I''s Pure

I’s Pure is a Shounen, Ecchi, Romance about a boy Seto Ichitaka, who has had huge crush on a cute girl in his class, Yoshizuki Iori. This may be the setting for a typical Romantic Comedy but I’s Pure is able to do great things with this plot.

The story starts of normally enough with us getting to know the characters, which is easy enough because they have the generic personalities; hot girl, indecisive guy, perverted friend, childhood friend, etc. Even with these typical personalities the characters are pretty amazingly developed in their own way, through so many situations and after the awkward beginning, the romance ... begins to develop well throughout the story. Of course there's comedy but it is played down, quite a bit. Like any other Rom/Com, this anime does tend to rely on cliches but the cliches aren't a problem. The real problem is how quickly the story jumps from one situation to another and that is because this really short anime is based on a long manga. But it is pretty easy to overlook that, especially for those who haven’t read the manga, seeing how well the story is illustrated.

The quality of animation is great, with so much detail put into the environments and the characters move fluidly. The girls are well designed, which is essential for an ecchi romance but like most of these types of anime, not much detail was put into the guys. The music was pretty good and it definitely suited the anime but most of the time it was barely noticeable, to make any difference to it.

Overall this is a typical ecchi, romantic, comedy that manages to push the envelope, due to its not-so-original but captivating story. The characters were surprisingly well developed in such a short amount of time. I’s Pure was so close to getting a higher score but it didn’t because it summed up a 15 Volume manga into 6 regular length OVAs. This means that a lot of major developments and some important characters were left out of the story, which was a big let down. At least the parts of the story it tells, it sometimes does a better job than the manga.

So if you haven’t read the manga you wouldn’t be disappointed but you may feel a bit left in the dark about certain situations, which is why I recommend reading the manga.

I''s Pure is the purest example I have ever seen of Anime fail. Simply put, these 6 episodes became, in my mind, the foremost and easiest to distinguish example of the corny, cliched love story. It fell into every single trap I could think of: a rediculous, laugh-out-loud sappy ending, convenient interruptions to confessions, the "childhood friend" who happens to walk in on the main character in her underwear just at the most inconvenient time, the title that really has nothing to do with the story AT ALL, the honorable break-up so the girl can "follow her dream" as an actress, the the coma due ... to a weak fight that brings the two fateful lovers together at the last moment.

I was laughing for a few minutes straight, because this show was that bad. If you want a good laugh, spend a few hours watching this. You might learn something: like how not to make a short OVA "romance" series. But if you want a true romance story, go watch something good like Nodame Cantabile or Kimikiss Pure Rouge.

I scored a little strange, didn't I? I can explain :)

Ok, I just wanted to write, so that everybody note:
Don't watch this anime unless you have read the manga first!!!

If you have read the manga, and liked it, then it is an enjoyable recap to the books, can bring up nice scenes, and it is nice to watch the characters animated.

However, I was upset while watching, because people who haven't read the manga, and watching this, will only see a spoiler collection of the manga, with only the main part of the story, without the numerous small, funny scenes, that makes the manga so great.

I ... scored it down because - as i stated above - I really don't recommend you to watch this unless you have read the manga first, but if you have already read the manga, you are going to watch it anyways, and will spend a nice 3 hours watching it. ;-)