Normally you would have a 'dense' male character in some harem anime but Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata (Saekano for short) is an anime that is ironic to itself so much that you can call this whole show 'dense'.
It is original and yet cliché and I felt that this show had more potential if it wasn't rushed. I thoroughly enjoyed this show and I was watching it while it was airing. Every week I was excited for another episode of Saekano and I was staffed with every episode.
Story:8/10
This anime's story is realistic, light yet humorous. I liked the fact that they make reference to other shows but in moderation so the show does not feel like a Parody anime, it made me feel like that somewhere, in Japan, the event is happening as I am watching it. It all seemed achievable.
However, we then have the cliché side of Saekano, the one where at the beginning of the episode you can already guess the end kind, the paper cut-out character personalities and the dense yet loved protagonist.But this is where it shines, as you see, Saekano is about a group of otakus and fujoshis trying to make the 'best game ever'.
And this is when they starts to break the fourth wall, shatter it, crush it, destroy it, mash it and completely decimate it.
This show makes a lot of reference to itself and the otaku culture in real life whilst not being aware of themselves falling in to the same category (The blond, twin-tailed, tsundere; the cool and composed senpai or The love rivalry from the protagonist's childhood friend.) as it seems at first. But the developers intended to make reference to itself with it not being aware to create this sense of humour, this sense of realism and make the show relatable. Ask yourself, 'How many times have you think of your own life and think that it is very cliché?'
None?
Okay...Anyway, this anime turned out to be an anime about a group of otakus making references to other anime whilst being in an anime themselves. It is very cleverly approached and I would love to have more episodes of this fourth-wall goodness.
But as always, a show always have to come to an end (unless you are called One Piece) and Saekano's ending was very rushed or brief. It did not give us a decent conclusion of the story and left me surprised that the last episode was already gone.
Which made me happy about the coming of second season.
Art:9/10
Apart from the realism that the story tries to give, this anime also sets it apart from our mundane world by using the more anime-looking art style instead of taking a more realistic approach. This is to tell the watchers that although the story may seem realistic, at the end of the day, this is still just an anime. Which is good as if the anime was overly detailed and made realistic, I would probably go watch some Japanese television series instead.
The graphics are well rendered and I personally did not see any flaws in animation when I was watching the anime.
Sound:7/10
Saekano's sound is not unique or catching to me. It adds to the 'Cliché' feel of a romance comedy to the anime instead. And just as I was saying, I believe it is enough for the story to become realistic, there is no need for any other aspect to try and compete for originality.This isn't to say that the sound is bad though, as I have certainly seen worse and I wouldn't mind if they made a second season with the same style of music as this season.
The background track blends in well with the dialogue and the V.As are definitely giving their best here.
Character: 8/10
How funny that an anime about making the 'best game' have characters that is so cliché that I would use this show as a guideline to tell people how different type of characters would act. But we have a more realistic side to the character, the one that cannot be found anywhere else.
I am going to split the character into cliché and original so you can see what I mean by them having 'another side' to them:
Main male protagonist: Tomoya Aki
Cliché:
He is a harem protagonist so he is dense about his surroundings.
Had a 'fateful encounter'
Original:
He is an otaku who appears to have a dream of creating the 'best game' and he does not like 3D girls,in oppose to many other harem protagonists.
Utaha Kasumigaoka
Cliché:
She's is the mature,cool and perfect senpai kind.
Original:
She is a famous light-novel writer and Tomoya is a great fan of her novels.
Eriri Spencer Sawamura
Cliché:
Blonde, twin-tail, tsundere, childhood friend, half Japanese, half British,genius.
Original:
She's is secretly a doujinshi artist and often shows the fujoshi side of her.
Cliché? Definitely. Original? Most certainly. It is a puzzle how the maker of Saekano manages to balance these all at once, but it did work and we were given the character of Saekano to enjoy.
Overall: 8/10
I would recommend this show to any people who have decent knowledge of the otaku culture as this show breaks all expectations as otakus meanwhile keeping them as generic cardboard characters.
