Nineteen

The worst day of the year has just drawn to a close. That dreaded day that begins with the chocolate and roses and ends with the kissing and the sex. February 14 may very well be Valentine’s Day but what about all us roneri brothers out there? Those currently out of a relationship or are part of forever alone. If February 14 is Valentine’s Day, I hereby, decree February 21st as All bro’s day; a festival of camaraderie, bro fisting, and general misguided misogyny. What better way to celebrate our lonely celibate lives than by sitting here with me and reviewing another series that does ... just that -- one that paints a misogynistic and cruel view of females--. Enter the world of 19nineteen.

Story 7/10

The story starts off with our main character Kubota looking for love—and some ky jelly—. He’s tried time and time again to get laid. But as said earlier he doesn’t just want to have sex with the girls he wants to genuinely fall in love. The problem with this type of premise is that it doesn’t lead to much credibility. Here we have our main character looking for love in the big city. Are we honestly supposed to believe that a Japanese male would pass up the chance for sex when offered numerous times by seemingly healthy, somewhat attractive, chicks? This is a country with dispensable used panties, soap houses, nyan nyan, naked and penis festivals and all other sorts of craziness. Many of the girls in the series offer to have sex with him yet he refuses. That is until he sees an old love a schoolmate with whom he was previously infatuated with. She has just broken out of a longtime relationship herself and so begins what Daimyo calls our main characters decent into pitiable debauchery. Instead of leaving well enough alone, he does what most guys call “rebounding” and attempts to pick up this chick that has just broken up with her boyfriend of several years. It almost makes me wonder how gullible these people are —to Daimyo this girl is obvious red card on the don’t want department—. I mean if you’re just looking for the sex and don’t expect much of a relationship, then sure why not? But this guy has specifically stated he’s looking for a real burning hot romance. What possible hope could have with a girl who will most likely continue to look behind him? That’s the only thing he has though, no hope. This is one of those tragedies waiting to happen. It’s like you think you know and love this girl but really she turns up being nothing but a two bit, good for nothing, whore. I must say the story sets itself up to be at least interesting. The music pieces and the video scenes are very well done and add a nice layer of ambiance to the story. For a while, you almost believe this poor sod has a chance with the girl. But then you are brought back to reality and reminded of the problems that real girls have. This is more of a problem with nature’s (kamisama?) mechanics rather than the story itself.

Characters 6/10

You really only have two characters in this series, well three. Considering this is somewhat of a love triangle I have to include the previous boyfriend. We’ll get to him later. As mentioned earlier we have hopeless romantic Kubota. Not to say that he’s a bad guy but he should have taken a page from the playbook of rapper Snoop Dogg, regarding comments he made recently on Kim Kardashian. It basically went like this “You can’t turn a ho into a housewife”. That’s essentially what Kubota tried to do. He tried to turn his favorite middle school ho Fujisaki into a housewife. Now some of you might say, Daimyo you are being exceptionally harsh to this female character that has just gotten out of a long and tense relationship. She’s a ho because she tries to get him to bed as soon as possible. Even our boy Kubota is suspicious. She wants his dick as soon as possible. She even says it herself, “she wants to fall in love with him as soon as possible”. Meaning she just wants his **** and then good game thanks for playing, now get the fuck out —role reversal—. Like I said earlier, this isn’t always a bad thing but once again Kubota wanted a housewife not a whore. Fujisaki is definitely a bitch there’s no sugarcoating that. Not only does she have all the qualities to be a bitch: overly emotional, over-demanding, self-centered and un-grateful, she also just happens to be a model. Yup pure unadulterated bitch. There are almost no redeeming qualities in her character. There might be the fact that she pretends to portray an innocent girl for most of the film. You almost believe that wants to be with Kubota earnestly but like a hooker she takes her privates and pisses on all over Kubota’s dreams. Kubota even gave her a choice, but she chose abusing, using, bitch. The last dude is pretty much the story’s douchebag. His name is Kazuya. If you didn’t know by now I had to search this up. As far as douchebags go, —cheating on the girl and all that— he isn’t that bad. He tries to warn Kubota on just what type of woman Fujisaki is. He doesn’t even care when he catches the two of them about to have sex. Yet watching Fujisaki defend him was just pathetic. To sum up all the characters in this story, it was pretty much pralines and dick. There were some sweet parts but there also a lot of parts with nuts I didn’t care for.

Music 8/10

I think it’s the first time I did a music section, with good reason too. The music and scenes with music are by far the best parts of this ova. They match the mood of the series and another layer to this otherwise typical love story. Listed are the names of the songs and each artist —incase you want to sample them first—: I must change my life & love for me by Toshiki Kadomatsu, Desire by Toshiki Kadomatsu once again, Miss you by Shouji Kumi, boys boys boys by Sabrina —try and spot the nipples— and One and only lover by Sakamoto Hiroshi. I must, however, say the music is quite dated. So if you’re not really a fan of italo disco the older jazzy/funk jpop/bass heavy jrock you may not necessarily like it. I myself can’t get enough of the stuff.

Enjoyment & Overall 6/10

It’s a bit of a mixed bag for me on this one. Yea I liked it at times, but at the same time it’s not the type of show I would recommend someone to watch. Usually, when you’re digging through old shows like this that many people today would consider trash, you have to find something, I don’t know with a little bit more “pizzazz” or “charisma”. Basically you want either a hidden master piece anime (Legend of the Galactic Heroes) or you want something that’s so bad it’s good (Mad Bull 34). This show doesn’t fit into either category. It’s by no means brilliant neither is it so badly written and ridiculous that you just have to love it. Having said that, if you’re a fan of older animations, love stories, or general misogyny, this show is definitely worth your time, maybe even time and a half. The age and general obscurity of this anime combined with the lack of a “wow” factor made me score it a 6, were it not All bro’s day I may not have even written a review. Maybe you disagree but who cares what you guys think. This is my review —alienates any 1-2 imaginary fans he has—.

“NINETEEN 19” is a 1-episode OVA about the trials and tribulations of young love that’s half music video and half story. Featuring a nostalgic citypop soundtrack, aesthetic visuals and some innovative montages and scene transitions, this OVA has a lot going for it, but it’s bogged down by the uninteresting characters and plot. The sexually explicit scenes and dialogue also make it an uncomfortable watch.

The story revolves around a 19 (hence the title)-year-old guy named Kubota, who spends his days blithely hitting on girls on the street with his friends, and working at a cake shop under a boss who enjoys grabbing his butt. One ... night, he sees his old middle school crush, Fujisaki, in a club. Recently broken up with her long-time boyfriend, Fujisaki is aware of Kubota’s feelings, but she plays hard to get. She eventually reciprocates his feelings, but then she becomes aggressive, urging an uncertain Kubota to sleep with her ASAP. How will their relationship turn out?

The plot is rather simple, and the characters are similarly simple. The main characters get a few brief flashbacks, but that’s it. Since this is only one episode, the relationships between the characters aren’t explored or explained well, so one doesn’t get the full picture they might get if they read the manga. This is really more of a “style over substance” type of anime, so from here on, I’ll talk about those aspects.

The art is stylish, and the animation is mostly fluid, but there are lots of still shots mixed in. Many of the scene transitions are done in an avant-garde style. There are also montages set to music, in which the images range from standard animation to hand-drawn manga-like cutout figures and some other forms of art.

The soundtrack is full of catchy citypop tunes, plus the English song ”Boys! Boys! Boys!,” giving this anime a nostalgic feel. The voice actors are all famous, but their performances don’t stand out here due to the subpar dialogue. Fujisaki (Hiromi Tsuru) says “Kubota-kun” at least 26 times, for instance (I counted). That’s nearly one “Kubota-kun” for every 1.5 minutes of runtime! Also, if you’re familiar with some of the other characters these actors portray, the dialogue feels a little awkward. It’s basically Meryl from “Trigun” trying to get Vash to sleep with her — with Ranma and Dio encouraging him as Soun Tendo sexually harasses him at work. To top it off, the ex is Spike from “Cowboy Bebop.”

There is a significant amount of objectionable content in this OVA, but most of it is in the dialogue. There’s no outright nudity — just some stylized non-detailed nudity around the beginning, and then there are some scenes with a female character in her underwear and a towel. There’s also a condom shown. There aren’t any sex scenes, but there’s almost one at one point. There are several explicit sexual references in the dialogue. In addition to these, there are multiple scenes of and references to sexual harassment, most of which are instigated by an older male boss towards his younger male employee, and these scenes are treated as humorous.

In addition to the uncomfortable sexual content, the story and characters of “NINETEEN 19” are quite lacking, and I didn’t empathize with any of them enough to care about what they were going through. It would have been better if this OVA was either 70% music video or 70% story, not half and half. More story would give us more time to understand and care about the characters, while more music video would have made this feel like something akin to “Cipher.” As it is, it doesn't go far enough in either direction to leave a clear impression.

Overall, “NINETEEN 19” is good at evoking a late ‘80s atmosphere (although it came out in 1990), and as such, those who feel nostalgic for that time period may enjoy watching it just for the images and music, as long as they aren’t bothered by the sexual content or the bland story and characters.