Sansha Sanyou

There's just something about "cute girls doing cute things" that keeps dragging me back every season. I know it's overdone and I sometimes want to avoid the genre but I can use Sansha Sanyou as an example of why it keeps dragging me back every season.


[Story]
There's basically no difference between this show compared to hundreds of moe shows out there. If you ask me why I keep watching shows like this, the only answer I would give to you is "I have no idea. I just enjoy the slice of life, cute girls doing cute things show".

This show is focused on three very ... different high school girls but they share one similar thing: the kanji for "leaf" in their names, hence the title "Three Leaves, Three Colors". That's about it. The show has no story and it's just your typical girls goofing around for 12 episodes. If you're not a fan of this kind of stuff then you might as well skip this series.

As for people who are a fan of the genre and asking why they should watch this series..Just like every slice of life show out there that I enjoyed, I enjoyed Sansha Sanyou because the comedic aspect of the show is really well done and the characters are really fun to watch. I honestly didn't feel like any of the funny moments fell flat. The show took advantage of the characters' personalities and turning them into hilarious moments. For example, there's this one girl who eats a lot of food which means she can easily finish the eating challenges which also means the restaurants banned her because she is putting them out of business if she continues. There's this another girl who might seem like a nice girl but she has a dark and mean personality inside which causes her to insult other people very easily.

The pacing was also well done...Every episode literally felt like five minutes and it's very rare for a slice of life show to do that to me. The key factor to why the show never felt boring is of course, the comedy. It's like the characters always have something interesting to do every 10-15 minutes.
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[Art/Animation]: (9/10)
Is this what it feels like to take 3 medium-sized bags of cocaine? Everybody in the world of Three Leaves,Three Colors looks so damn colorful. It's like......Bro....Enough about that, I'm actually not joking when I say that everyone in this show looks so colorful. The visuals looks amazing for a slice of life show, the character designs is also great and the animation is surprisingly consistent.
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[Sound]: (9/10)
The OST is pretty good..I really like those constant single piano beats that plays during those cute moments. Now the OP and the ED theme song(s)

The OP theme song is Clover?Kakumation" by Triple?Feeling. I love the OP theme song. I love the fast melody and it's very catchy. The ED theme song is "Goochoki Parade" by Triple?Feeling. Again, this song is also very catchy and I love the part where Sonobe was narrating.
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[Characters]: (8.5/10)
I surprisingly did not find any of the characters here annoying at all...In every slice of life show, there's that one annoying girl with a squeaky voice that I just want to shoot in the face but not here. All of the characters here are really fun to watch (Sonobe is best girl of the series) and their personalities are hilarious. For example, Futaba Onigiri eats a lot of food, to the point where most restaurants banned her from the eating challenge, Teru Hayama may seem like a cute nice girl but has a dark and cold personality on the inside and Youko Nishikiwa is a former rich girl who still has that "annoying rich girl" personality. Watching their personalities unfold is a lot more funnier than just reading it off some guy's review.

Even though majority of the characters here are female, there are one or two male characters. One of them is a former servant of Nishikiwa and one of them is just a rival of Futaba.

Speaking of former servants, I mentioned that Sonobe is best girl. I really.Really.REALLY love how she acts like a high school student most of the time. Even though her appearance may suggest that she's a high school student, she's actually not. That's what makes it even more funnier. The fact that she's able to fit in a high school very easily because of her appearance. I also love her monotonic sound, her cosplays, her pretty much everything about her.
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[Enjoyment]: (9/10)
Staying up at Friday nights every week, for 12 weeks is something that I'm going to miss because this was one of my stress relievers and a show that I really enjoyed. I would come home from work and I would load up Sansha Sanyou. It was a blast for 24 minutes.
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[VERDICT]
Sansha Sanyou (Three Leaves, Three Colors) is a slice of life "cute girls doing cute things" series that I discovered from FUNimation's Broadcast Dub Lineup. In other words, I didn't know shit about this series and I came in with no expectations. No expectations meaning this show surprised me and I ended up thoroughly enjoying this series. If you're a big fan of slice of life "cute girls doing cute things" show then this show is definitely for you.

[OVERALL]: (8.8/10)


Pros:
+Enjoyable Slice of Life series
+Comedic aspect of the show was really well done
+Amazing Visuals and Animation
+Fun cast of characters

Cons:
-

If you're looking for a lighthearted moe slice of life, Sansha Sanyou is totally worth a try!

This anime is focused on Yoko, a rich girl that suddenly became poor after his father's business went bankrupt, now she lives alone and goes to a normal school, but her way to be after all that years makes her have a hard time making friends.

Thankfully, she meets Odagiri Futaba, an active girl that eats a lot, and Teru Hayama, a girl that looks really calm but is actually pretty scary when she wants, and soon after they become friends.

This is Sansha Sanyou, a calm and funny slice of ... life anime based on their daily lives.

The animation, as expected from Doga Kobo, is simply fantastic, all the characters and backgrounds are great, with some specific points being just eye candy of how smooth they feel.

For the sound, both OP and ED songs are really good and you want to hear them over and over, like in most SoL anime, the background music during the episodes is nothing special but do a good job in helping set the tone of the moment.

I have to say than outside of Yoko, Futaba, and Sonobe Shino (a maid that worked in Yoko's house back when she was rich), I don't like much the rest of the characters, or their comedy gag are not that funny.

Overall, Sansha Sanyou is a relaxing SoL comedy that will be perfect for anyone that looks for that type of anime, if you do, make sure to give it a try!

Moe, the current theme of anime. For many years now, the flow of anime has been consistently following the 'cute girl' trend and creating a vast amount of shows involving cute-looking high school girls and just following their daily lives. It has become to the point that expecting at least a few of these kinds of shows every new season is routine and that the market has become so saturated with these kinds of shows that it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between one show from another. So here, we have Sansha Sanyou, Three Leaves, Three Colors, and Three times the ... reasons why this show doesn't do anything but fall into that category of being forgettable.

Story: Nisikawa Youko is a rich girl who has fallen from grace. Due to her father's company going down under, she is no longer the princess that she once was and now lives in a small apartment while her father goes out and tries to find work. At her new school for normal kids and living in poverty by eating breadcrusts, she meets two girls, Odagiri Futaba and Hayama Teru who start their high school adventures together.

Sansha Sanyou is the furthest thing from being original in terms of base storyline. The story has these three girls live out their high school lives doing some pretty standard things. Have a meal, work a part-time job, have fun, go to the beach, etc, etc. There's nothing really outlandish in terms of what these characters do and as much as the show tries to make them seem interesting, doesn't really come through in the way of intrigue. The main things that the story focuses on are based around the three girls and their individual characteristics: Adjusting to a 'commoner's' life, consuming food, and cats, lots of cats.

The majority of the comedy for the series comes in the form of character interactions and retorts, pertaining to the various characters that are involved with the current scene at hand. Most of them are forms of situational comedy that are pulled off moderately well, while the rest are more surprise-related pertaining to some of the more wackier members of the side cast that I'll get into later. There's nothing terrible about the way the show delivers comedy, but there's nothing about it that seems either special or unique.

All in all, Sansha Sanyou is what I would describe as your generic moe show. It's not the best, but it's also not the worst. It's an average piece of animation that more or less recycled the same gags without adding anything new to each new episode before wrapping everything up with a neat little bow to show that everything is just nice and dandy.

Overview:
+/- Rather generic plotline/setting
- Nothing particularly interesting stands out

Characters: As Sansha Sanyou is a moe show, the main basis for its draw are its characters. As the heart and soul of this show, the characters basically embody one trait and one trait alone and stay that way pretty much throughout the whole series.

First is Nishikawa Youko, our Oujo-sama fallen from grace. Youko could be described as our main character for this series mostly due to the fact that she gets involved with the majority of the situations that the show puts us in. As a previous rich girl, Youko's characteristics involve not fully understanding things in the 'commoner's' world as well as surviving off of a diet of bread crusts and mayo. The one thing that makes her character have more worth than anyone else in the series is because of the fact that she does grow as the series goes along. She becomes more independent and less high and mighty despite still being quite ignorant about certain situations, but hey, it's still character growth and it still means something.

Then there's Odagiri Futaba, the literal 'walking black hole' as the series calls her. Futaba is the 'genki girl' of the series and constantly has room in her stomach for more food. And more food. And more food. Etc, etc. Most of Futaba's on-goings and gags are quite simple, mostly revolving around the idea of her just stuffing her face hole and around a restaurant the she frequents which always seems to have a new food challenge everyday. (Interesting business strategy) Also, she's always seen eating these 2 x 1 x 1 foot bread rectangular prisms. They're like as big as her head. Really though, that's all Futaba as a character actually has. Her personality and everything that she stands for as a character is pretty much stagnant throughout the whole run of the series. If you take away her eating aspect, there's nothing else that she really has in terms of character traits.

And finally, we have Hayama Teru, the calm and collected girl who hides a darker, more sharp-tongued version of herself away from the public eye, or anyone she doesn't want to see it. (Hell, she named her cat "Beelzebub") Hayama is by far the most complex character in this series, which isn't actually saying much, but it's still something. Given her two faces, we're seen with Hayama being the more 'competent' or understanding character of the bunch by consistently having something to say in any given situation and being able to accurately read what is going on and try to tip any argument in her favor. Her traits involve her being obsessed with cats and consistently having arguments with Nishiyama Serina, one of the more prominent side characters of the series and the main victim to most of Teru's poisonous words.

Side characters in this series are more common than most. Most prominently are Youko's ex-butler, Yamaji (who is more of a stalker than anything else) and her ex-maid, Sonobe, the single expression maid who vibrates when she's happy. In addition, there's Nishiyama and her sidekick Kondou who always seem to be in the exact same place as our protagonists are located, Teru's sister who can't cook for the life of her, and the twins who are basically worthless cause they only dip in and out of the series as needed.

Overall, the characters are very static in terms of complexity. They're all simple characters that have nothing to them if you take away their one character trait. As such, they don't really have much to them and they feel more tropey than anything else.

Overview:
+ Youko character growth
- Everyone is basically a trope
- One-note characters

Art: Sansha Sanyou has the same kind of colorful and clean polish that Doga Kobo has been using on all of their projects in the past few years. As such, the art is bright with a polished shine to both the characters and the backgrounds in addition to character designs that bear a very clear moe-defined artstyle with Doga Kobo's signature large and slightly detailed round eyes for each one of their characters. The animation is more or less standard fare, especially for moe shows, so there's not really anything unique about its artstyle.

For comedic stylings, the show also boasts quite a number of your usual and typical anime comedy aspects. You have exaggerated faces, the purple smoke to signify that something is dangerous for human consumption, and your usual cute girl tropes to fill in the gaps. These all pertain to the show's comedic themes of rich now poor, food, and cats, so there's not really all that much to go off of.

Overview:
+ Standard fare animation
+/- Generic and standard comedic stylings

Sound: The soundtrack for Sansha Sanyou is...really not all that special. They're pretty forgettable tracks that don't really have much to offer. They're your standard 'cute girl' songs and don't have that unique thing to them that makes them memorable.

Personal Enjoyment: I went into Sansha Sanyou knowing that it was probably going to be just another generic show that doesn't have much to offer in the way of story, characters, and pretty much everything else. What I didn't expect was just how long the episodes were going to be, or rather, how they felt. Every episode felt a lot longer than they actually were and I think that's a testament as to how uninspiring or lazy this show actually felt. Nothing really stood out as amazing or unique, and I honestly felt bored watching this half the time. Most of it just felt kinda hollow and bland and just so uninspiring.

Did I like this show?

I didn't love this show, but I also didn't hate it. The show doesn't have many positive qualities about it simply because the things it has to offer have all been done before many a time. As such, the overall feel of the show is mostly just generic and tired rather than anything actually good or bad.

What didn't I like about this show?

Nothing really. I don't hate the show for being what it is, but it's just not the most enjoyable experience knowing that you're just going into another show and just watching the same things over and over again.

Would I recommend this show?

If you want a generic moe show, then Sansha Sanyou has got your back. The show doesn't have many things original about it that I can even mention due to the lack of overall creativity and what happens in the show. But hey, it's not the worst thing that you can watch.

As a Slice-Of-Life anime, you should know that this series would almost have no plot to it. Sansha Sanyou mainly focuses on the school life of three girls, so expect that you'd be watching an anime that heavily depends on the characters' personalities.

In that matter, I'd say that I enjoyed it very much! The characters have absolutely different personalities which makes all of them interesting, and I love the way how the characters were exhibited throughout the series.

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No issues with the art. I like MOE as much as most people do. No issues with the sound and music either (in fact, I enjoyed listening to ... both the opening and the ending songs).

Also: Points for the Ojou-san (not so Ojou-san) character! (I love mature and prideful princess characters. lol)

Overall rating: 8 out of 10

the interpretation of art will differ from one to another. to be honest if Sansha Sanyou/SS were presented any more serious(ly) i would not be here writing this review.

first things first-
there are no real plots;
aside from character development by acknowledging each other developed later on, the main focus are the three characters' perceptions and their SOLE reactions.

I am not a big slice of life fan but if i understood SS correctly, SS meant to reflect our own lives through comparison of the anime itself. this is interesting because most of us fail to appreciate the life we been living in.

one second let ... me get requirements out of way

story - none
art - B+
sound - okish
character - very well developed and crafted
enjoyment - very
overall - one of the better shows

since everything else was boring i will be mostly only talking about the characters

when was the last time you had a 3 set meal dinner with [friends], nah try just by yourself, before sun down and while enjoying the sun setting, smelling great food and able to relax in a sated mood at home. while fresh air cools part of your house and temperature drops as you finish dinner and get ready to jump into a warm bed, never to worry about opening your eyes until you are ready to.

i mean, what does that mean to you?

i mostly enjoy drama and some mecha animes but this show is SCARY

all the characters are actually at their worst but presented at their best, they all would be consider depressed people, i guess this is where all the tropes arose from that most other reviews talked about.

for me
in a way SS the show itself was guiding me to laugh AT the flaws of characters not the comedy aspect where more or less i was suppose to respond to.
from what i understand, the writer completely understood what part of the psyche each character represents and each time i laughed presented that flaw to me in person.

teru- one of the saner characters, a sociopath who cannot afford to be happy, feeds on depravity of others, like most people have their own angels and devils

youko- a fair person in pursuit of own personalities & interests e.g save money,mayo. that is what i guess they are trying to convey to the viewers. a fair person.

futaba- an air head with good heart, mostly represented as a good mother figure cleans and excels at home economics

hayama- teru sister, a health nut of the sort, very polite, a psychopath have the need to be center stage, omnipresent on screen.

kondou asako- the logician that understands everyone but never speak up, very bright, probably too smart that is why she is always neutral but preobably depressed.

nishiyama- she would be the polar opposite of youko, childish youthful and everything from feminine to moe never grows up

sonobe- a 30 year old maid, very mature and shamless. reaching to end to prime years is not a thing she like to acknowledge

yuu- ambitious pre-teen who lacks attention given from his mother and attached to youko

hajime- blue hair male unable to control teen testosterone who lacks attention from father or peer groups finds relief in challenging futaba

sasame- young girl with no role model finds a moral compass with youkou-senpai,

usada sakura- cousin of futaba, attracted to yuu's money
probably the most sick of all, this preteen planned her life and sealed her own fate before having a childhood. probably was forced to grow up fast or very ambitious.

yamaji- because this is japan we are talking about, a super multifunctional tall man servant stalker that looks pretty; tells you all about ladies needs.

there is a super nasty little episode at the beginning of episode 4 with 3 ladies having luncheon.

if you made this far and not seem surprised i applaud you, you probably understood this piece of work better than me.

like i said,
the interpretation of art will differ from one to another
thanks for reading

Story: 3/10
Since this is a slice of life, there is little to no story. Especially with animes like this, where it's main cast is girls, they do random things and you never know what to expect. But that's what I was expecting from this kind of anime, so I'm fine with it.

Art: 9/10
The art is really nice. The vibrant colors of the main character's hair makes them stand out and the backgrounds look good. Plus the art style is really nice for this genre, and when there are funny parts, they know how to do the face expressions well. xD

Sound: 10/10
Nothing wrong with the sound ... I saw. The voice actors fit their characters great, so no problems here.

Character: 7/10
The characters aren't anything special, but I enjoyed them a lot. Some characters are cliche, like Futaba in the way that she's the main energetic girl that makes us laugh all the time, but other than that, every character has it's own unique traits. Yoko is a rich girl that loves mayonnaise, Futaba is has an eating addiction, Hayama is the nice girl with a dark side, etc.. The characters also usually stay true to their personality and don't ever stray far off, so that's good too.

Enjoyment: 10/10
I love these kinds of animes where the main cast is girls and it's a slice of life, so I really enjoyed it. If you aren't into that kind of stuff, I'm not sure what the reason is that you'd watch it, but I liked it a lot. It made me laugh out loud many times and smile as well. :)

Overall: 9/10
I loved watching this anime and it's sad that it lasted only 12 episodes. If you like girl Slice of Life-Comedy animes, this one is great! Very funny and I enjoyed it a lot :D

Most people pass this show off as another "cute girls doing cute things show", and I have to disagree there. It certainly comes across that way initially, but these characters are doing more than "being cute". This is a pure comedy, that happens to star (mostly) females. This is still the funniest anime I have seen.

What makes this show so funny? It goes against typical anime humor, the over-the-top reactions, the physical comedy. Instead, it focuses on comedic timing, and characters being funny in a more sitcom style. And it does it so well. But it also couldn't do it without interesting characters, and that's ... the other place this show shines. The main cast breaks stereotypes and remain interesting throughout the series.

Story: A true slice of life show, there is no progressing story. Continuity still exists, but don't expect to get enveloped in some intricate plot.

Art: The main draw of this show when it was released. The art and animation are excellent, no surprise coming from Doga Kobo. One complaint I'd make here is, cats are a main theme in the show, but they look...weird.

Sound: Solid, nothing that stood out one way or the other.

Character: Hayama, the studious class rep with a demonic other side. Futaba, the blunt girl with a black hole for a stomach. Yoko, the former rich girl turned poor penny-pincher. The characters in this show is what makes it so amazing.

Enjoyment: Not many shows draw me in from the first episode (hence the "four episode rule" for anime). This was an immediate sell the moment I started watching it. Funny from the first scene to the last.

Sansha Sanyou is an amusing slice-of-life comedy, revolving around Odagiri (the genki glutton), Hayama (a slightly sociopathic animal-lover), and Nishikawa (the former Ojousama).

It has a very pure anime categorization:
- Moe: present (due to Nishikawa)
- Comedy: good
- Drama: nearly none
- Action: none
- Romance: none
- Harem: none
- Ecchi: none
...
This is a simple show (thus deserving a simple review). The art style and sound are pretty standard, but not at all bad. It reminded me most of Yuru Yuri, but less over-the-top and with ever-so-slightly more character progression. It's main goal is to make you laugh, and (at least for me) it achieves it. Nishikawa's laid-off maid and butler are both very quirky and funny; their antics were among my favourite parts, honestly.

The best part, in my opinion, is Nishikawa, the fallen Ojousama. I don't know why, but I find the way she talks and acts to be extremely kawaii :) She's not spoiled at all (i.e., she's not at all a "classic" Ojousama character - entitled and irritating), and she always talks in an adorable prim and proper way that I just loved listening too. Major props to the voice actress for earning most of the moe score.

The only negatives were some annoying character interactions (e.g. between Hayama and Nishiyama) and some aspects being a little repetitive. It does get a little slow at times, hence my preference to designate it as a slice-of-life; but this is not something I really mind. Other than these, it's a lovely little show with quirky, funny characters doing funny things.

Sansha Sanyou started as a four panel manga series by Cherry Arai. Just this year it received an anime adaptation by Doga Kobo, the same studio behind Yuru Yuri. Yeah, this is a pretty recent one, having ended at the end of June. Is it as strong as Yuru Yuri or is this the first negative review I'll be doing of something Doga Kobo worked on. Of course, I have only reviewed series of Yuru Yuri from them, so I'm not exactly looking at a long and proud tradition that could be broken here. Either way, let's take a look.

Story:

We open with Nishikawa Youko, a ... former rich girl who's ostracised because she still has a rich girl's sense of comportment in spite of her family having lost its money, is sitting outside for her lunch of bread crusts when two other girls, Odagiri Futaba & Hayama Teru, decide to join her. The three become fast friends and various shenanigans quickly ensue as they go about their daily lives. So, no real story to the whole thing. Let's move right on to discussing the comedy.

The humour in this series is based heavily around quirky personalities interacting with one another. Like Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka, Azumanga Daioh, Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight or several other slice of life comedies. In Sansha Sanyou, the results are a bit inconsistent. It has some moments that are quite funny. some that are funny the first time but then get repeated basically verbatim twice or thrice. It's one of those comedies where there are running gags that don't have much variation in their occurrences. For instance, there's a jape about an older student who has a one-sided rivalry with Futaba over which of them can compete bulk eating challenges faster and most of his scenes are the same thing repeated. I really shouldn't be watching a twelve episode series and getting bored by the running jokes. To its credit, there were more moments that I was entertained and amused than moments where I was tired of the running jokes or where the jokes just fall short.

Characters:

If you're looking for deep, complex characters, this isn't the right place. These characters are simple with comedic quirks. For a comedic work, they're more than adequate. They have decent interactions and their quirks are largely entertaining. Which is pretty important since that's the crux of the comedy in this series.

Art:

The character designs use a pretty typical slice of life style. It looks fine. The background scenes are actually really nicely detailed and there's a lot of effort put into the various flora. In contrast, the fauna is done in a really simplified un-detailed style. I guess drawing flowers is easy, but drawing kittens is hard. Although, to be fair, they're probably cuter as the semi-amorphous blobs we get in this series than they would be if they looked incredibly realistic and the realistic look wouldn't work for animals given the style they use for the human characters.

Sound:

The actresses in this give good performances. Kanazawa Mai, Wakui Yuu & Imamura Ayaka may all be relatively new to voice acting without many credits to their names, but they all do a good job. The biggest weakness is that Momokawa Rika's performance is a bit annoyingly over the top. It's like she's trying to add a robotic quality to Sonobe's voice. The music was handled by Mutsuki Shuuhei and it is a really nice soundtrack. It's fun and has a lot of energy.

Ho-yay:

there's a bit. Sonobe seems to be attracted to young ladies, although the series dances around the topic. There's also a character named Sasame who seems to have an active crush on Youko. Honestly, I really like the dynamic betwixt the two of them. It's cute. It's like a more subtle take on the Sakaki/ Kaorin dynamic from Azumanga Daioh.

Final Thoughts:

That's Sansha Sanyou. Is it the best comedic slice of life work I've ever seen? No. But it is entertaining and has a charm to it. If you're into slice of life comedies you'll probably have fun watching it. That being said, it also didn't grab me in the way that some others have. My final rating is going to be a 6/10. It's a decent watch. On a side note, I'm rapidly approaching my 300th anime review. Next week I'll look at Ixion Saga DT. Then I'll take a look at Byston Well Monogatari: Garzey no Tsubasa and then it'll be time for anime review #300. So, that'll be fun.

This season, I had only planned to watch Sailor Moon Crystal and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. But a couple of other shows, this one, Shounen Maid, and a few others, caught my attention, and I wound up trying them out. I'm glad to say, they all turned out good, Sansha Sanyou being one such show. Let's face it, the slice-of-life genre nowadays mostly consists of creators trying to make girls come off as unrealistically cute and moe as possible, complete with squeaky voices, ridiculous storylines, pandering, etc. Granted, not all shows are like this, but otakus have become the primary consumers in Japan when it ... comes to anime, so from a business perspective, usually businesses go for what they know the audience will consume, whether they put out poor quality products or not. Sansha Sanyou definitely isn't a masterpiece, as nothing will ever be, but thankfully, despite its cliche premise, it manages to be better than most moe slice-of-life shows.

Like most moe shows, there isn't really much of a plotline here. All it's really about is three girls from different backgrounds becoming friends right off the bat simply by running into each other: Yoko Nishikawa, the former rich girl whose father's business became bankrupt and is now poor as dirt (and oddly enough, she adjusts to it pretty well), Teru Hayama, the class representative and cat lover who seems nice but supposedly hides some evil dark side, and Futaba Odagiri, the obligatory cheerful and gluttonous girl who does nothing but eat disporportionate amounts of food. Through random shenanigans, inside or outside of school, they somehow manage to become friends. Joining their circle are Shino Sonobe, Yoko's former maid; Yamaji, Yoko's very overprotective former butler, and sometimes random strangers inside and outside of school, such as the local mean girl Serina and her sidekick Asako. Hijinks ensue.

Okay, I need to get this elephant out of the room right now: Yoko's character design looks EXACTLY the same as that of Sumire Hikami from Aikatsu season three! Same shade of purple hair, same hair length, same eye color, same polite personality, same upper class background, even all the way down to the same voice actresses for the Japanese versions! The only differences are their chest sizes and that Yoko is more haughty and Sumire is more timid! I know Sansha Sanyou's manga came out YEARS before Aikatsu did, but come on, you can't not notice the blatant mirror images the character designs create! It's almost like the creators of Aikatsu completely ripped off Yoko's design to make Sumire, and the fact that the Sansha Sanyou anime came out THIRTEEN YEARS after its manga was created, and a couple years after Aikatsu, doesn't excuse the similarities either, so that has to say something!

Alright, back to the important stuff. The animation is, for the most part, quite good. It's really smooth a lot of the time, especially when it comes to fluid movement, and when characters move, they move. The character designs are a bit more down to earth this time around, and aren't ridiculously exaggerated, from the more restrained hair colors to more naturalistic hair styles and realistic anatomical proportions, which is very refreshing. There is one problem with the animation, though: it's too bright! It's like someone turned the brightness almost up to its highest setting, and I'm pretty sure that amount of brightness can hurt someone's eyes. I personally had no problem with it, and eventually got used to it, but I can imagine others not being able to adjust well to it. The music...isn't much to write home about. The opening and ending themes are far too squeaky and fast paced, but the background music is pretty nice, and set the mood and atmosphere well, though it still isn't particularly memorable. Sorry, but there isn't much to say about it.

The characters...this is a hard one. For the most part, they're arguably a mixed bag. They're not complex or anything like that, but they're decent enough, with some not so well-off exceptions. Teru and oddly enough, the local mean girl, Serina, happen to be the best characters. The rest of them are pretty funny, albeit still bland and not full of much flavor, but decent enough, and they're definitely not bad. However, there are three exceptions: Futaba and those annoying blue haired twins. Futaba is just a non-entity as a main character. Her only character traits are that she's cheerful and loves eating. That's it. There's nothing else to her. Literally ALL she does is act cheerful and eat disproportionate amounts of food in every single episode and doesn't contribute to anything at all, exacerbated by her extremely irritating voice. Seriously, her voice actress sounds like she's trying WAY too hard to sound cute but comes off as grating and shrill instead. Megumi Han can pull it off, but Futaba's seiyuu just can't. But even worse are those blue haired twins who just hate Futaba simply for the fact that she wins all those all-you-can-eat contests and don't have any other personality or character than that. I think the show could have benefitted had those twins been cut out of the story, because not only are they completely useless and annoying, they don't add anything to either the other characters or the story itself. So...Futaba and the Tsuji twins: worst characters. The rest of them are...decent.

The story itself is very episodic in nature and there's nothing to really get invested in. It's just the three girls going through school and life and having fun and being friends. But I can definitely give it this: the situations most of the time aren't NEARLY as boring or ridiculous as those of...I don't know, Kiniro Mosaic. At least the girls act like regular human beings most of the time (sans Futaba and the blue haired twins) and aren't completely made up of pandering moe traits! Plus, the comedy was actually surprisingly good. I have to admit, the jokes about the token sorta-loli maid Shino, who is actually in her thirties but stopped growing, were actually pretty funny and handled very tastefully. I do find the final episode to be...really odd. What was the point of it? Everything in it just seemed to be thrown in there without much thought or substance whatsoever. Oh well. It's better than other final episodes I've seen (Kimi to Boku and Uta no Prince-sama season one, anyone?).

So...yeah, not the best slice of life moe anime out there, but it definitely stands out from the bad ones. If you can get past the bright animation style and some useless characters, it's a pretty good little time killer.

This anime was adapted from manga that aired since 2003 and now isn't finished,.This anime could have more audience if it aired earlier between 3-4 years ago.It because this anime have boring spice : moe-comedy-slice of life-school, and now we have much with it.

The story isn't have any special because it have SoL-school genre and combine with comedy.It not have plot just like mosly 4-koma manga adaptation.We'll just get each character interaction every day and when any special event happen like valentine,chrismas,summer,etc.It may be boring for some people(5/10)[5,3]

The Art is beautiful like ... modern anime art now and what make it special is detailed art at colouring the background and characters.Background and characters has draw very detail too.that expected from the studio(9/10)[8,6],but it have same problem with some mob character that just like backround,it was not move because it not given an animation.But i not have problem with that

The sound have nothing special :effect sound,VA,etc is okay,because the genre itself ,And OP and ED is looks suitable with anime(7/10)[6,7]

The characters is most important with this genre.
We have Youko Nishikawa that become extremely poor family,but still holds on to her princess attitude just like her live on rich family before.
Then Futaba Odagiri with a super energetic personality and love eat,eat and eat but have skill on cooking too.And Teru Hayama is the class president with a mean personality contrary to her innocent looks.And love animals too especialy.Interaction that they gave are very enjoyable and interested to see
and the interaction with other character also funny too(8/10)[8,1]

The enjoyement : for comedy section ,just like other comedy-genre anime .Their comedy may hit or miss on you.But personally i can take the joke in this anime.not too funny,but not bad too.Anyways,I feel enjoy this anime .(8/10)[7,6]

My overall is same with enjoyement(8/10)[7,6] if you looking at this combined genre recipe,you should try this.

Well, it's just like any other cute girls doing cute things anime. However, unlike some of the bad ones, it is interesting enough to not feel that bored while watching. However, it doesn't bring much else to the table, it's just a show that classifies as worthy of wasting your time with. It's truly nothing special at all.

The characters are pretty likable, I was especially fond of the rich-turned-poor girl, the servant and the maid. The girl that was kinda dark on the inside was interesting as well. If I had to say something though, it's that I really didn't like the sister of the ... blonde girl who is clueless and has the super cliché "cooks toxic waste out of anything" trait. She was still bearable though compared to some other characters. I absolutely hated the glutton futaba and I hated her pretentious sister even more, such annoying characters.

I really didn't like the "gag" that we see EVERY TIME futaba shows up. She's a "black hole" that can eat inhumane amounts of food. The author thought this was so damn hilarious that we have to see her wolfing down portions of food at least three-four times the size of a human stomach, sometimes even ten times or more when she feels like going for real, and this is followed by her still not being even slightly full and itching to eat more. It gets old the second time it's shown and it gets increasingly more annoying as so many gags are based around it, seeing her stacking 5 or so HUGE bread/pastry loafs when eating lunch wasn't funny, it was just an eyesore, especially since, for some reason, they were eating or spending time dealing with food almost every single scene, be it in school, part time jobs, trips to the ocean or on the way home from school etc, it's just that the food is there for no good reason. I curse her to get fat enough to stop elevators from moving, but I guess that won't happen, because she clearly she has a disease where everything she eats goes straight through her arse after absorbing 1% of the calories. Wouldn't surprise me if you said she has no stomach and instead just has a wide and short intestine connecting her mouth to her arse.

That brings me to the next issue, it's extremely, extremely repetitive. Not the good type of repetitive that throws in some new parts, they do the same joke over and over and over again without any additional parts that would make it funny. It's as if the author is completely incapable of making up new gags and sticks to the same old ones, which also makes the characters feel very shallow and unrealistic because they just have this one gig they're doing and nothing else. It gets to the point where I was really happy that the show ended after watching 12 episodes, because I honestly wouldn't be able to take more of this after watching 12 of them.

On a good note though, the art is pretty nice, the music isn't below average and it provided what it was supposed to, some mindless enjoyment for fans of this type of show. Despite being ridiculously shallow and repetitive even for a slice of life like this, it still managed to be watchable and reasonably enjoyable unlike many other shows that made me drop them after a few episodes. I recommend this show if you have nothing better to watch at the moment, though it might be best to drop it after 6-8 episodes, because it truly just repeats the exact same scenes over and over again. If this was a show with just 4-5 episodes, it might be worth a 7/10.

YOU CAN JUST READ THE FIRST PARAGRAPH AND THE LAST ONE.

For those who are curious in this series, I would say this anime is not worthy to spend your precious time unless you currently don’t have an idea what anime that you want to watch.

Now, I’ll going to explain why I stand for that statement.

Story
There is no story in this anime. The only plot in this anime is some daily events. However, I’m not saying that these events are boring. They are indeed interesting. That is the reason I would give it 7 in the field of enjoyment.

Art
People are not looking ... for something outstanding art performance in this kind of anime. Some details are handle well while a few of them are not. It’s normal and not impressive neither on the positive side nor Nagative one. However, there is still something that deserves us to praise, such as the various food that one of main character have is keeping changing in every episode. We can truely acknowledge that they are trying to put some interest material in this anime.

Sound
You won’t see any famous CV, character voice, in this anime, which is a drawback. In other words, the voice is not attractive. The opening theme and the ending theme are full with creatives, which is a bonus.

Character
There is no denying that Character the best part of this anime. They are well designed through the anime. Every character is interesting and I enjoy every of them. The different combinations make the audience have a kind of surprising. For those who don’t start to watch yet, you should check its ending theme first.

Enjoyment
The most important factor of watching anime is enjoyment. Compared to “Love Lab”, this anime is lack of the power to make audiences eager the next episode. To be honest, I can’t finish this anime at once instead of “Love Lab”. The reason that I keep mention “Love Lab” is not only they are alike but also that “Love Lab” is one of the most successful anime of this kind of anime. Lastly, this anime is a kind of anime that is suitable to dine with since there are many scenes that the characters are dining.

Lastly, to be honest, I have no idea what kinds of people would enjoy this anime. I probably would recommend this anime to those who are in a long vocation and need some anime to fulfill his/her life.

Sansha Sanyou, or Three Leaves, Three Colors for the English title... is one of the least-exciting premises for a slice-of-life cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime ever; it's about a former rich girl who meets two friends, and the shenanigans that ensue with trying to integrate her adaptation into a low-class lifestyle with an lifetime of wealth and uppityness. It's so standard that when I originally went over the season preview it premiered in a few years ago, my eyes probably glazed over and ignored it completely.

But somehow, it works.

I think it's the characters that really do it here. You have a pretty stock standard "genki girl" in Odagiri ... Futaba, but she's so over-the-top with her love for food that her one-note role becomes incredibly endearing. Besides her, the rest of the main cast is pretty great, though; no stereotypes and boring moe roles, but exciting and memorable characters. Youko-sama, the former rich girl, is a bit of an airhead with no special skills but a good attitude and childish charms that make you want to pat her on the head in sympathy. And Hayama Teru is one of the most multi-faceted characters in a slice-of-life show I've ever seen; she's sweet and kind while also being a huge jerk and incredibly self-centered, and her love for animals that overpowers everything else adds a completely new layer. Any scene focusing on Hayama is better than anything else in the show.

The side-characters are mostly bland or one-note, except for Youko-sama's former servants Yamaji, who is a MALE for starters (extremely rare in this genre), as well as a constant worker devoted solely to helping his former mistress's life, and Sonobe, a former maid who looks fourteen but is actually in her thirties, and is sardonically self-aware about everything around her. They are both very creepy, and it's hilarious.

These five characters bring the otherwise-boring show to life and make it really interesting.

The first three or four and the last two episodes all hit it out of the park, while the middle section wanes a little bit with the generic beach and holiday episodes that have too many side-characters and not enough of the main trio just hanging out. The show works when it powers through with its cast instead of relying on the same old gags a dozen other shows have tried, and while it doesn't always take advantage of that, it's consistently good and sometimes even very good.

One strange aspect of the show, probably due to its manga's 2003 start date: there is almost no yuri subtext, no undertones, no overtones in the entire show. There's one minor character who may or may not harbor a lesbian crush on Youko-sama, but other than that it's completely devoid of yuri bait. Being fed up with animes using unfulfilled lesbian tension between characters as a selling point, this was a nice surprise for me... though I probably would have been fine if they ramped up the currently-nonexistent romantic tension between Hayama and her rival character Nishiyama.

It's a pretty good investment of your time if you like spending time with really funny characters. It's nothing new, but Sansha Sanyou does a standard set-up an above-par service.

From Doga Kobo's other works it's easy to see that a series doesn't need to excel in any particular area to be enjoyable. I think the series that most exemplifies this would be Sansha Sanyou. The plot isn't particularly interesting, the art and animation are good but not the shining example of their work, the characters fall into archetypes and can be copy/pasted from any other CGDCT series, and the series doesn't stand out in any way.
Despite these factors, I found several moments in Sansha Sanyou to be really enjoyable with the ways it explores its character interactions and while not necessarily memorable, it entertained ... and held my attention.

Story 6/10:

We begin with our protagonist Youko (referred to often as Miss Youko) eating her bread crusts by herself at lunch. Youko isn't just eating a light snack, she lives in poverty after her father's company has gone bankrupt and he's left her to live on her own as he goes off to find work. Having the upbringing of a snobby rich girl, so much so as to sport a princess haircut, Youko doesn't have any friends and laments over this as she eats her lunch. Moments later as if by red string of fate, Teru and Futaba each run into her. The series follows these girls through their daily lives as Youko's new found friends ease her into the life of a commoner.

Art 8/10:

I'm biased here because I generally like Doga Kobo's approach at moe character designs. What I will say is that the character designs are uninspired and you'd easily be able to find several characters that look just like them. The animation is of a similar quality to their other work. Light colors and backgrounds make for a really colorful show.

Sound 8/10:

I'd watched both subbed and dubbed versions of each episode, personally preferring the dub, mainly for Teru's VA. The music throughout the series just sets itself in the background and doesn't do much in terms of manipulating emotions as much as it is just there to help the scene along.

Character 5/10:

I really liked the character development throughout the series for Youko and that would be its main highlight for me. The other protagonists are Futaba, following the skinny glutton trope which pretty much all of her gags/story beats are based around and Teru, which embodies the face of an angel/mind of a demon character trope as she maintains her image as class representative but will quickly turn in an instant to drop a verbal bombshell to shatter the spirits of her enemies (this is usually directed at Nishiyama). The side character range from rivals that want to befriend the protagonists to a stalker ex-butler and a forever 17 maid.

Enjoyment 8/10
Overall 7/10

I liked Sansha Sanyou because it felt like it knew its place and wasn't trying to stand out among the class. It did its job and left me satisfied with the conclusion.

This is just so uninteresting and unfunny.

I don't understand the sort small cult following this anime has, it's practically the opposite of entertaining. The characters are terrible, not necessarily generic but something about them is just so vanilla-y, they have enough traits to stand out from their typical archetype yet I feel like I've seen these exact types in literally hundreds of other anime that are a lot better.

I especially hated Teru, every moment with her was just dreadful. Sometimes I did laugh at her bitchiness but other times I just wanted to punch her in the face.

I barely even remember the other two, the ... hungry one had pretty much the same schtick over and over and it got old quick and the main character is soooooo boooooriiiiing.

Pretty much the only characters I liked were Sonobe and Serina, sadly they weren't great enough to make me watch this annoying snorefest any longer.

4/10, it has good animation and great character design but the writing is just atrocious.