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Sakuraso No Pet Na Kanojo
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Konomi Suzuki - DAYS of DASH 2012 CD Album Cover |
Sakuraso is a 24 episode anime version of the Manga/Light Novel of the same name by Hajime Kamoshida. It was released in Japan on October 2012.
Sakuraso is a dormitory for "problematic students" and our main character Sorata Kanda, a second year student, lives in this dormitory. Being a kind-hearted guy, he had no choice but to live in Sakuraso when he started fostering stray cats which were forbidden in normal dorms. He is eventually given the responsibility of taking care of Mashiro Shiina who is a genius artist that lacks common sense like dressing herself.
Initially watching the first episode, first thing that's easy to see is just how well done the animation is. The color schemes all work together well to allow the viewers to immerse themselves in the story that's unfolding. The characters move fluidly, the background doesn't stand out against the foreground, and the scenes transition without noticeable flaws.
Within scenes that are meant to make it memorable, like when Sorata meets Mashiro, the scene is warm. The way they animated the petals and the filtering of light to give warmth, it made that scene memorable. The music playing in the background to fill the lack of character speech was also well done.
The soundtrack so far (as I've only seen three episodes to review), is a bit repetitive, but serves its purpose. I personally didn't find them to be all that unique or profound so I can't say I remember how any song felt. However, I found that the sound effects really made the anime present the atmosphere well. Take, for example, the scene where Sorata meets Mashiro, he shoves food in his mouth and the sound effect really amplifies the awkward silence between the two protagonists.
The lack of speech in a lot of the scenes really worked as good respite from some of the characters' voices. Misaki Kamiigusa's voice actor in Japanese is Natsumi Takamori. I'm not sure if they wanted to portray Misaki as an obnoxiously loud character or if it's this particular voice actress' niche, but this alone gave me harshly mixed feelings about Misaki. Generally, I love the obnoxiously loud and cute characters... the ones that are immature and generally can't be understood. She wasn't the only character where I was a bit disappointed in voice acting. Mashiro so far only talks with no emotion and in a bit of a whisper. Think Rei Ayanami of Evangelion or Yuki Nagato of Haruhi Suzumiya franchise.
From what I've seen so far it's obvious that this anime will eventually show Mashiro's character develop. From what I know about characters like her, I have a feeling she will "feel" and "express" by the end of the show but will never lose that voice or the way she talks. I believe there's likely a ton of guys out there where this type of character is their favorite. It's not mine. Girl characters, I feel, shouldn't be divided into obnoxiously open, obnoxiously scared, or obnoxiously dead. Anime world, I think we should have a girl character revolution.
The characters are all a bit cliche. In this sense, I feel like this anime resembled Angel Beats. They establish character personalities and this is the script they basically follow until a deus ex machina is introduced where these characters basically randomly adopt another personality to create a twist in plot.
For the first three episodes, I feel the plot isn't linear but isn't sporadic either. The characters develop rather smoothly and in turn like most animes. Each episode presents a new event for the purpose of developing characters and in turn feels a bit like a slice of life anime. It's not good versus evil where evil is coming and you know what to expect each episode. It's "I want to find homes for the cats" or "I'm not doing so good in class". It's difficult to assess the plot from an anime that presents episodes this way especially from only watching three episodes, but I feel the anime within three episodes introduced the characters well, set up the upcoming plot-line well, and isn't sub-par.
Overall, I really liked the anime. The music wasn't notable but served its purpose well. The sound effects were well done where they were put in. The art is well done and it seemed like everything flowed together nicely. Nothing stood out too much and nothing was underplayed. I really appreciated the atmosphere the scenes presented. The characters are simple in design and, though cliche, isn't badly set up. The storyline is not too random, but not too linear, and makes this an interesting anime to watch.
- Story: 7/10
- Animation 9/10
- Sound 5/10
- Characters 7/10
- Overall 7/10