The art style itself I have no problem with. It's pretty standard shojo with lots of eyelashes and flowers and stuff. There are lots of hilarious facial expressions during the comedy bits. And many of the still frames look absolutely gorgeous. The sad thing is, it is very inconsistent, well beyond the point where characters look like entirelly different persons from frame to frame. Very amateurish. There is a high percentage of zooming, panning and tilting still frames, and the animation that do exist tend to be stiff. In my book, graphics are usually not the be-all and end-all of anime. But when it is this poorly executed it gets in the way of the immersion and ruins the experience. There are graphic masterpieces like Furi Kuri being a good bit older than this, so you can't really blame the age of this show. It's a huge shame, for the characters are generally well designed and a lot of lost potential shines through during the few really good shots.
The story is great and engaging and all, but it would certainly have benefitted from a bit of compression into fewer episodes. As it is, all the back-and-forth "oh, I think saw them hugging and I have no idea why, now my life is ruined" makes the story a bit repetitive and less plausible. I think it would have been totally possible to diet all of this down to 13 episodes. Or, failing that, extended the comedy first half or fleshed out some of the secondary characters.
I have to lift my hat for the great comedy in the first half. I didn't expect this show to be this funny, but it was totally spot on both as comedy in itself, and as a nifty way to introduce the characters and the setting before the drama takes off.
There aren't a lot of characters, but the ones that we get to meet are with few exeptions deep, beliveable and likeable in their own ways. Especially Momo-chan herself, of course. She balances on a fine line between a couple of anime sterotypes with a straight back and does a hell of a job with it. Sae-chan is another really interesting character, a type of villain seldom seen in anime.
Sound-wise, the OP quickly found it's way into my top 10, and the ED isn't half bad either. The BGM is alright and the voice acting is top notch. So no complaints in this department.
All in all, a great love story slash comedy that sadly was dragged down by inexcusably poor graphics and a bit of a drawn-out script. No regrets for watching it, I'm just sad its full potential wasn't reached.
