When Uryuu, Airi and Sakuno were introduced in the first episode I was happy to find out none of them are your average harem characters. A pity this impression didn't last long.
Sakuno,who seems to have had issues in the past and who could be a very interesting character, is sadly pushed to the background after just one episode. Airi, a strong looking woman, gets 3 episodes of glory but afterwords turns into background decoration. At the beginning of the series she yells out that she hates boys (though, at the very first episode she is extremely kind to Uryuu...) but you never actually get to find out why she hates them so much...
Uryuu's alright for most of the series. He's not annoying and seems to be the only character who maintains his sanity. Until of course he falls in love, out of the blue, with one of the other main characters.
The only character with any development is Sana, but she's your everyday crybaby so that's not really interesting. We can't forget about Miu-sempai of course. She's the character who wasn't actually introduced at the beginning but turns out to be one of the main characters...
Is there anybody still following this?
So... really there isn't much good to say about Mashiro-iro's characters. Most of the time they're just really confusing.
Onto a more positive note: art. This is why I initially started Marshiro-iro. Airi is real eyecandy and so are all of the other girls. Unfortunately this too breaks down after episode 5 or so. Suddenly we get lousy lineart and even colouring isn't done properly. It gets better again at the end so overall it's rather ok.
Opening and Ending songs were fun to listen too and the soundtrack wasn't too bad either. Nothing you'll remember the day after finishing the series but it sets the mood alright.
There's no real story development. It starts of with a boy wanting to improve relationships between two merging schools, but after a while that theme is forgotten and the story starts focusing on the suddenly appearing friendships. When the scriptwriter is done talking about that, he develops a little bit of drama around the Nuko Club.
I couldn't really enjoy this anime because I was constantly reminded that neither the characters nor the story made any sense. It was quite a rollercoaster ride, the kind you regret getting into though.
Overall this is a very average, almost bad harem anime, nothing really worth your time unless you're a huge fan of this sort of anime. If you're looking for anything similar but way better I'd suggest Clannad or H20 ~ Footprints in the Sand.
