Jun 20, 2014
Nanana'a Buried Treasure is a short series that takes the audience on a peculiar roller-coaster ride. It begins with the central protagonist, Juugo Yama, moving into an apartment occupied by a lingering ghost Nanana Ryuugajou. She enjoys playing video games, eating pudding, and being very enigmatic to her true interests. After wrestling with Nanana and finding out she was murdered, Juugo vows to find her murderer so she can find peace.
The plot center's on Juugo's accumulation of "friends" and the solving of different puzzles for items that possess considerable (if not conditional) powers. Juugo hopes to use Nanana's treasure to piece together the clues
...
to her untimely death.
Due to its brevity, the series suffers from trying to do too much per episode. It lacks an interesting plot, and possesses minimal character development. Episodes typically involve introducing supporting characters and a new puzzle, while sprinkling in a few jokes. This is not to say the series is not enjoyable.Despite its noticeable flaws, Nanana's Buried Treasure is capable of capturing the audience's sense of adventure and curiosity enough to finish the series without regret.
The characters are the biggest problem with the show.The antagonists are not necessarily clear, often too quickly (easily) switching sides. The fan-pandering, while not in your face, is similar to an alarm clock going off every 10 or 15 minutes. It is not incredibly irksome, but every so often it manifests and dilutes the quality of the episode. For example, Tensai Ikkyuu the aspirational detective, possess an assistant that is both useless and incompetent. Her assistant is a boy who dresses up as a maid (for reasons unknown) and unlike Dr. Watson, does not compliment Tensai's inductive reasoning skills at all. He(She) clearly exist only to satisfy some target market's fetish.
The rest of the supporting case equally lacks much purpose aside from Yukihime. She acts not only as a concerned elder sister-figure, but clearly has a deeper level of romantic feeling with Juugo. Even though later it is revealed that many of the characters have additional motives, they lack much complexity or elaboration to stir additional intrigue for the audience. While Juugo possesses a bit of a selfishness streak, he never really breaks the mold of the cookie cutter "just a good guy doing stuff because it's right" archetype. The female lead Nanana, while a charming character, does not get enough screen time. Her interactions with Juugo were always unpredictable and stirred some interest in the plot. As the series gets past the halfway mark, even the lead antagonist never evolves beyond the prototypical bad guy that only who seeks power.
While the supporting cast is lackluster, the art and character design of the series is superb. This might be largely due to the series being short and having a higher than typical allocated budget per episode. Regardless, the art and animation is stellar, with no noticeable drop-off in the later episodes. Visually, the show is one of the better anime series this Spring season.
The sound and voice acting is also good, with the character's design matching the overall actor's voice. Line delivery is energetic, despite average writing. The music is slight quirky, but it matches the show's overall tone and is relatively pleasant.
Overall, Nanana's Buried Treasure is a decent show, with only one or two episodes that could have had better execution. The show never becomes unpleasant to watch, despite the obvious fetish pandering. The show manages to remain fun throughout and is worth a viewing, despite low re-watch value.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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