OP Sequence

OP: 「Cheer!~まっかなキモチ~」 by 酒井香奈子 (Sakai Kanako)
Ehhh, I wasn’t that impressed by Sakai Kanako’s singing. It’s an upbeat song, but I just didn’t like it.

Summary:
Matsumaru Fumihiko is about to throw away a pair of movie tickets when a red-haired girl stops him. She convinces him to give her one of them, and then she drags him into the theater. During the movie, Fumihiko finds it really strange that this girl is reading the subtitles out loud to herself. When he asks her about it afterwards, she tells him that she wants to become Audrey Hepburn. Fumihiko is a bit confused, but then he catches sight of Tanaka-san, the woman had originally promised to meet with him. However, she’s instead with a rather burly man. Seeing him depressed, the red-haired girl offers to comfort Fumihiko as compensation for the ticket. Over dinner, the girl reveals that she’s a seiyuu in-the-making and Fumihiko realizes that she was serious about the Audrey Hepburn comment. The way home is different for them, so they part ways after eating.
That night, Fumihiko ends up dreaming about Tanaka-san, the burly guy, and the red-haired girl dubbing over his voice. He waves up from the nightmare to hear sirens passing by his window. He walks until he finds the burning building, and spots that girl sitting alone in the rain on a swing set. Since she has no one to turn to, he invites her to his home and has her take a shower. After she gets out, he presents his bed to her, but she starts to feel guilty about how nice he’s being to her. He tells her that she’ll feel better tomorrow, but the girl starts crying because all of her books and photographs went up in flames. He comforts her and lets her cry on his shoulder for a bit. Their embrace turns into a kiss which turns into Fumihiko getting on top of her in bed. Before they have sex, it occurs to the girl that she hasn’t introduced herself: her name is Onda Aka, a seiyuu in-the-making.
The next morning, Fumihiko finds Aka gone, having left only a note that says she’s returning to her office and bids him farewell.

I’m very on the fence about this series. The first episode is a bit of a shocker in the sense that this random girl goes out with a guy and eventually ends up sleeping with him. Not quite what you’d expect from an anime, though still not as surprisingas when I first picked up the REC manga (read my description for the series). The animation’s decent, but the music was a bit lacking. The very white color palette in the morning scene is an interesting choice, though it’s a bit hard on the eyes. But the scene transitions (with eye-catches), however, feel very abrupt.
There’s a good chance I’ll keep watching and blogging this just because each episode is only 15 minutes long and there’s only 9 episodes in total. Next week, Fumihiko goes to work and gets a big surprise.

25 Comments

  1. Well, guess that part about sleeping with another guy shouldn’t come surprising when she is already ready to go and didn’t even introduce herself yet. Emotional attachment to the girl in question and her relationship to protagonist, zero?

    ayyo
  2. Whow! Whow! I hope it was rated for mature. Wtf. So different from what I expected. I haven’t seen the anime. The damsel in distress thing and sex are a total surprise. I had high expectations for it too. > .

    Booyah
  3. Hmm, I have to get the “WTF?!” mentality thrown out before I get used to this one.

    15 minutes long is not going to help me if it reaffirms my thinking that short timing + short episodes = Dokuro-chan-esque storyline: Started out good, becomes bad at the end of it.

    TP
  4. Eh, I don’t think her having sex with him is unsual at all. Situations like this are common anywhere, not just in Japan. Things happen, two people end up in a room together, and they do it. Especially when traumatic events have occured, there’s little consideration given to “should I be doing this?” or anything like that. Call me immoral, but I’ve found myself in similar situations a few time. I liked the ending because I personally found it realistic. Granted the fire seems a bit contrived unless it was somehow intentional.

    Chikusaho
  5. I totally agree with you Chikusaho. I was listening to two people complain about it, that it was too soon or sudden or whatever. Stuff happens, and you can tell she really liked him by the way she didn’t resist.

    Fiatan

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