'Otome Youkai Zakuro' ~ justified risk

an anime based on an ongoing manga, created by Hoshino Lily who was specialising in BL, and directed by Chiaki Kon, who is famous for the same thing. the previous works influence my opinion very much and I was not particularly happy to know that two main people responsible for 'Zakuro' have worked on shounen-ai - that meant for me that 'Zakuro' would be overloaded with fanservice for girls

 especially when the original graphics has FOR_GIRLS written all over its 'face'

however, I was mistaken. 'Zakuro' turned out to be pretty decent, tolerable shoujo, even though it is not a masterpiece

story and characters

are typical, if not cliche. at first sight, we have nothing more than
a type widely considered to be tsundere

a shy but deeply feeling girl

and girls with a positive attitude towards everything and inspiring positive feelings into everyone

coupled with a self-confident ikemen

a cool guy

and a young but serious guy

the characters meet for the first time, devote themselves to common cause, get to know each other better, their feelings grow, they reveal some secrets of their past, constantly save each other, at some point the main Heroine turns out to be a greater existence than she seemed, is captured, the company starts off to rescue her, the Heroine obtains her true power and delivers the final blow to the enemy herself
a very, very boring skeleton it must seem. if there are things that can save a poor framework, than all of them were used in 'Zakuro' to compensate for that

first, the right use of the characters types. those types either become a platitude, or are made into believable characters. the latter happened in 'Zakuro', fortunately. we get to see different kinds of behaviour, different kinds of relationships, different kinds of interactions and reactions, and no one seems odd. moreover, 'Zakuro' offers such likeable characters that I could not follow my usual pattern 'choose one character and forget about the rest'. I used to call this feeling a 'respect', but I am not sure if it does not incline towards 'sympathy', or something else. I am trying to say, even if I was not personally a fan of this or that type of character, I 'could not take my eyes off of them'. the 'shoujo' level did not go overboard either
and humour - that last straw that can save anything. monsters who only want to scare but not to hurt

silly actions of characters who were supposed to act cool

'childish granddaddy' type of characters

and adorable, cute, almost useless characters like Mamezou

this balance is not something easily achieved, in my mind
天晴れ！

music

is the second thing which saves 'Zakuro' from being a mediocre 'watch-and-forget' anime. the BGM composer is said to be Sugimoto Masaru. however, if you have a look at the OST booklet, you will see another name - Nanase Hikaru. while Nanase is responsible for many beautiful and bewitching songs, Sugimoto is an unknown figure to me, but I am happy to get to know his works

OST is something I would call an OST masterpiece. everyone has his own principle on how to decide whether an OST is good or bad, but what I appreciate the most is when the composer(s) is/are able to create different kinds of music for different situations, and when the music presents some interest separately, not as a background. oh, and one more criterion - though I have a great respect towards experimental OSTs, I am not in favour of replacing analog instruments with a single synthesizer. 'Zakuro' OST uses classical instruments, and even violin is not violated as usual manages to create symphonic sound

OP theme was what I liked the least, though 'twas not bad. ED themes were much more interesting. I remembered 'Sakura Taisen', 'Ikoku' and some other anime where seiyuus sang theme songs
天晴れ！

voicing

seiyuus of 'Zakuro' are a group of the most popular, famous and demanded ones. just look at this list: Nakahara Mai, Sakurai Takahiro, Hanazawa Kana, Toyosaki Aki, Horie Yui, Hino Satoshi, Kaji Yuuki, Okamoto Nobuhiko, Kondou Takayuki, Komiya Kazue, Ishizumi Akihiko, Tamura Mutsumi, Iguchi Yuka, Tomatsu Haruka, Inoue Kikuko, Kotobuki Minako. I guess creating 'Zakuro' was pretty expensive due to such a list. however, they all coped with their roles so brilliantly that I was absolutely delighted. the main characters' seiyuus were predictably good, but Tomatsu-san  impressed me with an unexpected low voice. the 'old school' Oohara Sayaka and Inoue Kikuko were just as one would expect them to be. the only thing I could wish for is probably Nakahara putting more effort into training how to portray crying 

天晴れ！

graphics
probably some of the pictures were done in a lazy manner, but the extent of laziness was not critical. mostly I liked the bright vivid colours which, independently of whether you admit it or not, always liven up the atmosphere and cheer up the spectators
if only there were more pictures of the city itself... since Meiji, Taisho and Showa are my favourite periods in Japanese history (as well as 19-20 centuries in world history) I wanted to see more views creating the epoch, but I only saw the 'Ministry' itself, Kei's mansion and a few streets

unlike wider perspectives, facial expressions were done very well

which were sometimes contributing to the atmosphere of the moment so that my heart almost skipped a bit

天晴れ！

conclusion

there are anime series that have a strong basis which seems trustworthy from the very beginning. 'Zakuro' was the opposite. however, I have no regrets I risked. right after the start, due to likeable characters, overwhelming music and interesting plot I felt like I finally found the type of anime I was searching for - the one that made me feel like I felt in my early days, when my breath was easily taken away by what was happening on the screen. 13 episodes in one gulp!
天晴れ、天晴れ、天晴れな～！