mission.japan

If you keep up with the fansub circuit, you’ll quickly come to understand that there’s a lot of mediocre anime out there. With varying degrees of mediocrity, too—from the this-isn’t-so-bad-but-I-still-don’t-like-it type to the how-in-the-world-did-this-make-it-on-the-air type. But if you’re patient enough, every once in a long while a really, really good series comes out. Kanon is one of this kind of series (as can be expected from a KyoAni production). But this isn’t another Kanon post.

I recently started watching Manabi Straight!, and it is positively spectacular. It currently airs at 2:00 in the morning (not unusual, a lot of anime has an inconvenient airtime), so instead of staying up late just to watch a half-hour of TV I typically get the fansub.

As themes go, ManaSuto isn’t that original. It fits squarely into the high school daily life category. What sets it apart is:

• art: Beautifully crisp and clean with a deliciously cute twist.
• characters: Seemingly stereotypical, but surprisingly unique with depth that can be felt right from the first episode. Manabi-chan and Mikan-chan (nekomimi!) are so easy to fall in love with.
• voice acting: Perfectly matched to each character. Horie Yui is a longtime favorite of mine, and Nonaka Ai has reached the same status with me after voicing Ichijo-san in Pani Poni Dash and Konoka in Negima.
• directing: Shockingly good for any kind of show. The camera angles are imaginative, the scene flow is excellent.
• soundtrack: A lot of light classical with some dance mixins—very well suited to the story and characters.
• fanservice: Kept (I’d say) to a minimum. Implied, but rarely shown. This is a Good Thing, as it indicates the authoring company’s confidence in the strength of the above elements to carry the series.

Only a few series can score high marks in every area by my book, and this is one of them. As it turns out, the company that is doing ManaSuto also did Futakoi Alternative, a notably more fanservice-y and graphic series, but still excellently written and directed.

And for those of you shaking your finger at me for downloading fansubs (especially in Japan, tsk tsk!), I do support the series I enjoy by buying merchandise, like soundtracks and posters. Just yesterday I bought the first ManaSuto soundtrack, along with a Kanon poster. I won’t buy DVDs (too expensive, and I wouldn’t watch them often enough to justify the cost), but if it’s things like music or decorations I’ll generally get something. Since I typically won’t buy merchandise from anime I haven’t seen, in my case having the fansubs helps anime.