Fan Rant
Before I start my rant, I'd like to say this new song by Mika Nakashima rocks just as the title says (Rocking Horse). I don't really care for the other songs in her new album "Music," but I love this song. Been playing it over and over and over again :D Just totally love the funky groove (although the beginning laugh was a bit weird). The whistle combined with the guitar works well to create this easy going sort of melody that's fun to hum to. Well, if anyone's interested, you can check it out here: Mika Nakashima - Rocking Horse.
Haha, my giddy penguin can do the flip!! XD Anyway, now time for my fan rant... :D
Yay, no homework today, so I had a lot of free time, and thus, was able to finish up Honey and Clover! Whoot! I am so glad I decided to watch this show despite the weird opening. It's goood. Now I gotta find stuff to burn and then download the next season *___*
Here's my quick little review on it...
Animation: While the art's not chocked full of bishounens, I rather liked it. It's down to earth and works well with the anime. It's not exactly the best looking I've seen, but it's rather nice and gets to you after awhile. However, I think the thing I liked the most about the animation is their attention to detail. The characters go through several years in a few 26 eps and they do show the gradual change. While some changes are more obvious than others, there are changes for at least the characters who truly did change like Takemoto. There's also a lot of detail put into the scenery, especially during those peaceful moments where the scenery is key. Overall, it just works well for the mood of the moment.
Sound: Generally, the seiyuu voices worked for the characters (except for Hagu in my opinion--I just thought she should've sounded cuter, like a kid). I rarely noticed the background music (if there was any), so I guess that could be a good thing since it's not distracting. During peaceful moments, however, I do notice some quite appropriate music floating through the scene. It adds well to the mood. One of the things I loved about the music used in this series is the amount of real songs (not just background music) used. There's a new song playing at some climatic moment in practically every episode. This is the first time I've seen an anime spend time on actually composing a wide range of music, and I rather liked it. Although the songs weren't quite my taste for the most part, they worked well for the feeling expressed during the scene. And when I did bother to read the lyrics, they actually matched the situation too. Quite impressive. As for the opening and ending songs... Not sure what to say. They're quite unique, and at first I didn't like it, but after a few episodes, I kinda got into them. I was at least able to let the songs run through without skipping them.
Story: The premise of the story is rather simple: a group of friends in art school go through their college life discovering themselves, love, friendship, etc. I did like how it was a story about college students rather than the typical high school students for once. And they're art students at that! While the story has a lot of wacky moments, it was very down to earth. This could be a good or bad thing depending on your preferences.
Character: I think this was what made Honey and Clover a hit. To me, this anime would tie with Juuni Kokki in the character development area. I rarely see anime that truly tries to deeply develope their characters (most anime just have a cast of stereotypical characters that do not operate beyond their stereotyped boundaries), so I'm always excited to see one that does so in such detail. Even though the story concept is rather dull, it is brought to life by the characters. The characters are all pretty much normal people (with a lot of artistic skills), but they're all somehow unique without the typical "dark past" technique most other anime seem to employ. this makes them highly relatable to. There are also several major characters rather than just one or two, and each of them gets their moment within the show. While I would have liked to see Takemoto explored more since I was rather intrigued at his growth at the end, I found that the pacing of his character was quite just right. If his growth had been done near the beginning, it would've been too fast and less profound.
Value: A lot of different themes are explored as the life of a bunch of college students are laid out from their beginning of college till the very end and even beyond. Even though I'm not a college student and definitely not an art major, I found that I could easily relate to many of the characters, or at least understand where they're coming from.
Enjoyment: Admittedly, I was a bit bored during the first few eps (if it wasn't for Morita's wackiness, I would've been really bored), but as the story progressed, I became more and more addicted to it. I do sort of wish that the anime wouldn't put so much emphasis on the unrequited love of some of the characters because it got rather dull from the lack of change in relationships. The characters were just continuously chasing each other around with no progress. When some new characters came in, however, it started to get a lot better. Too bad that was like in the middle of the series...
Hmm... I wrote more than I had intended... Oh well. Yeah, I liked the anime a lot, and would definitely recommend it to whoever's likes slice-of-life anime. Even though I probably still wouldn't consider it one of my top *top* favories, it's still rather high up on the list ^^ Well, I heard that Honey and Clover II is a lot better, so maybe that will change once I watch that too.
Haha, my giddy penguin can do the flip!! XD Anyway, now time for my fan rant... :D
Yay, no homework today, so I had a lot of free time, and thus, was able to finish up Honey and Clover! Whoot! I am so glad I decided to watch this show despite the weird opening. It's goood. Now I gotta find stuff to burn and then download the next season *___*
Here's my quick little review on it...
Animation: While the art's not chocked full of bishounens, I rather liked it. It's down to earth and works well with the anime. It's not exactly the best looking I've seen, but it's rather nice and gets to you after awhile. However, I think the thing I liked the most about the animation is their attention to detail. The characters go through several years in a few 26 eps and they do show the gradual change. While some changes are more obvious than others, there are changes for at least the characters who truly did change like Takemoto. There's also a lot of detail put into the scenery, especially during those peaceful moments where the scenery is key. Overall, it just works well for the mood of the moment.
Sound: Generally, the seiyuu voices worked for the characters (except for Hagu in my opinion--I just thought she should've sounded cuter, like a kid). I rarely noticed the background music (if there was any), so I guess that could be a good thing since it's not distracting. During peaceful moments, however, I do notice some quite appropriate music floating through the scene. It adds well to the mood. One of the things I loved about the music used in this series is the amount of real songs (not just background music) used. There's a new song playing at some climatic moment in practically every episode. This is the first time I've seen an anime spend time on actually composing a wide range of music, and I rather liked it. Although the songs weren't quite my taste for the most part, they worked well for the feeling expressed during the scene. And when I did bother to read the lyrics, they actually matched the situation too. Quite impressive. As for the opening and ending songs... Not sure what to say. They're quite unique, and at first I didn't like it, but after a few episodes, I kinda got into them. I was at least able to let the songs run through without skipping them.
Story: The premise of the story is rather simple: a group of friends in art school go through their college life discovering themselves, love, friendship, etc. I did like how it was a story about college students rather than the typical high school students for once. And they're art students at that! While the story has a lot of wacky moments, it was very down to earth. This could be a good or bad thing depending on your preferences.
Character: I think this was what made Honey and Clover a hit. To me, this anime would tie with Juuni Kokki in the character development area. I rarely see anime that truly tries to deeply develope their characters (most anime just have a cast of stereotypical characters that do not operate beyond their stereotyped boundaries), so I'm always excited to see one that does so in such detail. Even though the story concept is rather dull, it is brought to life by the characters. The characters are all pretty much normal people (with a lot of artistic skills), but they're all somehow unique without the typical "dark past" technique most other anime seem to employ. this makes them highly relatable to. There are also several major characters rather than just one or two, and each of them gets their moment within the show. While I would have liked to see Takemoto explored more since I was rather intrigued at his growth at the end, I found that the pacing of his character was quite just right. If his growth had been done near the beginning, it would've been too fast and less profound.
Value: A lot of different themes are explored as the life of a bunch of college students are laid out from their beginning of college till the very end and even beyond. Even though I'm not a college student and definitely not an art major, I found that I could easily relate to many of the characters, or at least understand where they're coming from.
Enjoyment: Admittedly, I was a bit bored during the first few eps (if it wasn't for Morita's wackiness, I would've been really bored), but as the story progressed, I became more and more addicted to it. I do sort of wish that the anime wouldn't put so much emphasis on the unrequited love of some of the characters because it got rather dull from the lack of change in relationships. The characters were just continuously chasing each other around with no progress. When some new characters came in, however, it started to get a lot better. Too bad that was like in the middle of the series...
Hmm... I wrote more than I had intended... Oh well. Yeah, I liked the anime a lot, and would definitely recommend it to whoever's likes slice-of-life anime. Even though I probably still wouldn't consider it one of my top *top* favories, it's still rather high up on the list ^^ Well, I heard that Honey and Clover II is a lot better, so maybe that will change once I watch that too.