Now let's review one of Navel's masterpiece of visual novels translated to anime.
It is a school life anime, but even with some extraordinary features from some characters, very, but very little of this aspect is used. So little in fact these "powers" just appears sometimes in the story, so a little slice of life is present. Romance is the main emphasis of the anime, and no, the main character doesn't save the world here (not directly by any means).
--Story--
How everything begins, and why everything happens. (Skip if you already read synopsis)
Rin is a typical high-school main character, living under the same roof as Kaede since they were children. In his school, humans aren't the only one who studies there, but also boys and girls from both heaven and hell, which some also happens to be Rin's friends, like Asa, his senpai from heavens, and Mayumi, another childhood friend who came from hell, dedicated to be journalist. A certain day, two girls, one from heavens and another from hell, joins the school and automatically wants to be together with Rin. Their fathers, kings of heavens and hell, go to the school too, and says Rin have to make a choice. Either he chooses one of those girls to marry, or they'll destroy the Earth itself.
Lots of love affairs, gossips and indecisions begins from there on, but I won't mention then or else I'd be spoiling the anime...
--Time exploitation--
Some animes makes time pass faster when watching them, and some do the opposite.
Shuffle stands a little between in this case. Having the average duration of 24 episodes, filler scenes are inevitable, but if you played the Visual Novel, you'll find out the anime follows most of the script of the game, so it isn't as bad as you might think. The anime itself, in the beginning, dedicates a whole episode mainly for each one of the main girls at a time for introdutions, then following with a brief series of episodes (basically 2 eps for each) telling a bit deeper about the girls, some secrets of them, their past and how they met Rin in the childhood and made them follow in love with Rin, and finally, Rin's decision, followed by the final chapters about the couple. After saying all this, you can say the anime doesn't stop for long, so yeah, it exploits time well, but could be a little shorter.
--Story and Characters Evolution--
Story (usually) grows as time passes, but how about the characters?
Tough topic. After the "introductory" episodes, the story evolves at slow steps until Rin make the decision for himself, so the story is mostly intact after the first episode until quite late in the anime. The main girl's "arcs" (meaning, on the episodes dedicated to them and their past/secrets) only serves as a background for who's watching the anime and who the watcher would pick in Rin's place, since it has a single ending only. Then you'd say "Isn't it time wasting, seeing the other character's backstory then?". Yes, but I'd consider this marketing plans to support all the other Shuffle!-branded games, audio and drama cds, mangas, radio novels, and so on, where you have multiples endings and stories about if he'd chosen other girls.
In other words, the characters remain static on most part of the anime, except on rare occasions and in the final chapters (I'll tell later).
--PERSONAL Opinion--
Exactly what it means. What I think about the anime ^^
Shuffle! is that love-or-hate kind of anime for me. At the time, I loved the anime, and I've played to VN later. For me, I didn't faced the character's backstory as "time wasters", because you end up sympathizing with the girls, and on certain moments, with Rin, since he has to decide only one from 5 girls and also having his own tragic backstory told in the anime. The best aspect of the anime, indeed, is the final chapters. In most animes, the girls would still be hitting on Rin after he made his choice, but here, all the others go on, some easier than others, changing their shyness and dreams, searching for other guys and just remaining good friends with Rin (girls: friend zoned!!).
It's really a mix between unreal and realistic anime, not because of the presence of magic and heaven/hell population, but as for the girls' static behavior along most of the anime. It's just sad. Sexual content is really short and present mostly on the first episodes to crack a laugh, but after this, it's very serious. Character design is full of details and decent motion, and even with static characters, each one has her own personality, so you'll end up falling in love for at least one of them, even on secondary characters (Kareha-senpai *-*)
As bad aspect, not to mention the obvious again, the music could really need an improvement, except for the opening theme, that alone made me watch the anime. Maybe if the anime didn't followed the game so strictly it could have been shorter and better, but again, I don't consider these aspects major flaws
-- Score and Recommendation--
Final score to me and to what people I would recommend.
8.5/10.0
If you like romance/school-life/slice of life animes, without a doubt you should watch this. For the others, only if you have the patience to wait the story reach its climax or have played the game before (it has translations to english ^^)
