Yuzu The Pet Vet is a manga that initially flew under the radar. I can't remember if I discovered it on my own or through an article talking about it on ANN when it was first starting to come out, but I remember being intrigued by the premise and figured it'd be a nice new read to check out. Yeah, that wound up being a great decision, as in case you couldn't tell, I love this manga and I think it's quite honestly one of the best children's manga of the 2020s. The story is centered on a young girl named Yuzu Morino whose mother
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has to be hospitalized for the time being, and since Yuzu can't stay in the house unsupervised for obvious reasons, she's made to live with her veterinarian uncle Akihito Hidaka. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but there's one big thing complicating the living arrangement: Yuzu absolutely can't stand animals, mainly because a lot of them seem to attack her for some reason. As much as Yuzu hates dealing with animals, she has no choice but to help her uncle at his vet clinic, but this might wind up being good for her. Every day she learns and understands more and more about her clients, both human and animal, slowly overcoming her fear bit by bit.
I was originally going to hold off on reviewing this, as Yuzu The Pet Vet has a sequel and I was going to wait until after the sequel came out. Unfortunately, Kodansha USA seems to have no plans on releasing it as of right now, so I decided to review the first series on its own. There's also the fact that the manga is actually based on a video game that's exclusive to Japan. Thankfully, you don't need to know about the game in order to enjoy Yuzu The Pet Vet, as I came to find out. Plus, I just really want to gush about this amazing yet criminally underrated children's manga. Yes, Yuzu The Pet Vet has very shoujo-esque artwork, complete with ridiculously large, sparkly eyes, chibi-fied animals made to look even cuter than they would be in real life, and a lot of comically cartoony faces for the comedy parts. Yes, the majority of the manga consists of self-contained stories, with only a few two parters every now and again, complete with characters of the week who only appear once and never again. Don't go into this expecting a narrative on the level of Naoki Urasawa. But with all that said, Yuzu The Pet Vet's biggest strength is its emotional intelligence and refusal to sugarcoat the realities that come with raising a pet, and it never tries to talk down to its audience.
Whereas most media tend to depict animals as either beings driven entirely by instict or perpetually adorable affection-giving machines with no personality outside of being cute, Yuzu The Pet Vet understands the psychology of animals and depicts them with a wide array of personalities through the way they behave and show their feelings. Some animals play hide-and-seek, act really rambunctious, can be flat-out catty, or even fake being sick or injured just for the chance to get some extra pampering. They make messes and sometimes drive us crazy, but any sane pet owner will still love them for it. What pet owner hasn't had to deal with things like their pet making messes or faking being sick or showing other people attention rather than you? As a pet owner myself, I can surely relate. Furthermore, the manga also makes sure to have each animal story tie into whatever issue Yuzu is facing in her life, drawing a nice parallel between humans and animals. Of course, Yuzu The Pet Vet isn't all sunshine and cuddles either, as it makes sure to highlight the more serious parts of owning a pet, such as being able to financially support it, acknowledging their short life spans and the fact that an animal is a living thing, not a toy or an aesthetically pleasing accessory, and the importance of things like spaying/neutering your pet to prevent health problems and overpopulation. And yes, this also means that plenty pets of the day die (Usually from natural causes and old age), and if you're someone who hates seeing animals die, even fictional ones, you'd best skip this one. One set of chapters even highlights a pretty serious issue—animal hoarding—tackling it with all the gravity it deserves, acknowledging the problems it can cause without resorting to antagonizing anyone involved.
As someone who has always loved anime/manga for its willingness to tackle subjects that American children's media refuses to touch with a ten foot pole for any reason, I respect Yuzu The Pet Vet for going hard on highlighting how owning a pet is a big responsibility that's not to be taken lightly. Of course, the manga is careful to keep it out of preachy after school territory with a charming, likeable cast to follow, namely Yuzu, her uncle, and Sora the persnickety chihuahua, who interact with plenty of interesting people and pets, even if they're not the most fleshed out cast of characters ever. Yuzu herself is an interesting lead character who does grow and change throughout the story while still retaining the personality of a young kid who does believably act her age. Even the various pets of the day receive some fun characterization that manage to make them rise above just "cute animal." Granted, some readers may not like that the characters of the day disappear after their focus chapters, and I can understand why. I personally had no problem with it because the self-contained stories are all well-written enough that I did care about the characters involved, though your mileage may vary.
Granted, while Yuzu The Pet Vet's writing is pretty nuanced a lot of the time, some of the solutions posed for some of the stories' endings do come off as a bit too convenient and neat, which can definitely stretch one's suspension of disbelief, especially if you're aware of how hard it is for animal shelters to adopt out animals. I follow a few animal rescue groups on Facebook, and finding homes for animals is nowhere NEAR as easy as Yuzu The Pet Vet makes it out to be. Some might find the manga's shoujo artwork to be too cutesy and saccharine for their liking, which is also fine. But in my opinion, Yuzu The Pet Vet's strengths far outweigh its flaws. I dare say it may even be the best 2020's children's manga I've ever read thus far. I'm really glad I discovered this, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is not only interested in animals, but people who want children's manga that have a bit more meat and substance to them. Whether you can stomach the various animal deaths in some chapters is another thing entirely, so I wouldn't really recommend this to sensitive children who can't handle it, even though having pets is one of the ways children learn about death and grief. But I don't think that's a reason to skip over Yuzu The Pet Vet, as I feel some of the best children's media are those that go all in on tackling serious subject matter, overzealous parents' opinions be damned. Why do you think I love the World Masterpiece Theater so much?!
So yeah, Yuzu The Pet Vet is a great manga about the wonders and realities that come with raising pets and taking care of them without bordering on preachy or condescending. Now if only Kodansha USA would put out the sequel manga! Get on that already, Kodansha! I'd buy it day one!
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Nov 14, 2023 Recommended
Yuzu The Pet Vet is a manga that initially flew under the radar. I can't remember if I discovered it on my own or through an article talking about it on ANN when it was first starting to come out, but I remember being intrigued by the premise and figured it'd be a nice new read to check out. Yeah, that wound up being a great decision, as in case you couldn't tell, I love this manga and I think it's quite honestly one of the best children's manga of the 2020s. The story is centered on a young girl named Yuzu Morino whose mother
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Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Nov 8, 2023 Not Recommended Preliminary
(17/19 chp)
I've seen and read my fair share of good yuri anime and manga...but I've also seen some really bad yuri anime and manga. Kiss The Scars of The Girls, the debut work of one Aya Haruhana, kind of falls in the middle. It just got licensed by Yen Press for an English release here, and it's pretty short, clocking in at three volumes long. Deep within a dark forest, there's an all-girls' school that has a secret: All of the students are vampires. Said vampire girls are mandated to form bonds of sisterhood in order to hunt without attracting attention. Emielle Florence is one such
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girl, as upon her 14th birthday, she is delighted to finally have an older sister to bond with. But the sister turns out to be Eve Winter, an icy girl who really doesn't want anything to do with Emielle or the whole sisterhood rule. But whether they like it or not, Emielle and Eve are stuck together, and Emielle in particular really wants to be friends with Eve, whose troubled past continues to haunt her.
Not gonna lie, I wasn't a fan of this one. Kiss The Scars is just so generic, and the whole vampire angle doesn't really do anything to spice it up, especially since the authoress doesn't really do anything with it beyond "What if I made a Class S yuri story but with vampires?" There's so many unanswered questions in regards to the series' overall lore. Who funds the school and keeps it open? Why do the girls have to be in pairs when they hunt? The vampires are instructed not to kill people when they suck blood, but who mandated that rule? What's the deal with the Vampire Hunter group? Hell, the school that these girls go to doesn't even have a name, for God's sake! If you're going to establish this kind of premise and setting, at least put in the effort to establish some basic rules and lore and give it some history! Or even do something with it. Manga such as The Case Study of Vanitas and Hellsing do just that and are far better series for it. The whole thing just feels like Haruhana just slapped vampires onto a typical yuri story and called it a day, and if you take the vampire premise out, the story itself isn't different from other yuri stories that rehash the same premise, so Kiss The Scars still feels really generic and flavorless. That flavorlessness also extends to the characters and their writing. All of them are one-note archetypes with one dominant personality trait, and while some of them do receive some development and backstory, they still remain rote stereotypes, and nothing the series did made me want to care about them in any way whatsoever. Emielle is your typical perky girl, Eve's whole personality is just "I'm angsty and emo," Yucca is unhealthily obsessed with Emielle, and Luce is the quiet library girl. The character I hated the most was Violetta, who spends all her time being unnecessarily bitchy for no reason, especially towards Luce, and seriously, her reasons for hating Luce are so petty and stupid that they border on ridiculous. None of the characters had any natural chemistry amongst one another whatsoever, making whatever romance they have come off as sloppy and half-baked. There's one character, Colette, who appears in volume 2 and might have presented an interesting conflict, but she just gets shunted out of the story, so she leaves absolutely no impact whatsoever, making me wonder just why she was even here in the first place. With the series only being three volumes long, it doesn't use its short time to really flesh out its characters or make them even remotely interesting whatsoever. Honestly, the only good thing Kiss The Scars has going for it is its art. The backgrounds and paneling are fine, the girls have nice, down-to-earth designs, and the colored splash pages are very striking to look at, but that's really all the praise I can give this. Then again, the problems with the story's writing and characterization might just be chalked up to the author's inexperience, as this is her first original work, and for all we know, she might get better as she puts out more work and gains more experience. Who knows? Plus, I have seen far worse than Kiss The Scars, so I'm not gonna knock it too badly. If you're into your typical yuri stories about girls loving each other passionately, you do you. You'll probably get more enjoyment out of this than I did. But Kiss The Scars of The Girl is just a generic Class S yuri manga but with vampires, and doesn't really know what to do with itself. It's a short read, but there are better vampire stories out there.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 7, 2023
Yuki no Taiyou Pilot
(Anime)
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So...this exists. And apparently it's come into the limelight now because somehow, for some reason, the streaming website Mubi somehow got their hands on it, gave it English subtitles, and put it up for streaming. That's how I learned about it, along with following the Twitter account WTK, which is a good source of home video news, licensing news, streaming news, and so on. But most old school animation afficionados know something pretty interesting about the Yuki's Sun pilot: This is actually the solo directorial debut of one Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki worked with Takahata on plenty of TV shows and directing some episodes of stuff
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during the 70s and 80s before moving onto movies, but this was the first time where he was the only one in the director's seat. But you're probably wondering just what the hell Yuki's Sun is about. Based on the 1963 shoujo manga by Tetsuya Chiba, Yuki's Sun follows a little girl named Yuki, who lives a happy, peaceful life in an orphanage until she's adopted by the affluent Iwabuchi family. When circumstances leave the Iwabuchi family penniless, Yuki finds herself on a journey to make a new life for herself, and maybe even rediscover her real family, with the only clue she has being the wooden cross necklace she always wears around her neck.
Being made in 1972, Yuki's Sun was actually meant to be a pilot for a TV series, but unfortunately, that went nowhere. If one were to judge Yuki's Sun on its own merits, what with it being a 5-minute short film...yeah, this has 70s shoujo melodrama written all over it. But if you can believe it, that's not the pilot's biggest problem. The biggest problem holding Yuki's Sun back as a film is that the whole thing comes off like an animated summary of the series, or a literal commercial for the manga, rather than a story on its own merits. Let me put it this way: Remember all those VHS commercials for the old animated Disney films back in the 80s and 90s, the ones that would basically summarize the entire movie to the point of flat-out spoiling important plot twists? Yuki's Sun feels like one of those but without the eighties power ballads or corny nineties music in the background. And yes, I'm not kidding you when I say this short film basically blitzes through the manga's entire story, complete with dropping plot twists like candy. "Hey, Yuki's adopted family had shady dealings with townspeople! Hey, Yuki has to save her sick adopted sister and walk through a literal blizzard! Hey, Yuki reunites with her biological father but he dies immediately afterward! Hey, Yuki hops a train and then reunites with her biological mother!" With literally no cohesion or explanation for how any of this plays out. If a TV series had managed to get made, I bet Miyazaki probably would have given these plot developments the proper build-up and pathos they deserved, but just throwing them in a five-minute short film doesn't really work. It doesn't help that 95% of the pilot consists of a narrator talking over it and explaining everything. All she really does is summarize the entire premise of the manga, and the only other bits of dialogue come from Yuki, who has a grand total of three lines throughout the entire short. But even with the pilot's super short length (Literally five minutes long), Yuki's Sun is basically one of the earliest shoujo melodramas, rife with tropes and cliches that would fit right in with a soap opera: Missing biological parents, blunt force drama, bad things happening to the MC at every corner, adoptive families who have shady stuff going on, so on and so forth. Yuki's Sun might as well be Candy Candy before Candy Candy came into existence. I think Yuki's Sun choosing to just be a summary/commercial for the manga may have been what did it in, because it crams so much into five minutes, making it feel really rough and half-baked, and Miyazaki's early inexperience as a storyteller does unfortunately play a part in this. Also, how the hell is Yuki able to go through a friggin' blizzard without a coat or winter clothing?! She wears nothing but overalls and a short-sleeved shirt as she's dragging her sick adopted sister through a blizzard, she should have succumbed to either frostbite or hypothermia from that! I don't know how the manga makes this story play out, as no English translation of it exists, official or fanmade, so I can't read the manga for myself, though I admit I'd certainly like to. Honestly, the pilot's only real saving grace is its animation. For a short film that came out in 1972, it's surprisingly polished, reveling in beautifully painted backgrounds and fluid movement. Animation as a medium was still fairly in its infancy, yet there's traces of his signature crispness in the way Miyazaki animates the characters, especially in one sequence where Yuki is running along a river, which was unheard of in animation at the time and wouldn't be refined until the eighties at the earliest. And keep in mind, this was six years before Future Boy Conan. Granted, Yuki's Sun wouldn't really make Miyazaki as a household name, as his later movies wound up doing that for both him and Ghibli. So yeah, while Yuki's Sun as a pilot film is an interesting piece of unearthed animation history, it's kind of an amateurish, cliche short film that is unable to stand on its own and feels more like an animated commercial. It's a shame a TV series for this didn't get made, because it probably would have been pretty good, especially since Chiba-sensei's manga is already so short (Four volumes), and Miyazaki probably would have done the story justice if he was given the opportunity to do so. I'm glad that whoever at Mubi found this put it up for streaming to make it more accessible for people, but it's not really going to interest anyone who isn't interested in learning about Miyazaki's early ouveure.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Oct 28, 2023 Mixed Feelings
Huh, so this got dropped on Crunchyroll out of the blue, not that I mind since I love the Love Live Nijigasaki anime, flaws and all, so I'd been looking forward to this. Nijigasaki fans are eating good, since not only do we have a sequel OVA, Love Live Nijigasaki School Idol Club Next Sky, we're getting a trilogy of sequel films that'll take place immediately after the OVA. Can't wait to see what those'll be like. The OVA takes place immediately after the end of the second season, with the Nijigasaki girls welcoming Ayumu back home from her overseas trip to London...and are surprised
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to find that she brought a friend with her, Isla, who wants to become a school idol herself. On the side, Shioriko worries that she's too rigid to be a school idol and isn't sure what to do about it. Yeah, the OVA is true to the series' ethos of not having a lot of stake and preferring a more laid-back, "cute girls doing cute things" approach rather than the over-the-top melodrama of previous seasons. Speaking of previous seasons, Next Sky flat-out makes open references to both the original Love Live anime and Love Live Sunshine, so there's some Easter eggs for you Love Live fans out there.
Before I get into the review, there is one thing about this OVA's marketing that baffles me: For some reason this was aired in theaters, even though it's the same length as your usual TV anime episode, only 22 minutes. I know Japan's movie theaters are allowed to show more than just movies, but I really can't see why this OVA warranted a theater screening when you can easily either air it on TV or put it on home video. But I know nothing about how Japanese movie theaters work, so I'm not gonna harp on it too much. Next Sky's animation retains the same level of quality as both TV series, CGI dancing sequences included, and I didn't notice anything that looked off. I do think the ending theme's visuals were cute, having cute drawings of the Nijigasaki girls in polaroid photographs of live-action locations (Very likely to be Odaiba). I will say that I am rather surprised that Next Sky's songs lean heavily into hip-hop and techno to an extent. Eh, I found the songs to just be okay. To be honest, I do think the story is where Next Sky suffers. While I did like the idea of the focus being on Ayumu's new friend Isla, the end result came off as rather shallow. Her whole conflict feels really mealymouthed and cheesy, mainly in that it just gets easily resolved with the power of friendship, even though it flat-out acknowledges that England's school clubs are nothing like those of Japan and that England has a different view of school idols. Next Sky really should have delved deeper into that and actually explored how other countries view the concept of school idols and showed how starting up a school idol club would be hard in any country that's not Japan. Then again, you don't really go into Love Live expecting down-to-earth, realistic conflict, you're here to see cute girls sing about following your dreams. That being said, I think Next Sky's B-plot is much better in that it focuses on Shioriko and fleshes her out just a bit more. She had some time in the series, sure, but Next Sky explores Shioriko contemplating her place in the Nijigasaki idol club and wondering how she can better connect with her fans. Plus, she gets some degree of development where her solution to Isla's problem, cheesy and admittedly stupid as it is, goes against her previously established principles...though how 13 girls in the same club were able to all get permission to leave school early without teachers or the principal being suspicious of their motives, I couldn't tell you. Furthermore, with the advent of the movie trilogy due to come out in the next few years, we might get to see some follow-up on Shioriko's development and see whether she can actually commit to her changes. Oh, and for the person on MAL who wondered why Isla has a darker skin tone than all the Nijigasaki girls: Did you grow up under a rock? There are plenty of British people with naturally dark skin of all different shades. Not every anime has to adhere to the same generic anime character design. Do your research. In the end, Next Sky tries, but it doesn't really add anything new to Nijigasaki's narrative and doesn't rise beyond average.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Oct 19, 2023 Recommended
I've mentioned before that romance isn't really a genre I find myself drawn to. Granted, that's not to say every piece of romance media is bad. I've never been in a relationship myself, so I never find myself relating to any characters that partake in romantic relations. While a lot of romance media tends to rehash the same cliches over and over again, I have found some genuinely good ones. Some of my favorites include the following: Ride Your Wave, a movie about a girl moving on from the death of her boyfriend that's brought to life with Masaaki Yuasa's sublime, lively animation; Snow White
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With The Red Hair, a low key fantasy romance with a couple that has great chemistry with one another; the Haikara-san ga Tooru movies, a fairly polished reboot of the old 70s manga, even if its second movie falls into heavy melodrama (I still need to get around to watching that); Insomniacs After School, a down-to-earth slice-of-life about two high schoolers who bond over their struggles with insomnia. I'd add Skip and Loafer to this list too, and don't get me wrong, I do like it, but I felt like it was missing something. I recently revisited one romance series that I had watched when it first aired, Aoi Hana, aka Sweet Blue Flowers, and I liked it back then, but then I put it on the back burner. Since I own the DVD, and I ran out of stuff to watch, I figured now would be a good time to revisit it, especially since I did read the entirety of the manga. Honestly, Aoi Hana the anime holds up a lot better than I expected it to...and would anyone kill me if I say I prefer it to the manga?
The series' story is as follows: Shy crybaby Fumi Manjoume and happy-go-lucky Akira Okudaira were best friends who spent all their time together back in elementary school. But one day, Fumi moved away, and they lost contact. Years later, Fumi and her family move back into town, and through happenstance, she and Akira reunite and rekindle their friendship, so they have a lot to catch up on. But a lot's happened since they've been apart, and they go to different schools, so they don't spend as much time together as they used to. Things get complicated when Fumi gets asked out by a popular student, Yasuko Sugimoto. After running to Akira for help so many times before, Fumi must figure out who she is as a person instead of standing in someone else’s shadow, finding herself balancing her feelings towards Akira and her new desire for Sugimoto. Will the girls be able to conquer the high school stage of growing up before it pulls them apart? Aoi Hana was animated by JC Staff, and their output tends to be pretty inconsistent. Some of their shows can look amazing, while others look like they were strung together with pocket lint. Luckily, Aoi Hana is one of their better animated projects, and for a show that was made in 2009, it still looks stunning even today. The backgrounds are all lush, pastel watercolors that really make the series feel lively, though the actual animation is no slouch either. Aoi Hana as a series thrives on subtlety and body language, and there's lots of attention paid to the way the characters interact with one another through body language, whether it be playing with each other's hair or holding hands. Even when the character models are messy when in motion, that messiness gives them a sense of fluidity and liveliness, conveying more than static still images could ever do. The music also holds up pretty well, with elegant piano tunes and violins that really sell the subtle nature of the story. Both the opening and ending songs are subdued, low key ballads that add onto Aoi Hana's themes and are beautifully sung. I have to admit, I'm kinda sad Ceui hasn't done any new anime theme songs since 2013, because she has an amazing voice that's very easy on the ears, and I've always liked every single song she sang. It's a shame she doesn't do anime songs anymore. The series' penchant for subtlety and nuance also extends to its cast of characters. Aoi Hana manages to do a lot with the cast in eleven episodes that most longer series struggle with. None of the characters' personalities can simply be summed up in just one sentence, and all of them have believable, down-to-earth motivations for what they do, even if you may not agree with them, and the anime doesn't rely on overblown melodrama or forced angst to make you feel for them. Granted, as good as the characters by themselves are, the anime chose to only adapt the first 18 chapters, so later developments that flesh them out further don't get to happen in the anime's short run time, which is reflected in the rather open-ended finale. To be honest, I'm kinda glad the anime didn't go further, because having read the manga, the manga makes some rather...questionable decisions in regards to how it resolves certain characters' arcs. Hell, there are two scenes in the manga that really grossed me out, with one of them having no explanation behind it whatsoever. The anime doesn't adapt those, thankfully, and even leaves out a lot of the sordid details behind Fumi's romance with her cousin. Other than leaving out some more sordid details, Aoi Hana adapts the manga fairly faithfully, even elevating the source material with the subtlety of its animation and the masterful craftsmanship behind it. Some people may not like the deliberately slow pacing or the series' laid-back nature, but I didn't have an issue with those considering they fit the series' ethos. Anyone who hates slow paced series or realistic depictions of romance aren't gonna like this series, but Aoi Hana is a must watch for any yuri/shoujo-ai fan who wants realistic portrayals of both romance and LGBT people that doesn't rely on fetishization and sensationalism. Plus, with both the anime and manga readily available in the US, it's more accessible than ever, so give it a shot if you want a sweet, low key LGBT romance to chew on.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 5, 2023
Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon
(Anime)
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Recommended
Aw, hell yeah!! People, I cannot understate how much I've wanted to talk about My Happy Marriage since I first discovered the light novels in 2022. I first encountered the series when ANN writer Rebecca Silverman wrote a review of the first light novel, and I read a preview of it on Amazon, but was a little put off by something one of the characters said to the main character Miyo early on. Luckily, someone on the forums explained the context to me, and I decided to give it another chance...and since then, I haven't looked back. I own all the light novels and manga
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volumes that are out in the US right now, with intent to get more in the future. So yeah, when it was revealed an anime was going to be announced, I was all in, more so when it was announced that it'd be streaming weekly on Netflix with an English dub. Did you really think I wasn't going to watch it after the light novels and manga won me over? Considering how shoujo anime in general tend to get neglected and are hardly given much of a chance, both in their home country and overseas, ESPECIALLY overseas, it's quite honestly a modern miracle that Netflix of America even considered giving it an English dub at all. It wound up being a good move on Netflix's part, because My Happy Marriage's anime adaptation is not only hugely successful in Japan, as evidenced by all the merchandise made for it, it also managed to consistently top Netflix's most watched series in the US in the weeks that it aired. That just goes to show that if you actually give shoujo series a chance and actually take the time to promote and market them, they can be successful! Anime for girls are valid too, y'know!!
Granted, considering My Happy Marriage is largely a Cinderella-type story first and foremost, its premise is fairly rote, and nothing you haven't heard before: 19-year-old Miyo Saimori's life has been hell for as long as she can remember. Born without the gift of being able to see monsters or use psychic powers, she is treated less than a servant in her noble house. Her father ignores her, and her stepmother and stepsister take delight in tormenting her every chance they get. As a result, Miyo is dead inside. Even the one light of hope she has, her childhood friend Koji Tatsuishi, is taken from her, set to be engaged to her younger sister in a political marriage. To make things worse, Miyo's father tells her that she is going to be married off to a powerful military commander named Kiyoka Kudo, who has a reputation of being so cruel and heartless that he drove off previous brides-to-be all within days of their engagements. With no home to return to, Miyo resigns herself to her fate—and soon finds that her pale and beautiful husband-to-be is anything but the monster she expected, even if he is rather brusque and blunt. As they slowly open their hearts to each other, both realize the other may be their chance at finding true love and happiness. From an animation standpoint, My Happy Marriage is not only given amazing production values by virtue of being animated by Kinema Citrus, it really feels true to the overall look and vibe of the light novels, and even the manga by extension. Character animation is subdued, preferring subtlety and characterization over stylized bombast, the setting is well rendered and well researched, with nothing that betrays the time period its in (the light novel writer mentioned that the series takes place in an alternate Meiji/Taisho era), and the series does make great use of both lighting and the environment to show the characters' emotional states. In the first episode, the colors and lighting are all bleak, muted, and use earthy, rustic colors to convey Miyo's complete and utter despair in the bad environment she lives in. In contrast, when she leaves the house and experiences life with the Kudos, the lighting is brighter, the colors are more vivid, and the world around her comes to life. Kinema Citrus and Kadokawa even put out a short behind-the-scenes video showing the process behind the show's production, which you can watch on YouTube. The character designs are true to the novels, and mostly period accurate, and a lot of emphasis is put on things like subtle facial expressions and body language. Then again, with some exceptions, My Happy Marriage eschews histrionics and exaggeration in favor of subtlety and atmosphere. I only have one gripe with the animation: What's with the mismatched hair color highlights? Miyo, Koji, Yurie, Kaya, and Kazushi don't have this problem since the shading on their hair matches their actual hair color, but for some reason, everybody else has highlights colored in ways that clash against their actual hair colors, making them look like they're wearing colored headbands, with the biggest offenders being the ones on the Kudos. I mean, blue highlights on ash brown hair? Dark pink on blonde? Olive green against black hair? Really? Not only do these make them look like they have colored halos floating over their heads, they clash horribly against their actual hair colors and looks really jarring in what's supposed to be a low-key period piece with a touch of fantasy. The soundtrack is also really nice, and a lot more versatile than you'd initially assume. Acoustic guitar, violins, kotos, pianos, you name it, it was used for the OST courtesy of Evan Call, and the opening and ending sequences are great, not just in their music but the imagery used for them. Of course, you can't have a solid show without good characters to back it up, and on this front, I feel My Happy Marriage manages fairly well. The main characters—Miyo and Kiyoka—are great, three-dimensional individuals who grow and change even across the series' short tenure and manage to carry the series perfectly, rounded out by equally colorful side characters such as Yurie, Hazuki, and Godo, who manage to help them in their own ways. I wouldn't have been invested in them had I not read both the light novels and manga beforehand, and the anime maintains their characterization from the source, never betraying who they are. Some may argue that Miyo's family, the Saimoris and Koji's father Minoru, are shallow villains who are just there to be evil, and I can understand where they're coming from, and in a lesser story, that would absolutely be a detriment. However...would making them more nuanced and sympathetic really work in this case, though? Giving them additional backstory and sympathetic traits wouldn't change the fact that they treat Miyo like shit over stuff that's not her fault, and unlike, say, Hawkmoth from Miraculous Ladybug who doesn't really bother to do anything to the heroes aside from corrupt people and hide in his hideout, the Saimoris actually do try to get stuff done, and even succeed at some points. Yes, the Saimoris and Minoru Tatsuishi are as stereotypical as you can get, with the slight exception of Kaya, but the series is aware of this and knew that it needed villains like them to really do what it wanted to do. Plus, it's not like they don't have their own motivations for what they do, petty as they are (Something that the series itself points out via Kiyoka), so whether you like the villains in this show or not, they are used to good effect here and fulfill their roles just fine. I know I'm perfectly content with hating the Saimoris for being so cruel to Miyo, and that's what the series wants you to feel. If you've read this far in, you're probably thinking "Come on! How is My Happy Marriage different from every other Cinderella-type story that's come before it? What could MHM possibly offer in an age where we get adaptations of Cinderella on the regular? What does MHM have to say that other stories like it haven't said already?" That, my friend, is actually an easier question to answer than you think. Most Cinderella stories tend to just end with the happily ever after, giving the message that just shacking up with a handsome prince will solve all her problems, and we all know real life doesn't work like that. Furthermore, not every Cinderella adaptation does this, but just as many tend to make the heroine seem a little too well-adjusted for her own good. Seriously, with all the abuse Cinderella was made to endure over possibly a decade, one would think that she'd develop serious psychological and emotional problems. My Happy Marriage decides to zero in on exactly that, showing that yes, all the abuse Miyo went through completely destroyed any semblance of self-esteem and self-worth she could have developed, making it extremely clear that no, marrying her off to a guy who appreciates her isn't going to solve all her problems. That's not how healing works, and I admit I'm not a psychologist so I can't claim to be an expert on the subject, but anybody who's ever read actual medical/scientific studies on how abuse can affect people mentally, or even autobiographies written by people who experienced it first hand, can easily glean that the road to healing is a slow climb. Everything, from the original light novels, to the manga, and the anime acknowledge this, and it shows in Miyo's character development through the series. Even as her life gets better, she still remains a shy, quiet young woman, and sometimes falls back into old, self-destructive habits and thought processes. Her progress is slow, but progress is still progress, even with setbacks. My Happy Marriage isn't solely about the romance, nor does it present the idea that the romance in and of itself can solve all of Miyo's problems. It takes kindness, a support network, and taking the steps to leave the toxic environment in order for healing to truly take place, and to me, that's what makes My Happy Marriage stand out from other Cinderella stories, because it really goes deep into how decades of abuse can shape a person's psyche. Granted, because the pace in which Miyo grows and regains her autonomy is deliberately slow, impatient people may be quick to dismiss Miyo as being passive, spineless, whiny, and weak even after she displays some degree of growth because it's apparently not fast or blatant enough for them. Seriously, if you think Miyo is spineless and weak, just watch the second episode of Bibliophile Princess. Elianna's got Miyo beat in the passivity competition. Can you tell I love this series yet? Other than that one animation quibble I mentioned above, the only other flaw the anime has is more to do with the fact that it leaves out some additional context and backstory for some characters in the latter half of the series. Some of it isn't too bad, like with Kiyoka's sister Hazuki, but for some, like Miyo's extended family the Usubas, the removal of some context behind their actions makes the characters in question come off a lot more morally questionable and less sympathetic than they were in the light novel. I know it's inevitable that some things have to be left out when working on an anime, especially a series that's 12 episodes long and doesn't allow for a lot of time to flesh everything out, but I do feel like the second half of the series could have benefited even from an extra episode to smooth things out and not rush through the second arc. Hell, some may argue that the whole supernatural powers subplot in the second half feels extraneous. I don't, as they were pretty established early on (Though the anime doesn't do so until episode 2), and later novels dive into them a bit more. My Happy Marriage may not be a series for everyone, but there are reasons why it managed to get so popular, and you know what? I'm damn happy that branches of Netflix outside Japan gave it a chance and actually bothered to make it accessible to people, whether it be dubbing it or actually bothering to put some effort into promoting it! Anime for girls deserve the same chances as the popular shounen anime. The fact that a third season of Kimi no Todoke was just announced, with plans for it to air on Netflix, alongside adaptations for stuff like A Sign of Affection and Apothecary Diaries coming up gives me hope that a comeback for shoujo or female-led anime is in the cards.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 25, 2023
Skip to Loafer
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
So...Skip and Loafer. I heard about it through Amazon recommending the manga to me quite a bit, and I skipped out on the anime version when it came out because I was busy watching other things. Then some of my online friends were praising it up the wazoo. One day, I was bored and decided to sit down and watch it. I will say, while I do like the anime, and it even does a lot of things I wish more romance anime would do...I feel like it could have done more. The premise goes as follows: 15-year-old Mitsumi Iwakura is moving to Tokyo from
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her rural home in Ishikawa Prefecture so she can go to the elite high school Tsubame West Academy. She dreams of becoming a politician so she can make her hometown more prosperous, but for all her studying and ambitions, she is woefully unprepared for city life. Luckily, after a rough start, she manages to make some friends, with one of them being popular student Sousuke Shima, and manages to make the most of her school days with confidence.
I've mentioned multiple times before that I'm not really a fan of the romance genre, mainly because a lot of the stories feel like they've been copy-pasted from each other, and I especially hate stories that rely way too much on contrived misunderstandings to move the plot forward rather than just having the characters talk to each other like human beings. Thankfully, Skip and Loafer doesn't do that, and whatever problems that do come up between Mitsumi and Sousuke is because they're from entirely different backgrounds. Plus, Mitsumi, for all her confidence and occasional ditziness, is a lot smarter and more emotionally perceptive than most shoujo heroines, and has a lot more depth than most of her caliber. The characters in general are the best thing about Skip and Loafer, because even though they may start off as one-dimensional archetypes at first, their personalities can't simply be summed up in just one sentence. Even the characters who might seem like your typical alpha bitches in a teen romance are given much more nuanced motivations and and a lot more self-awareness than most can even boast. And yet...I feel like Skip and Loafer's plot leaves a lot to be desired. It's not trying to break any new ground, as it's mainly just "country girl moves to big city, makes friends, has romantic tension with a cute boy, some other drama, etc." and while I don't mind series that are light on plot, Skip and Loafer's premise doesn't seem like it can really carry the series. Even as some drama involving Sousuke and his backstory comes up near the end, which I think is the better part of the series, it's still very subdued and feels like it just...drifts off without really making an impact. You're probably wondering "Hey, wait! You like other shows that are slow-paced and are light on plot such as Insomniacs After School, Summer Ghost, and Do It Yourself! What do they have that you think Skip and Loader doesn't?!" But here's the thing: All three of the anime I mentioned, while they're also about characters in high school, have a bit more meat to their plot than just high school antics. Insomniacs had its characters take part in astrophotography as a way to deal with their insomnia. Summer Ghost was all about unraveling the mystery behind a girl's untimely death, and Do It Yourself was all about exploring the benefits of building things by hand, whether it be a treehouse or small things like a wooden shelf. All three of them have a backbone to their narrative that makes them stand out from other shows of their ilk, with their execution reflecting that. Skip and Loafer, while it does do a lot of things right, doesn't have that backbone, and its overall premise is so thin and by-the-numbers that it borders on being predictable. Even the animation seems to reflect that. For as much as PA Works gets praised for their animation, there isn't a whole lot of it here. It's faithful to the manga's art style, which is definitely a point in its favor, and it does save more kinetic movement for scenes where it matters, but a lot of the time the animation itself consists of still images and shoujo sparkles. I did find the soundtrack to be pretty unmemorable. I mean, I liked it, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about it. But please, don't think all this to mean that I hate Skip and Loafer, because I don't. I like it, but I feel like it needed some extra pizazz, that's all. I think a part of it is because the manga only covers up to a certain volume, and I'm sure the later parts of the manga build on what was covered in the anime. Maybe I might have liked this better if this had come out when I was younger. I'm not sure. But Skip and Loafer, while fairly light on plot, is perfect for people who want a sweet, saccharine romance series that avoids a lot of the genre's more annoying cliches and pitfalls.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 3, 2023
Itsuya-san
(Manga)
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Not Recommended
Man, I really wanted to like this manga more than I do. I've been reading quite a few short manga lately, many of which have been really good, such as the following: Yumi and Kurumi, an intensely heartwarming and wholesome manga about a sentient doll wanting to make a put upon woman happy; Yume no Hashibashi, a melancholic LGBT story that treats its characters with kindness even with its potentially problematic premise; Summer Ghost, a wonderful adaptation of the short movie that adds a lot more information than the movie could include; Kagome Kagome, a beautifully colored period piece about a nun yearning for a
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life beyond her convent; The Knight Blooms Behind Castle Walls, a story about a girl's dream of achieving knighthood that is incredibly well researched and full of solid world-building, and The Bones of an Invisible Human, a down-to-earth drama about a girl dealing with having murdered her abusive father and the fallout from it. But I admittedly found one that turned out to be a dud, Ms. Itsuya, which is a shame because I like its premise and it really could have been something good, but its overall execution was all over the place, leaving it feeling like an incoherent mess.
The story centers on a boy named Toki Sakamoto, whose life has been rough. He left his parents due to not fitting in with his stepfather's family, and has been living with his grandmother. But his grandmother is dealing with dementia, and he wants to take up a job to support her, but his school wants him to pursue his education rather than give it up. To ease the burden on him, his school arranges for him to live with the quirky substitute art teacher, the titular Itsuya Tsuruta and her ward, a girl named Kon. Yes, her first name is actually Kon, not her surname. Why this is, I have no clue. Itsuya is flighty and is not very good at drawing, but she seems to have the power to make her drawings come to life, using it to help those who cross her path, Toki included. Toki isn't sure what to make of her, and Kon's bad attitude doesn't make things easy for him either, but slowly, Toki becomes accustomed to his new situation. You'd think a premise like this would lead to something heartwarming, and sure enough, Ms. Itsuya TRIES to be that. But honestly, its whole handling of its premise leaves a lot to be desired. For one, a majority of the characters are always shown bickering and being unnecessarily mean to each other with very little provocation. Seriously, Toki and Kon's interactions consist of the two of them being literally NOTHING but extremely rude and insensitive towards one another, even when it isn't warranted. Any time the two of them do try to help each other out, it's always undercut by some snarky comments they make leading to yet another needless argument. As a result, any scenes where they actually manage to have a civil conversation and whatever "heartwarming" scenes they get wind up feeling really hollow and unearned. The fact that the two of them marry at the end of the manga is especially baffling because every interaction they've had consists of them bickering and arguing, and I honestly cannot see why these two would ever get in any kind of romantic relationship whatsoever. I have no problem with characters having huge flaws, and Toki and Kon having character flaws isn't the issue here. I would have appreciated it if the mangaka had Toki and Kon not get along at first, but then gradually get to know one another and have them slowly come to respect one another. But that doesn't happen, and any time it does, the two of them immediately go back to arguing and making out of nowhere, insensitive comments to one another. Why is this manga trying to convince me that these two are made for each other when its attempts at doing so clearly state otherwise? The other one-off characters aren't much better, as they're just as unnecessarily mean-spirited as Toki and Kon are, yet the manga wants you to believe that they're actually good people on the inside. For example, there's one early chapter where Toki's school tries to get him to live with his gym teacher Oniguma, and the manga really wants to convince you that this gym teacher is a good guy who cares about his son. But the first scene this gym teacher shares with his son is him flat-out slapping the kid, yelling at him for coming back to town after leaving his job, and calling him a weakling for not wanting to stay in the city, not even bothering to hear out why his son quit his job in the first place. Eventually, Oniguma and his son "supposedly" reconcile. I say supposedly because this reconciliation consists of Oniguma begging his son to come back not because he's sorry for what he did and not bothering to understand him...but because he's terrified of cockroaches and can't be bothered to kill them himself. The manga tries to make this seem super heartwarming, but all it does is make the dad come off as a massive jackass who only uses his son for his own convenience and hasn't learned a thing from his mistakes, so their so-called reconciliation falls completely flat and it makes it really hard to sympathize with this guy in any way. There's another chapter where Toki saves a kid from bullies, but not only is the kid an ungrateful brat about it, he even insults him right to his face by judging him for watching a children's cartoon. Ms. Itsuya, if you're trying to make me feel sympathy for these characters, don't make them into jackasses who are needlessly cruel to Toki or everyone else for no reason. Kon is especially egregious because all throughout her time in the manga, she's hotheaded, quick to anger, and extremely judgmental, using Toki for whatever the hell she wants without even asking him, is constantly on his case about stuff that doesn't need to be made into a big deal, and criticizes both him and Itsuya for liking a children's show. Oh, and the second volume throws in a character who, I'm not kidding you, pulls up Kon's skirt, loudly announces what color her undies are to everyone, and he gets barely any comeuppance whatsoever, and everyone just...forgets about it later. The hell?! Do you see the problem with Ms. Itsuya yet? I want to like this manga and its premise, but it has an utterly unbearable cast of characters who seem to go out of their way to be as obnoxiously abrasive and jerkish as humanly possible, and its attempts at making the audience sympathize with them or make them grow nicer fall completely flat because of this, and it constantly undermines itself each time. The only character who escapes this is Itsuya herself, and even then, she has the problem of coming across as a bit too perfect, rarely showing any real character flaws of her own. She mostly exists just to be some guiding force to the kids rather than a character in her own right. The only real positives I can say about Ms. Itsuya as a manga are, 1. The art is alright, and 2. I actually liked the ending twist and the revelation it revealed about Itsuya's whole reason for magically creating art. It sucks that I couldn't enjoy this manga, and believe me, I really want to! If you love Ms. Itsuya, good for you. It just didn't appeal to me personally. Luckily, the mangaka Mizu Sahara (real name Sumomo Yumeka) has made plenty of other manga, including an adaptation of Makoto Shinkai's Voices of a Distant Star that I read a long while ago. I should probably re-read that. But yeah, give Ms. Itsuya a read if you're into short manga that don't overstay their welcome, but if you can't tolerate the obnoxious characters, give it a miss.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Aug 20, 2023
Yume no Hashibashi
(Manga)
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Mixed Feelings
The thing I love about anime and manga is that you never know what you'll find. I came across this manga, Yume no Hashibashi, on AniList because it was on the recommendations listing for another manga I was looking up. I got curious and wound up reading it in one sitting because it was short. The story centers on Kiyoko Itou, an old woman who is dealing with dementia and can barely recognize her own family members anymore, as is typical for any old woman in the twilight years of her life. One day, a woman named Mitsu Sonoda visits her, whom Kiyoko remembers perfectly
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even after all these years. Sadly, not a day after her visit, Mitsu dies from getting hit by car. Kiyoko looks back on her life, how she came to know and love Mitsu, and how their lives diverged and changed in the coming decades. Yeah, I'm not gonna sugarcoat this, this is an LGBT story about two women who fell in love but couldn't be their authentic selves because of the eras they grew up in and were made to live their lives separate from one another. This is your pretty typical tragic LGBT story setup, which goes as far back as the 19th century, though back then it was due to executive mandates that forbade LGBT couples from having happy endings or being portrayed as anything but either evil, sick, or cured of their homosexuality. Yume no Hashibashi was first written in 2018, and thankfully, it doesn't have that level of subtly homophobic tragedy.
Rather, Yume no Hashibashi explores the lives these two women led in the aftermath of their first passions and how they came to be where they are, even as their time comes to an end. Interestingly enough, Yume no Hashibashi chooses not to relay the events of their pasts in chronological order. You know how in some stories, some begin with a scene of an older MC telling someone about their past, then focusing entirely on their younger selves until the very end? Yume no Hashibashi does things differently, actually starting from when Kiyoko and Mitsu are in their eighties, then going backwards: Showing them as older adults, then young adults, with the penultimate chapter showing them as high school kids right before the actual ending. I think this was a good move on the author's part, because the characters constantly talk about certain events from their past and how those events shaped who they are today, and some aspects are deliberately kept a mystery up until the end, rather than being revealed early on. I don't think I've seen many series do this, and doing it to preserve the mystery of just why Kiyoko and Mitsu did what they did until the end is actually a pretty smart move. It keeps the reader invested even as we see other events in their lives change things, like Kiyoko and Mitsu being pressured into marrying husbands or job hunting in the post-war period. Kiyoko and Mitsu themselves are also very compelling characters who manage to carry the story wonderfully. The two of them are unique, interesting individuals with their own strengths, weaknesses, desires, and views on how they deal with the changes in their lives, both from not being able to be together as they want to how they change and grow as the decades pass. Yume no Hashibashi as a manga does a great job in gradually revealing just how these two women came to be where they are, why they made the decisions that they did, and how those decisions and mistakes affected them throughout their lives. Since the manga itself is pretty down-to-earth and realistic, nothing is dramatized or sensationalized, managing to avoid any needless melodrama. I do kind of wish we got to know some of the side characters a bit more, such as Mitsu's friend Masumi and Kiyoko's children and grandchildren, and they just felt like they were just there to advance the plot and talk to the main leads than really be fleshed out characters on their own merits. It's a shame we don't get to see more of them, but I did like what we did get, and they were still miles away from your usual anime stereotypes. The simple artwork helps in this regard as well. The backgrounds are all well drawn with no clutter, the usage of shadows, lighting, and gray space is well balanced, the character designs are distinct and down-to-earth, and I love how both Kiyoko and Mitsu are shown visibly changing and aging over the years with every chapter. Considering the manga's overall premise, I'm sure LGBT people growing up in the modern era will take issue with the fact that Kiyoko and Mitsu's relationship ends tragically in and of itself, and I can understand why. For years, LGBT people from all walks of life were demonized, marginalized, and treated like crap just for existing, with offensive, unflattering portrayals in the media not always helping matters, especially the mandates that were forced on said depictions to begin with because of the outdated laws that were put in practice. The only scraps they could get were the stuff I mentioned above: Stories were LGBT people were only portrayed as either evil, met tragic ends, or were magically cured. For example, Americans born in the nineties may remember the movie Philadelphia, and he producers for that wanted to include explicitly intimate scenes between the characters Andrew and Miguel, but execs forced them to cut them out because prejudice against LGBT people and anyone who had AIDS was still prevalent, though that movie would be praised for being one of the first mainstream movies to normalize LGBT people. Now, in 2023, we have an abundance of all sorts of LGBT stories, from fluffy and lighthearted, to dark and angsty, to adventurous and blood-pumping, even with overzealous puritanical soccer moms complaining that the world is "pushing the gay agenda on their kids" or stupid shit like that. There's more variety, and many LGBT fans young and old are happy that they can tell their own stories, real or fiction, without fear of censorship. But this begs the question: With Yume no Hashibashi's overall nature as a story, does that make it homophobic? I don't know where I stand in terms of orientation, as I've never been in a relationship, so I'm probably not the best person to comment on this, but based on what I've read of both the manga and studies on how LGBT people were portrayed in various media across the years, I'm of the opinion that the answer is no in this case. There's nothing in the manga that states that homosexuality is inherently bad, any homophobia Kiyoko and Mitsu do face is extremely subtle and more due to Japanese views on how women should be made to live their lives than anything, a product of the times they grew up in. Plus, Mitsu and Kiyoko do manage to live long, full lives even if they don't get to be together, and they even ask themselves if things might have been different had they been born today, with Japan now steadily becoming more accepting of LGBT people (Though not without its own problems when it comes to the journey towards getting there, as current events can tell you). I found an interesting Twitter thread (Here: https://twitter.com/SamAburime/status/1606492040904196098) last year detailing the differences between queer tragedies and stories about LGBT people being made by bigoted government/religious heads mandating that "sexual deviants" be killed off as a way of drilling into the audience that it's bad and wrong to deviate from society's values, and how some people decry queer tragedies as bad representation without taking into account the time period and contexts in which they were made. Yume no Hashibashi isn't on the level of, say, The Beautiful Skies of Houou High, where not only do all the other characters demonize the MC for her lesbianism, to the point where the MC's mother abuses her for it, but it's very much implied that the author for that series wants the readers to take the mother's side and agree with her. Gee, remember that shitshow? I don't know what Yumi Sudou's views on LGBT people are, but Yume no Hashibashi treats Kiyoko and Mitsu with empathy and sensitivity, never demonizing them for their relationship, just portraying them as people who made their fair share of rash decisions and showing how they live their lives. Yes, their relationship doesn't turn out the way they wanted, and they both die in the end, but the lives they lived were good, happy ones, and they still treasure the bond they share even if they went down different paths. So yes, while Yume no Hashibashi is in some ways a queer tragedy, it treats its characters with empathy and kindness, and doesn't make their being queer out to be an inherently bad thing. So yes, while some aspects of Yume no Hashibashi may not appeal to modern readers, especially LGBT readers who are sick of tragedies no matter how they were made, I'm of the opinion that it's a sweet, understated drama that cares about its characters and deserves more love than it gets. It's not going to bring the house down, but I don't think it should be dismissed just because it happens to be a tragedy involving LGBT people.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 5, 2023
Tokyo Mew Mew New ♡ 2nd Season
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
Man, I really should be more excited for Tokyo Mew Mew New than I turned out to be. The first half of it definitely wasn't bad, but it was still a far cry from being as good as the 2002 anime. Granted, the manga isn't exactly a masterpiece by any stretch, and I've explained as such in my own review for it, but I still enjoyed it for what it was. TMM New, to its credit, did try to differentiate itself from both the old anime and the manga with the changes that it made, some of which continued in this second half. But now
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that I've completed this half of TMM New, I don't think it succeeded in carving out its own identity. Since this part takes place immediately after the first half of TMM New, I'm not gonna bore you with another summary of the series, as you can look to my review for the first half.
I've mentioned that TMM New's animation, while a valiant attempt to give the series a new coat of paint, wasn't as dynamic and sharp as the 2002 anime was, but it still did its job. Unfortunately, I think the animation really started to fall apart in this second part. There were no small amount of off model shots, stiff action scenes, and still shots bogging it down, making almost every scene feel sluggish and slow when it shouldn't be that way. The fight scenes are especially affected by this, as a lot of them consist of cost-cutting static shots that are meant to give the implication of movement while showing as little movement as humanly possible. I'm not going to say the 2002 anime's animation was a visual feast for the eyes or anything, as that had its own issues, especially when it first aired on TV, but the action scenes there at least had more dynamic movement and the fights actually felt palpable, and the producers at least tried to make do with what they had. Part 2's animation even loses the refinement that even the first half had, and I can count on both hands the scenes I saw where the girls' faces just looked really off, or one of their body parts, such as their eyes, looked smaller or bigger than the other. Part 2 also carries over some flaws that Part 1 had, particularly not doing enough to flesh out the rest of the characters aside from Ichigo. It tries, it really tries, but the things they add to characters such as Mint and Lettuce don't really do enough to make them feel more three-dimensional or interesting. With the smaller episode count on both ends, this was inevitable, so I can't really fault the producers for trying to make do with what they had at least. But even some of the changes they did make seemed really odd. In one episode, Mint runs away from home and stays at Ichigo's place for a while, and has absolutely no clue what a middle-class house looks like, nor does she understand the concept of families sharing one bathroom. For as much as the series tried to make Mint smarter and more intelligent than she was in other adaptations, it feels jarring to see her act really dumb for what is ostensibly no reason and her behavior there goes against a lot of her established characterization. Say what you will about the 2002 anime, at least in that one, Mint's personality and behavior was consistent, and she wasn't suddenly retconned into not knowing certain really basic things! Bascially, all the characters, heroes and villains, don't change much and despite attempts to flesh them out, still come off as pretty bland and milque toast. I won't mention the soundtrack a second time, as it's pretty much the same as Part 1, still pretty good but nothing groundbreaking. To TMM New's credit, there are some things Part 2 did that I did genuinely like. Remember Mint's brother Seiji in the 2002 anime? There, he was just a filler character and only appeared in one episode, but TMM New decided to not only have him appear more, but even have him be more active in the story's main conflict. I'm honestly surprised they decided to use him that way, and I'm glad they actually bothered to give him something resembling a character arc and plot relevance. Secondly, one thing I wish both the manga and 2002 anime had done was elaborate more on the aliens' lore. To my surprise, TMM New actually does just that, not only actually showing other aliens besides Kish, Pie, and Tart, but expanding on why they had to leave Earth and having one of the characters learn more about them. It even shows what happens to them after Ichigo and friends save the Earth from disaster, which I don't think the manga or 2002 anime ever did, which is nice. I also appreciate that TMM New actually bothered to show a bit of Zakuro's background by giving her a friend who shoots all of her videos. They still don't do anything like show what her family life is like, or if she even has one, but it's way more than the 2002 anime ever bothered to do with Zakuro. Plus, while the Mew Mews voice actors aside from Ichigo and Lettuce are still kind of green, Mint's actress really seems to have settled into her role, and her voice doesn't sound as awkward as it did in Part 1. However, if I'm going to be honest here, I'm gonna say I still prefer the 2002 anime over both the manga and Tokyo Mew Mew New. For all the things TMM New tried to do, it's unable to break out of the source material's shadow, or even the shadow of the 2002 anime. It's a fine adaptation for what it is, but not every change it made benefited it, and in the end, it doesn't go beyond just average. But hey, Tokyo Mew Mew coming back into the limelight at all is still a miracle in and of itself, and is a fitting tribute to the late Mia Ikumi's memory. It's not going to bring the house down, but it's still a nice kids show to introduce your little sister, daughter, or niece to anime with, if you want a shorter alternative to the 2002 anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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