, the characters have to be SUPERB. Why were they not superb in this show? Well, that ties in with the plot.

The plot was by far the biggest problem for me. This is because, well, there was ALMOST ENTIRELY ZERO PLOT. Of course, this is slice of life, so that's sort of the point, but this show seemed to deliberately avoid/defuse any situation that could have lead to development.

This show (like many other slice of life shows with cute girls), hinted at yuri pretty often. But this show did it A LOT. Almost every episode there's a romantic moment that could easily end in some sort of loving embrace, but instead ends with someone (normally Alice) smiling with twinkling eyes, and saying "okay!". And then 2 minutes later they pretend like it never happened.

Most slice of life shows use tiny touches of yuri implications for comedic purposes. However, in this show, the feelings felt a lot more real and grounded. Yet, nothing ever goes anywhere. Obviously, Alice likes Shino. DOUBLE OBVIOUSLY, Aya likes Yoko.

"You've shown up in my dreams a lot lately." .~*sparkle-y image of yoko, and blush*~.
-Aya, to Yoko

REALLY? That's full romance. Don't bullshit me. Don't worry though, this isn't really a spoiler, because all the feelings are pretty evident early on- even from the first episode. I mean, I'm not asking for another freaking Sakura Trick here, but come on, give me SOMETHING. You could literally watch the first episode, and then watch the last episode, and you wouldn't even know that all those little romantic moments happened.

It's pretty clear why things were done like this. This way, the creators of the show can say "well, teecchnniicallllyy, there's no yuri in the show", and that makes the show less weird, and therefore more easily accepted by the general public. Yaaaayy. By staying in the gray area, sure, that problem is solved, but the show feels a little bland as a result. Now, I see there's going to be a second season, but I'm fairly certain nothing will actually come to fruition in that, either.

There's always the comedy though, right? Sort of. The comedy isn't all that great either. The humor is pretty repetitive, and it was very rare for a funny moment to actually be genuinely laugh-able.

Character - 7/10
Plot - 5/10

~Enjoyment~
The romantic set-ups got my hopes up and then went nowhere. I was always waiting for that MOMENT of feeling realization that never came. I knew it wouldn't come, since this is slice of life, but I COULDN'T HELP IT OKAY I LIKE ROMANCE AND IT WAS TEASING ME. The relatively lackluster comedy that often defused the romantic moments probably added to the frustration a bit. Of course there were quite a few entertaining portions, but certainly not enough.

Enjoyment - 6/10


~Overall~
Cute art, good-ish comedy, half-baked romance, and a partridge in a pear tree. If you want something cute and easy to watch, without too many crazy laughs, check this one out. Just don't get too hooked into the implied yuri moments (like me), or you'll be disappointed. It's certainly a passable slice of life show, but in my opinion, it's not much more than that.

Overal - 6.5/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 22, 2013

Firechick12012

Mixed Feelings

Don't you just hate it when an anime looks like it'll be good and then turns out to not be so?

Seriously, I really want to like this show. I really do. The first episode was so sweet, so charming, and reminded me so much of Ikoku Meiro no Croisee, I didn't mind having a nice little slice of life anime to watch. I didn't have any expectations at first as I didn't know much about it, but when I saw the first episode, I thought it'd be a nice exploration of cultural differences similar to how Ikoku Meiro no Croisee was. I thought it'd be ... a really cute and sweet and interesting serious, without getting into borderline saccharine and moeness. I thought it'd be different from those other cute girls do cute things anime that have been swamping the industry lately. Boy was I wrong. After the first episode, it just basically said, "you wanted an interesting slice of life anime?! Ha ha! Tricked you! Well, too bad! Here are some unfunny moe blob antics where everybody acts like idiots over the stupidest things!"...yeah. Thanks for stomping all over my expectations, Kiniro Mosaic. Now I feel like I went through the second season of K-On again, and THAT in itself wasn't a pleasant experience!

The story is about a girl named Shinobu who, as a kid, went to stay with a family in England for a while. She knows no English but that doesn't seem to bother her. She meets a girl named Alice (Seriously, what's with Japan's obsession with the name Alice? If they really had that much trouble coming up with a name for her, they should have gone on some websites or something! I would have named her something more English, like Adriana or Amy or Jolie or Cassie!), who at first doesn't like her due to being ridiculously shy, but soon warms up to her. After spending time with her, Alice soon finds a very good friend in Shinobu. After Shinobu leaves, Alice vows to learn Japanese and go to Japan someday to meet her friend again. Years later, Alice gets her chance and manages to transfer to Shinobu's school. Her Japanese is fluent and she stays with Shinobu during her stay in Japan. Soon, her other friend Karen joins the picture, along with Shinobu's friends Yoko and Aya.

As far as the animation goes, visually, its pretty and very beautiful. I like the soft colors it uses on everything, like flowers on trees and the insides of houses. It really looks like a watercolor painting come to life. But as far as character movements go, it's rather minimal, looking just like any other anime that just focuses on looking pretty and having characters do stuff nobody in real life would do. Personally, the animation is pretty much this show's saving grace mostly because it's easy on the eyes, though at times some things do look a bit blurry. I do like how skillfully it uses a lot of pinks and yellows, and not just for hair colors either. Unfortunately though, the character designs are really bland and uninteresting. Normally this would be a good thing, but everyone here just looks like a bunch of moe stereotypes, made to act like moe stereotypes too, which certainly doesn't help.

The music is nice too, and surprisingly varied for a moe show. It doesn't limit itself to just one tune, and for the most part, it does its job well. There's soft piano tunes, nice classical tunes, comedic pieces, etc. They all do their job well...but not even this could save the show from derailing into stupid moe antics. I'll discuss the first one one seriously glaring flaw that's really starting to bug me: what's with Japan and their belief that any and all English/American people are blonde with blue eyes? Not all Americans and English people have blue eyes and blonde hair! I'm American and I have dark brown hair and green eyes. I actually read somewhere that back in the forties or fifties, the Japanese asked Osamu Tezuka to make Japanese people in his stories have blonde hair and blue eyes, and this was after World War 2 ended! Seriously, talk about doing a complete 180! I don't know if this is a cultural thing or not, but the Japanese really need to see that not all Americans and English people have blonde hair and blue eyes, or even foreign people in general. Gunslinger Girl took place in Italy, and not everyone in that anime had blonde hair and blue eyes, save for only a few characters.

The characters...oh God, how the anime flanderized them over the course of the anime! In the beginning, Shinobu just started off as an innocent girl in another country, but later on she became a full on, squeaky voiced ditz! All the other characters are bland and don't change over the course of the anime, and they all fit their molded stereotype. Shinobu is a straight up ditz, Yoko is perky, Aya is a tsundere, Karen is loud and hyper. Heck, even the teacher is a moe stereotype! No teacher I know acts the way she does! Alice is the only one with some depth to her, but even then it's forced and superficial. Oh God, I HATE Aya. She started off as the level headed one of the group, someone I'd actually like, but later on all she does is blush and jump to conclusions about everything! I wanted to bash her head in every time she reacted to something or even opened her mouth! And as much as I like her seiyuu, her voice wasn't helping matters. Heck, for that matter, EVERYONE I know has a squeaky voice! No teenagers I knew sounded like they did! God, by the time the third episode came around I wanted them to just shut up, their voices were that grating! Seriously, I hope Sentai dubs this anime and gives them all realistic sounding girl voices! One thing I love about anime dubbing is that English dubbers often give girls in moe shows realistic voices, Air and Kanon being the best examples, and it works. But yeah, they rely too much on their assigned gimmicks to be funny (which they aren't) and they're completely shallow and uninteresting. Plus, trying to act like five year olds clearly doesn't help here, and the forced, artificial voice acting just makes it worse.

So yeah. Kiniro Mosaic is just yet another unfunny cute girls do cute things like idiots show meant to rake in some cash. The characters are boring, the voice acting is horrid, the jokes got old fast, and the show in itself is...well, if you like moe girls, give it a go. Otherwise, give it a miss.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Sep 8, 2018

JuneNephthys

Not Recommended

Kiniro Mosiac is the moe franchise you should probably steer clear of. It’s the most boring and uninventive that I’ve seen in the genre. The girls are cute, and if you want to watch it purely on that, then go ahead, but it’s like a stale loaf of bread.

• Meet you main heroines Shinobu, the Western obsessed Japanese girl, and Alice, an exchange student from England that is obsessed with Japanese culture. Like you may have thought to yourself after a sigh, that sounds extremely generic. That’s because it is. Those are the focal points of this series, oh, and a bland-sauce pretty foreigner ... named Karen that has little-to-no personalty other than being devious and lazy.

• The most interesting characters are Aya and Shinobu’s hot older sister, which it rarely shows. And Aya’s personality is overshadowed how flamingly gay she is for the tomboy of the class. This series is very episodic and nothing really happens, other than girls gushing over each other and shoujo-ai innuendo that never really leads anywhere.

• Unlike a show like Yuru Yuri, there is absolutely no character development between the girlsーif anything, it just gets lost in a cacophony of silly, pointless humor and repeats the same jokes ad nauseum. Rinse, repeat the same silly, lower budget than normal moe show over and over again.

• If you are a native English speaker, such as myself, you may tire quickly of the hellacious English spouted by the supposed Englishwoman. The comedy is boring, the characters are boring and mostly one-dimensional. If you’re a fan of moe, you can skip this one. Just throw it in your imaginary hamper and forget to wash it. I give the first season a 4/10, the second season a 3/10, and the film: Pretty Days, which is pretty much like a long episode, a 2/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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