Reviews

One of the few comedy anime I've seen that brought out moments of feeling true joy within me. Indeed, though by todays standards the animation is somewhat lacking (in terms of the fact that the show occasionally indulges in re-using bits of animation and character animations/movements are limited (though there are a few episodes here where I was genuinely surprised by sudden jumps in animation quality for short sequences)). However, the character designs are simple yet striking (hell, these designs probably formed the archetypes of every romance anime since this) and the environments attain a tactile quality that, across the entire series, builds a wholly believable world, even with how outlandish the series becomes near its end.

Of course, narratively and character-wise this could be stronger. Madoka is likely one of the greatest female characters in all of anime; her development and gradual breaking of her shell through the series is incredibly well done, which is helped by Hiromi Tsuru's wonderful performance. Kyosuke's development across the series is well-done as well (though he runs into the problem of being a love-triangle anime protagonist: he doesn't know when to man the hell up and just outright say that he loves Madoka, which is merely a character trait used to elongate the tension unnecessarily). Hikaru is the least complex and goes through the least amount of development. HOWEVER, what is notable is that in an episode (I can't remember which one) she talks about having been lonely as a child, not having had a sibling. Thus, her great attachment to Kyosuke is reframed as not merely out of childish infatuation but out of an alleviation of a kind of inner loneliness. And she is thus thankfully never treated as an object of ridicule.

However, what makes a lot of the series, and the finale, kind-of lacking (and what I hope the film conclusion will address) is that the series doesn't present a difficult choice in terms of which girl he prefers more. Instead, Hikaru is framed as merely an obstacle in the way of Kyosuke getting together with Madoka. It's clear to the audience that they both have feelings for each other, and it's thus only a matter of time before they get together. This is obviously a staple of romance-anime, but it would've been far more interesting if Kyosuke had to really struggle with choosing Madoka or Hikaru. Granted, this was made in 1987 so I perhaps couldn't expect something hugely complex, but the level of creativity the writers obviously had in terms of episodic narrative structure (I'm thinking particularly about the first time-travel episode) could've been applied to the central romance.

To say that I didn't have fun watching this would be a lie, however. There's a lot of genuinely clever material here in a series that feels a bit over-long towards the end, and when the animators are allowed to strut their stuff, they demonstrate immense creativity in terms of composition and staging. And the music (moreso the opening and closing tracks than any individual track in a normal episode) is often really, really great. It's also a series where I was genuinely invested in seeing the outcome of the romance, which doesn't happen often! It's a classic for a reason!