Rail Romanesque

“I like trains”
Got bad grades? I like trains!
Awkward date? I like trains!
(you know the music and the song!)

Trains! Without trains, we would all have big problems. There are so many kinds of them, and we use it every day. So why not make an anime with cute girls being Raillords ("humanoid control modules") for different kind of trains? The idea behind it is certainly good, but unfortunately it was not implemented ideally.

STORY:
The general setting takes place in Hinomoto, where our main character Suzushiro and her stepsister Hibiki set out to search for Hachiroku's lost locomotive. She unintentionally awakened the Raillord Hachiroku and with this action ... becoming her owner. Now they are on a journey looking for her locomotive. That's basically the whole story...such a locomotive doesn't usually go missing on its own but where could it be? They travel around and meet other Raillords, together they come up with some business merch ideas for different occasions. The structure of each episode is similar and the plot isn’t that much.

CHRACTERS:
Due to the short duration of each episode, there is not much to say about the characters. Everyone has a different personality, our main character Suzushiro is known for her eloquence and adaptability. She is a calm girl. Anyway, they are all quite friendly and nice to each another. We also see from time to time how much they love and cuddle each other. Real trains “cuddling” would be inconvenient and problematic, but this kind of “locomotive cuddling” is noice to see!

ART:
The girls are shown cute, even if you can directly tell there are places that could be improved regarding the animation. The locomotive and trains are shown very well.

SOUND:
After each episode we get to hear an ending song. It's not a song that makes you hooked for days. The music and melody sound happy and everyone have fun together while the song is being played. That's the most important thing!

ENJOYMENT:
Although I was less interested in the facts about trains and locomotives, I found this series amusing. Our "train girls" are just too cute.
For a short series in between, this anime is suitable for everyone if you are a fan of the CGDCT genre. For people who are dieing for different types of locomotives and trains, this is almost a MUST watch. You cannot find such a combination somewhere else.

A second season for this was announced ahead of the ending of the first season already (after episode 11). There are certain series where we urgently need a second season, but our train journey will continue.

Finally, there is at least one more reason to say:

"I LIKE TRAINS"

I'm going to put this at the front so its clear: This is NOT an adaptation of the Visual Novel Maitetsu, this is a spin-off of it. If you wanted an adaptation, this is not it.

The spin-off takes place after the events of Maitetsu, with a handful of Raillords discussing how to create merchandise to make the railway system boom a little more.

Each episode is around 3 minutes long, one Raillord suggests a merchandise idea, you get to see about one or two cute interactions between the Raillords, and that's it. Rinse and repeat.

Why is the score low? Many people coming in ... to watch this may have been expecting a Maitetsu adaptation, which it is not. The characters are on the bland side: cute, but character development is weak. The art is meh, it's not bad, but it likely had a low budget for a 3 minute episode series. The story doesn't scream "Exciting!" and at the end of the day it will be fairly forgettable.

Is it worth watching? Depends. If you enjoyed the Visual Novel and just want a tiny bit more of the world to nibble on, it's a quick watch and you get some cute interactions. If you haven't read the Visual Novel or didn't like it, it's probably not worth it. It's not like Rail Romanesque is bad or anything, it's just on the generic side and failed to meet the expectations Maitetsu fans were hoping for.

As a person who isn't familiar with Maitetsu whatsoever, I didn't think I would enjoy Rail Romanesque. But surprisingly, I kinda did.

To put some context to it, Rail Romanesque is apparently a short spin-off to the fairly acclaimed visual novel Maitetsu. But one thing should be made clear: I don't think having prior experience of Maitetsu is needed to watch or enjoy this short. And that is coming from a person who knows almost nothing about the original visual novel but still enjoyed it.

The plot of Rail Romanesque is very bland. Simply put, it's about a bunch of "Raillords" (or "cute train-girls", if you will) ... trying to come up with ideas to make the railways more advanced and popular among the tourists. As you can see, there's not really a proper story here, and the characters aren't great either. Besides, considering the entire anime is around only 40 minutes long, any kind of character development is almost nonexistent.

Even on the production side, Rail Romanesque is quite mediocre. The character designs are quite decent, but the visuals are rather ordinary. While the ending songs aren't bad and the voice is acting is actually decent, the background music mostly consists of generic cheerful tunes that are easily forgettable.

So, if everything about Rail Romanesque is so unimpressive, why should you watch it?

Well.... Because it's pretty wholesome.

Despite its simplicity and mediocrity, Rail Romanesque kept me entertained for the entirety of its span because of how cute it was. The characters of the anime, despite being very generic, are honestly entertaining. Watching them do cute things together is pretty fun. There are occasional Shoujo Ai moments as well, that will probably warm your heart. I'm very disappointed that this anime is so short, though, as I actually would like to watch a full-length TV version of it.

Rail Romanesque is nowhere near being remarkable, but I would say it's worth a try nonetheless. Everything about it is very cute and adorable. You may even learn a thing or two about trains after watching it. It's only around 40 minutes long, too. Also, if you are into train-girls for some reason, it has plenty of them.

Do you like trains? Now, do you LIKE like trains? Then have I got the anime for you! Rail Romanesque was an odd experience, and while it meets most standards of production quality, it's just so specific. It serves as a testament to the sheer variety of anime out there, and proves that if there's a niche to be filled then there's going to be something to fill it! Then when I found out this is a spin-off of an eroge visual novel, it felt as though I briefly lost my grip on reality. There are countless rabbit holes in ... the world of anime, a great many of them weird, and this is indeed one of them. It's a train waifu anime, presented to the viewer without a hint of irony. Beginning with the story, if you can call it that, there's not much to see really. It's a barebones concept, with the girls going on little adventures and coming up with merchandising ideas for their various trains and rail lines. It is unclear if the Raillords (the train themed waifus in question) are themselves biological or mechanical, since they seem to eat coal and are once referred to as 'manufactured', but in the interludes they write about them being assigned to rail lines in order to save them from diminishing ridership and there is a bath scene where they appear completely human, so it's hard to tell.

The art is the strength of this anime, but not a particularly impressive strength. I was drawn in because the uniforms seemed interesting and hinted at unique worldbuilding, but once I was in there was no reason not to stay for the other 36 minutes of the season. It's colorful and fun, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The sound is similarly boilerplate, with simple, light music throughout and standard quality voice acting.

The characters are a little simple and I had no real investment in them, but if I had to choose my favorites, they would be the bug-obsessed Riiko and the group tsundere Beni. Overall, I can only really recommend this if you like trains to the point of deriving joy from their mere essence being distilled into waifu form.

Before I began, I have not played the Visual Novel Maitetsu, however, this doesn't take away from my enjoyment of the 'series.'

As an avid railfan and buff, this cute little digestible show gives neat little tidbits about different railways and trains in Japan, China, and even Russia. Now as a 'series' as I keep putting in quotations, there isn't much here to digest. Each episode is just 3 minutes long and is usually about 2 or more of the girls at the railway summit to find a way to attract more passengers.

My major problem with the series is that it is so short. All in ... all the 'series' is about 36 minutes not including opening and closing. Now that the series is over, it's easy to watch but If you really want a train-centered anime, I recommend Rail Wars.

(TLDR Review at the bottom)

Hey Vsauce, NextUniverse here.

Anime fans. If you do a quick google search on "how many anime fans are there in the world". You may find that the first answer you get is 50 million. You will find this stat on Quora with the answer posted by Anime Motivation. Now for argument's sake, let's assume this is true. That is a lot of anime fans. That is 0.641% of the world population. And with this huge amount of fans around the world, there comes the culture that has been made within the community. One particular topic that will be focused on today ... is waifus and the theme "cute girls doing cute things" or "CGDCT".

Waifu is a term used by the anime community which has the meaning of "A fictional character, usually in anime or related media, that someone has great and sometimes romantic, affection for." According to the waifu definition. It is easy to find a waifu or two in Rail Romanesque, due to the theme of CGDCT being played, logically meaning that cute girls exist in the anime. Therefore concluding that waifu material happens to be in the anime. Rail Romanesque seems to have given itself this identity that it is well, an anime based on CGDCT with a ton of waifus. Yeah. That is this show. Is that a bad thing? Of course not, and I will get to why?

Getting into the narrative of the story you can see that there is just, well, cute girls just doing cute things. Nothing more, nothing less. Memorable cute things? I wouldn't say so, I believe half the anime was just the girls preparing some merch for their train lines, maybe their YouTube channels too if they had one, idk. But cute things nonetheless. And who cares. In the anime community, even if it doesn't make sense, cute things are loved anyway because they are just nice to look at. Some use anime like so, as sleep fuel, whilst others just like loving fictional characters. And it works. Not to a groundbreaking level, but it does the job in a decent fashion.

Audiovisuals side… wasn't the best, very stiff and choppy movements used throughout, this does mean that the anime isn't too hot in reeling in fans of the CGDCT theme. However, the character designs are sensible for the anime. Meaning that the "cuteness" if you well, was executed correctly. Thereby allowing better endorsement into this anime. Sound side of things, the only thing this anime has going for it is the EDs, OST is pretty much non-existent or my memory space is full. The character sounds were what you expect of it too. Normal waifu sounds are normal.

Enjoyable? Yeah, as said, who cares if it is just waifus doing cute things that don't have much meaning. I mean, this isn't the most plot-heavy written thing in the world, or the most beautiful eye-candy Shinkai would probably sell his soul for. But it is just that. Simple times of which you can look at waifus do things, you could probably fish out one or two of these girls to remember, set your wallpaper as, idk, you can do you. I mean, I took quite a liking to two of the characters, being Riiko and Shirogane. Really, this is just here to pass the time with the medium 50 million people seem to have taken a liking to. No complaints there.


Overall - 5.2 (5)
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TLDR Review:
Story - 5: Cgdct you won't remember, but it is cute nonetheless.
Visuals - 5: Stiff visuals but character designs make up for it.
Audio - 6: Non-existent OST, but EDs are pretty well made.
Character - 5: Simple and loveable characters are simple and loveable.
Enjoyment - 5: An option if you want to pass the time with anime.

Overall - 5.2 (5)
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So what did we get out of Rail Romanesque? Well, just watching people, particularly that of the animated 2nd-dimensional female, is indeed, quite worth the while to watch, regardless of what is going on. 3.5 mins per episode. That is 42 mins of your life you can spend just passing the time. Also, I have never played the VN of this, which I believe may cause some minor difficulty in understanding absolutely everything. But having watched this, I don't think it is too bad even though I haven't touched the VN. I am not too sure why MAL has a tendency to downgrade everything that has <5 mins per episode, but I assure you Rail Romanesque isn't as bad as it seems. It is basic. Very much so. But it reminds you of the basic things in life that are still pretty cool to watch.

And as always, thanks for reading.

I watched through 8 episodes (at the time of writing this) and I don't really know if I enjoyed it or not, I know I didn't not enjoy it, but I also know I didn't enjoy it, so I don't know what to say about it. It's just really average, the art is average, the story is lacking, the sound design is average, character development seems to have been attempted, but appear to have been restricted by a lower budget. The story seems more like a spin off/side story, for a visual novel, I have never played nor heard of. I don't really know what ... else to say about this anime, it's just average.

You know, I don't know what I was expecting.

This is a really bizarre meta anime that seems to be about promoting... itself? I don't know it wasn't really clear what they were trying to promote. It's just a string of brainstorming sessions for how to promote... trains I guess.

I don't live in Japan, and I don't study or really care about the history of railroad systems there. I don't know who this was made for, but I'd guess it was the boy from Araburu Kisetsu who liked the trains. Like, he really liked trains. He would probably have sex with a train if he could, ... and in this anime it'd finally be possible.

It's the same kind of weird mix of genres that gives us stuff like KanColle or Upotte. Japan execs know that there is a subset of otaku who are obsessed with one niche history or military thing, and they'll anthropomorphize it because moe sells. So I guess I understand why it exists on some level, but as a series it doesn't do anything for me.

6/10 train lolis