-Story-
4/10
Fukumenkei is the exact epitome of it’s genre. It takes on a few cliches we’ve seen not once, but a trillion times:
1.) The childhood friend love interest
2.) A love triangle
3.) The dense/oblivious to everything main character
Now I must say though, just because an anime has these things doesn't automatically make it bad, but it is something to note. It's all about how the show uses/portrays these things.
I’d have to say the biggest fail of this anime is the romance portion. These characters are incredibly melodramatic, unrealistic, and annoying. It is especially hard to take their “love” for one another seriously. A good backstory is imperative for this type of series; Nino, Yuzu, and Momo’s stories aren’t something that seem to be anything more than a simple childhood crush that went on for way too long. They were children, it was not a practical enough love for them to still have feelings after six years. Even if it were, the show does a terrible job of portraying it that way, it's very hard to take seriously. None of it really makes much sense, now does it? and on top of that, after six years Nino expects everything/one to be the same. It really just irked me when things easily could have been resolved or talked though. I guess some of the charters have a case of feels too strong to have any sense of logic.
-Music/Sound-
6/10
One thing Fukumenkei does well is showing it’s characters devotion/drive to music, each (main) character has their own reasons for striding to success. Gradually through the series Nino grows closer to In No Hurry and their music until they come together. Now, Nino’s voice is a questionable one, it isn’t one you’d expect to be praised the way it is in the show. However, Nino’s voice served to portray her emotions and personality, and it did just that. She isn’t supposed to sound as tamed and Miou, the point was to make her sound out of control. Even her band members see this and point it out. So it isn’t really that people are praising how well she sings, it’s how crazy she gets on stage, how raw her emotions are.
The few twists regarding the band are also rather cliche and predictable, however, the band itself is by no means bad. I enjoyed their music, even wished I could have gotten more of it.
-Characters-
5/10
The characters of Fukumenkei aren’t anything special, we’ve seen them all before. Although they do fit well for this type of story. Nino is a strong willed, free spirited girl, she gave her all in whatever task she had in front of her (unless Momo came rollin’ in). Yuzu had a similar quality to him, although he's a bit more stubborn but caring in his own way. Momo. Momo's got issues the majority of the anime, honestly I found him annoying- his emotions and actions contradict and his view of Nino is very confusing. His character isn’t as developed as Nino’s or Yuzu’s. Side characters like Ayumi and Yoshito barely had any real showtime or character development. Miou was the only character besides the mains that we really have some sort of understanding personality wise.
-Art-
Eh/10
I am no fan of this stows art style but it for sure works well for the story/feel overall.
Definitely thought there were moments where the characters looked pretty odd though.
-Enjoyment/Overall-
Eh.
That’s really what this should should be given, an eh. Because that’s all it really is. Despite everything, I don’t hate this anime, no. Although I was very disappointed by it. Music/romance anime is one of my all time favorite genres.
Fukumenkei falls short on so much, it attempts to be something good while having the same regurgitated themes we commonly see in this type of anime, without even trying to use them in an interesting way. Fukumenkei is a shit storm of illogic melodrama. The show is cliche to the point where things become predictable; we see Nino distraught over Momo, pushing herself to sing while Yuzu admires her in silence SEVERAL times. I felt like something was missing to make me feel more empathy towards the characters. This may just be because I found Nino's backstories with Yuzu and Momo childish, but the characters overall are pretty childish.
In No Hurry’s journey as a band/ their music was the highlight of this show for me. Everything else definitely feel way too short.
If you’re a fan of these genres, i’d say check it out. Mind you, this is all just one opinion.
5/10
It’s cliche, it’s painfully average, it’s lackluster.
In other words it’s most shoujo.
