Megane na Kanojo

Megane na Kanojo is a 2010 OVA from AIC Takarazuka. It's based off of a manga by TOBi. So, I've never heard of the studio or the mangaka before and I have no idea what to expect. But let's have a look.

Story:

Basically the OVA consists of four short stories with a romance focus that all centre around girls with glasses. Very basic, slice of life stuff but without the strong comedic elements that make so many slice of life series good.

The inherent problem with the series is that it's dull and trite. The romances are very short, not even close to well ... developed and tying all of them into the ladies wearing glasses just seems like a desperate bid to give it some kind of defining characteristic. Like someone told the author that their writing was generic and they thought making all the stories focus on girls with glasses would somehow counter that criticism. Or maybe they just have a glasses fetish. Either way, the writing is insipid.

A big part of that problem is that every episode focuses on a different relationship. So, instead of having a single romance with some decent development, we have four with zero development.

Characters:

The characters are extremely bland and one note. We have a girl who loves her glasses and a guy who likes her but hates glasses... because he had a lousy teacher who wore them. We have a famous idol who uses glasses as part of a disguise and a dim-witted guy who can't recognise her when she wears glasses. We have an awkward university couple who connect thanks to their glasses. We have a girl who wants to be more confident and her old friend who reminds her of the days when she was more socially inept. And none of their romances have any chemistry or interesting elements.

Art:

The artwork is, by far, the best part of the series and even that isn't great. It's pretty decent. The character designs are fine, albeit a bit mundane. The animation flows well. The backgrounds have some nice details even if they aren't all that interesting.

Sound:

The acting is passable. It's not anything particularly good but it's not bad either. The issue comes down to the characters being less interesting than a discarded bubblegum wrapper. You can get Hanazawa Kana, Hirakawa Daisuke and some other highly talented people, but when they have absolutely nothing to work with they aren't going to give their strongest performances. The music is forgettable and uninspired. Which, in all fairness, does suit the series.

Ho-yay:

There isn't any. Not that queer representation would have saved this series. We'd just have some really boring queer characters to go with the boring straight ones.

Areas of Improvement:

1. If you only have around an hour of run time, cumulatively, don't try to squeeze in four different relationships. Just focus on a single one.

2. Just having a romance isn't all that interesting by itself. You need some kind of drama or comedy to enhance the viewing experience. With the length of this, comedy would have been the way to go.

3. You can't produce flat characters and expect talented actors to just imbue them with depth.

Final Thoughts:

This anime isn't bad. It's incredibly boring and provides nothing of value, but there's nothing about it that stands out as outright awful. My final rating is going to be a 4/10. It's a sub-par romance that only a connoisseur of the genre should bother with. For the rest of us, there are much better, more compelling romance works out there.