'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～！

my humble opinion: Bakemonogatari

there is a good way to describe something applying analyses and without boring explanations. 'tis naming good points and bad points one after another. shall I try to use it?

the animation itself

will anyone argue that SHAFT is great in terms of animation? I doubt...

a good point - both the moving parts and the static views were created for us to enjoy. the colours are vivid, and the scenes are psychedelic enough to make us stare with all our might. white silhouettes instead of furniture or some everyday life objects, strange shapes and angles, just everything one may need to get lost in an artificial word

a bad point - someone might get tired with such a concept. 'tis obviously not for admirers of nature, pastel colours etc (I am not one of them, so I was never tired though)

the music

a bad point - the theme songs are utterly boring. hearing them for the first time I thought they were pretty good, but the key point is - first time. first time is good, but the second time I heard the melody I was already fed up with it. moreover, 'twas such a waste of seiyuus' voices... we have brilliant Saitou-san, Sawashiro-chan, Horie-chan, and others whom I do not happen to have heard earlier, but the voices are pretty good. what spoileth them is the music itself - spoileth by giving them no chance to show their beauty, or cuteness - better to say. the only one that had an interesting part was the theme song of Nadeko ('de mo sore ja dame' line was good). I should say I was especially disappointed in supercell - why so plain? both the melody and the girl's voice. a free indie band should have something more than that...

a good point - the back melodies were great, again - psychedelic, but very nice, always following the mood of the psychedelic images, and sometimes even making the anime more psychedelic than it could be. however, 'tis not the kind of ost I would listen to as a separate piece

the seiyuus' work

a good point - as I already mentioned, we have a whole company of good girls this time

a bad point - they would not consider voicing these characters as one of their best works. obviously... nothing special, nothing memorable, and I even did not recognize them at once - I speak of Horie-chan, Saitou-san and Sawashiro-chan, though I have heard them already in other works

a good point - there were nice lines in the script which were quite funny and the intonation was also contributing to the impression of those parts

a bad point - apart from those funny lines, most of other seiyuus were quite plain and some of the main characters were a kind of epic fail... Araragi and Oshino, for example, were created as quite distinguishing characters, but their seiyuus spoiled everything, especially Oshino's one. but that' already the next paragraph

the characters

so, a good point - Oshino was really meant to be a 'cool, and he knows he is cool' guy type. the same as Sanosuke from RK or Onizuka, for example.

a bad point - what a disappointment, his seiyuu sounded as if he was chosen out of a crowd of amateurs because his former seiyuu's heel was itching and he could not come to work... I want to say, the seiyuu completely ruined the image, though he did his best, obviously

a good or a bad point, I cannot even decide, but Araragi is that typical UJS - usual Japanese schooler, as we call them. of course, he is a vampire partially, so he could not be a UJS precisely, but his behaviour and his 'type' is certainly the UJS one. and that is not my type, so I was simpy enjoying him shouting funny things from time to time. as for his striving to help everyone - that was cool, but I could not appreciate it very much actually... somehow I just did not. I would prescribe it to the manner of the storytelling

the good point - the girls were much more interesting. a harem, but not the usual one, though the types are quite usual. all of them are cute and have their own nice/funny/adorable points

the bad point - none of them was the one I could really like from the very bottom of my heart. at first, Hitagi seemed to be the one, as I loved her swiftness and determination, but to my surprise I got tired with her very soon, and I was not amused very much with her teasing Araragi. I also liked Tsubasa at the beginning of the first episode, as I tend to like calm 'supporting' characters - supporting in terms of their importance in the story, as opposed to the main ones. however, she turned up to be more important than a supporting one, and less attractive than I expected her to be. 'twas not that I was disappointed with her 'problem' in the Tsubasa Cat chapter, but I simply lost the impressing point of hers. finally the one whom I sympathized the most turned out to be Kambaru, though come to think of it - and there is nothing special about her I could take as an advantage

the plot itself

as I plan to end in a good point, I shall start with the bad one - the plot itself is not the plot at all, too illogical and separated - in terms of separation not only into chapters, but also separation of the events. somehow it feeleth as if a lot of things are omitted and we never understand how the things developed while we were 'absent'. moreover, the overall impression is somewhat mixed, so stating that the plot is gorgeous would be a big lie

but the good point - though I have much to complain of, I did not drop the series, and moreover, while my 初心 (I have learnt the word two days ago and I have just recalled of it unintentionally) - my initial intention was to watch 5 episodes a day in order to while away the time before the 2nd episode of Sherlock is aired - as I had precisely three days to wait - I ended up watching 13 episodes in one day. the first ones were passing like an instant. several times the episode ended I was thinking 'tis the break for commercial which is usually dividing the episode in two parts. this meaneth, I was waiting for the episode to last two times longer. no, I am wrong, I was waiting for the episode to develop two times slower - better to say, two times less absorbing. even taking into account I was absolutely bored and I have not watched anything since July, a bad anime just doth not do that, doth not have that effect of making thou stare at the screen without noticing time pass

therefore, the conclusion is

a stylish thing with every element possible being unique - maybe excluding seiyuus only. a nice thing, though not a masterpiece, entertaining and interesting. at least, 'tis good to have such a thing in 2009, where almost all the animes have already become the 'conveyor' type
_____
forgot to mention... beware of ecchi - nothing harmful (even I could endure it), but there is some