When I was stumbling upon this year's spring anime, Tachibanakan Triangle immediaetly caught my interest. Wait a minute, is this yuri? And a comedy without any nerve-racking drama *cough cough Citrus*? And potentially ecchi? Omygosh omygosh omygosh! Can such a perfect thing even exist?
Turns out, it doesn't. Well, I thought for a long time that it does, but two weeks prior to it's start a shocking message about the length of this anime arrived; Duration: 3 min. ; Internet was once again able to break my heart... Seriously? A freaking short? *sigh*
Anywayy, now let's talk about what this anime really is. A disappointment. Tachibanakan Triangle is an adaptation of a 20+ chapter long manga of the same name. I have read through the manga prior to watching the anime and it's important to say that, unlike the anime, the manga is actually good at what it does. It's light-themed, has laughs and fanservice moments. Sure, it's just a stupid yuri comedy, but if you come into it expecting that, it can't really disappoint. The characters are also very likeable as a whole, even if they follow the very basic patter of personalities diversity.
Now, does the anime has any of the things I mentioned? No, it doesn't. In a fact, the anime completely abandons everything the manga tries to accomplish. The episodes are so filled up with random content that before you're able to appreciate any single scene or moment the anime already moves on, throwing more poorly animated and non-sense making things at you. The whole fanservice part is also very disappointing. The shots are pretty much the exact same as in the manga, but they lack spirit. They lack the effort. Which is the problem of the whole anime, to be completely honest.
The manga plays with it's characters and with it's environment. Sure, the things happening in there are mostly random too, but they have their purpose. You can tell that the things characters experience are somehow related. Not in the anime however. The scene selection itself makes no sense and even when it decides to adapt somehow important things, their sole purpose is nowhere to be seen. Also, relationship growth is an imporant aspect of the manga, as there is a clear love-triangle between some of the girls later on. But once again, the anime moves so quickly and unlogically that you propably wouldn't even know which of the characters are truly in love if you haven't know beforehand. The characters themselves have absolutely no chemistry, you can't even tell apart their personalities. Their sole reason for being in the show is because they just have to be there. You wouldn't want to believe that these girls are friends, students or even real people.
Be ready for the real deal, the production values. Like I already mentioned, the pace with which the anime goes at is incredibly fast, even for a short. Sure, they tried to adapt as much as they could, but I would rather see a bit less content filled anime which would make a bit more sense than what Tachibanakan decided to go with. It's hard to follow, forgettable and all episodes blend together into a huge pile of randomness.
The animation is, kind of a big deal. I actually wonder how small of a budget this anime had. If you decide to make a short instead of full series because of small ammount of funds, I would expect that the animation quality of the short would atleast be respectable. Sadly, it isn't. The arstyle itself seems very messy, and it's kinda funny how little is actually animated. Most of the scenes are either static images or 'chibi' animations.
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You know what's funny about Tachibanakan Triangle? Even though it's short, poorly animated and the yuri fanservice is also disappointing, I can't bring myself to hate it. It's a show I created a bond to and I seriously wanted it to succeed. Sadly, it didn't. And even though I'm in no position to tell you what to watch and what to not, if the only thing you're looking for is yuri fanservice, go check out Sakura Trick instead. And if you're interested in Tachibanakan Triangle in particular, go read the manga. In both cases, you're gonna end up with a much better experience than this empty shell of a real anime.
