Like your typical shonen-ai anime, Gravitation focuses more on boy-boy love and thus the other plot elements are forgotten. Other than being a shonen-ai anime, Gravitation was supposed to be an anime about making it big in the music industry. Sometimes, I think that aspect is overlooked. I think if the shonen-ai and music making aspects were balanced, Gravitation would have been better.
The cast, as expected, were full of gorgeous male characters. My favorites would be Hiro and Yuki – I like the mysterious, tall and handsome types. Shuichi was okay, he gets on my nerves sometimes, but he’s really cute when he’s chibi-fied. His choice of outfits is questionable though – his normal clothes are okay, but the banana suit and the school girl uniform was too much. Why can’t he be more like Ryuichi who’s cute all the time?
I’m always impressed when a female seiyuu is assigned to a male character. Takimoto Fujiko (Fujisaki Suguru) and Ai Orikasa (Seguchi Tohma) were good in portraying male characters, however I like Takimoto Fujiko more because when I first heard Seguchi Tohma’s voice, I knew his seiyuu was female right away. Ai Orikasa’s voice was too high pitched and mellow, which is unfitting for a male president of a record company. Of course, I can’t forget to note Tomokazu Seki, who was Shuichi’s seiyu. He’s my favorite no matter what roles he picks.
Visuals for gravitation were interesting. I like how they incorporated real images with the animation – it makes it look different. However, when it’s just pure animation, I have to say I’m not a fan. The drawings were inconsistent, and needed work. Yuki’s face changes almost every episode. Same goes for the coloring. There were times when there were stills and repeated scenes were used. That’s just being lazy for me. The visuals did get better towards the end.
As for the music, the OP reminded me a lot of Pet Shop Boys songs. I only heard a few of their songs (I wasn’t born yet when they first started), but when I first watched Gravitation I immediately thought of the Pet Shop Boys. I like the ED better, it’s quite catchy but I kinda wish a girl sang it. It is a shonen-ai anime after all. There’s also the insert songs, which were nice, but again – Pet Shop Boys.
It could have been better, not that I’m saying it’s bad – but it needed some improvement. For me, Gravitation’s strengths lies in its comedy, chibi-cuteness, Tomokazu Seki and of course, the shonen-ai.
