Akane-Iro ni Somaru Saka is 12 episodes of a typical ecchi-harem anime. Once again, I'll state I hate those genres/combination of genres and that will affect this review. So, you'd expect me to now tell you that this is a typical ecchi harem anime. It is. HOWEVER, towards the end things get a little interesting, if only for the one fact that it literally confronts the harem genre for what is possibly its biggest problem. And it makes you think, or gives you hope. that this might be a bit different. Feel free to watch the first few episode and then skip to the last three, since the others are typical filler/ episodes of the genre where little occurs. I actually got bored and barely paid attention to the middle episodes.
Animation
The animation quality is great, the style is typical for the most part though. However, they do often use funny cartoony facial expressions, so that's a good thing. This is an ecchi anime, though only a couple of characters have obviously large boobs. There are a lot of unnecessary panty shots/fan-service shots, though the most offensive remain in context for the most part. I think I'm being desensitised to the ecchi bullshit, since I didn't notice it that much. I guess that is the result, when I'm trying to bulldoze through the remaining ecchi anime on my watchlist. I look forward to the day that I finish the last one, then I never have to watch a terrible ecchi/harem ever again. Gah off-topic.
Sound
Sound is okay, not terrible since I actually noticed it and it was suitable for the atmosphere. Not worthy of going for the soundtrack though. Not much to really say. This anime is only in Japanese and I recognised Yuuhi's voice actor to be familiar. She's done many voices like Louise from ZnT and Alphonse from FMA. Of course, this means you need subtitles.
Characters
The main character Junichi Nagase, a high school student. He is the typical, indecisive, coward, lack of empathy harem protagonist. He even has a porn stash, though he isn't so much a pervert as other harem protagonists. Everyone calls him Genokiller, an image of him made up by others to make him seem intimidating. In the later episode it is mentioned that he is too nice... well he doesn't get upset at others too much. Most importantly is the fact that he acts strong, not in the literal way though. He hides his feelings and isn't true to himself. Overall a disappointing character and the final nail in the coffin? A hidden sister complex (explained in the spoiler section).
Yuuhi Katagiri is the typical hot-headed tsundere rich girl, one of the two main romantic (yeah right...) options. Of course she comes from a rich family, of course she actually likes Junichi and of course she physically assualts him on many cases. What's more is that her father has decided that she is to be married to him at the start, so she is Junichi's fiance and goes to live with him to 'see how he is'. Could it get any more cliche? Towards the end however, her personality shiws through and she contributes to the interesting confrontation of the genre.
Minato Nagase is Junichi's (relatively) big-boobed sister, not really known whether she is older or younger than him. A typical 'same age' sister who takes care of Junichi's every need, except for the obvious ones she shouldn't do. She knows all about her brother and is good at everything related to housework. She decides to give her brother some space, especially where it concerns Yuuhi. But of course, they just had to give her a brother complex (explained in the spoiler section) making her the other main romantic option.
The others are side characters. The parents are actually explained for once. They are literally secret agents, doing cliche secret agent jobs like defusing bombs or escaping from facilities. There is a big-boobed childhood friend, Tsukasa Kiryuu, who is surprisingly not of interest to Junichi. They also have a typical pretentious ojou-sama rich girl character (as if Yuuhi wasn't rich enough) Karen Ayanokouji who also has a hidden crush on Junichi, though she doesn't get mad at him. unlike Yuuhi. The teacher is a bit wierd and the best friend, Fuyuhiko Nishino, is actually an OK character, not too pervy or jealous of Junichi.
Story
The story is the typical harem ecchi plot (or lack of it) where nothing intersting really happens besides characters being introduced. Did I mention how predictable almost every aspect of the story is? *But wait!* Towards the end things get interesting and this is the only thing that pushes this anime slightly higher than its too numerous genre pool. And thats the only redeeming feature, that some interesting stuff is said about being true to yourself and not being indecisive. Really gives the viewer hope that this will be different... you'll see. There is of course the controversy of the incest between Junichi and his sister, but you should have gathered why I haven't complained about it. I saw it coming a mile away. (saved for the spoiler section).
Conclusion
Overall, an average harem ecchi anime that questions one of the biggest problems of the entire genre at the end, as well as having a bit of a 'moral of the story'. So that alone makes it worth watching over all the other crap. If you want an idea of how a typical harem ecchi anime goes, this is the one, since its only slightly better than the rest of the cesspit and won't be as much a waste of your time due to the interesting last few episodes. It's still a typical bad harem ecchi though. I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone. And if you're in it for the fanservice, you might as well go watch porn or hentai cos nothing really happens.
Family-friendliness Rating: 5/5 Only because pink nipples, despite being in context (lower is better)
Overall Rating: 5/10 (higher is better)
SPOILER SECTION
It is obvious that Junichi and Minato aren't blood related siblings. It's not officially mentioned in the anime, but at towards the end it becomes apparent and they pull a dick move of leaving it vague by not allowing Junichi to hear it from his dad. If he knew, he'd probably be in his sister like a hermit crab in a shell. Oh wait, he's a typical coward harem protagonist. No sex for him then.
Truth to be told, I had high hopes for this anime, but it left me rather disappointed. The score I gave was generous, perhaps too generous, but that's how I am.
The plot is a typical school life with several wierd settings. The male lead is engaged to a girl and all seemed to be going fine until the final episode, which I found extremely unsatisfying. Maybe that is the reason my disappointment with this anime enlarged. It was promising and the plot started to build up into something interesting, then *poof, everything was ruined in the end and it seemed like the anime reverted back to its beginning, starting this never-ending, dull drama again. The animation is nothing worth noting, but it was pretty decent. There weren't any tunes that caught my ears either, so the music didn't gather much support from me. The characters were beautifully designed, which was why I had high hopes for this anime. Every character had personality and didn't feel like an empty husk of meat, but alas, the plot did not fufill the purpose of its colorful characters.
Although the game itself is of decent quality, the anime does not do it justice. My hope is that they remake the anime, but usually my dreams end up in dust. People who just want something to waste their time on, be my guest and watch this huge disappointment. It will please you for most of the time, but don't expect there to be a satisfying ending.
This show could have concluded in 4 episodes. Be prepared for mostly pointless dialogue, alongside minor characters and events. Very funny at times, but I frequently found that it was supposed to be funny and yet didn't succeed. Frankly, I was bored a lot until the last three episodes when the plot actually came about. The ending is "okay" and let's just say "interesting". There wasn't much character development, but some revelations come about towards the end. I left the sound rating blank because I wasn't sure what my oppinion is about it. I guess the music was fitting for the feel of the show.
Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka is an anime that hurts itself by raising expectations and failing to meet them like clockwork. It goes out of its way to repeatedly build from mediocrity only to plunge itself back down to the point where you wonder why you even gave it much of a chance. It's someone jumping out of a 3 story building and landing on concrete, only to climb back up and jump over and over again. Until the person's bones are mush and the series limps to its god-awful ending.
As a series in general, Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka (from here on, Akasaka) is passable, I would go as far to say it's decent and occasionally enjoyable. Its gaping flaws are grossly magnified, rightly, by its constant, flagrant disappointment of its viewers. Basically Akasaka is not pure bad (far from it) but the parts that are actually good makes the parts that are bad look really bad.
Akasaka is based off Feng's visual novel released back in 2007. The plot revolves around a boy by the name of Jun'ichi Nagase, who attends a prestigious high school and seems to bear some kind of tough reputation from middle school. Think typical harem school comedy male protagonist. There, I just developed the character to the same degree 12 episodes of Akasaka did. Anyhow, a naive aloof rich girl, Katagiri Yuuhi (CV: Kugimiya Rie), transfers to Jun'ichi's school and Jun'ichi, out of some act of divine inspiration kisses her, causing unspeakable chaos. Then, to close out a rather promising first episode and establish a quite original premise, it turns out that Yuuhi is Junichi's fiancee due to an arranged marriage.
Akasaka's female cast is chock full eye-catching and potentially interesting characters. Expectations: high. The series proceeds to do nothing with all but two of the girls. Expectations: failed.
Like many similar anime, Akasaka's plot (the plot is essentially just the premise) takes a back seat episodes 3-10 for some good unrelated episodes of fun. That's fine! It's a structure that has worked countless times. And by all means it can work here. But instead, Akasaka is filled extremely cliche situations solved in extremely cliche ways. For example, Jun'ichi's sister Minato (CV: Hirano Aya) takes Yuuhi shopping in a supermarket to make dinner. Six minutes of pointless dialogue about how amazed Yuuhi is of instant curry follows. We get it after the first few lines! Yuuhi talks about how she eats at home as Kugimiya Rie butchers French Japanese transliteration. She's rich, naive, aloof, we get that. Is it supposed to be funny that Yuuhi doesn't know about instant curry and thinks that her cooks and servants don't either? How overblown does the reaction and enlightenment need to be? There are lots of girls in this anime, some who look pretty interesting. Are we going to get episodes about them? With curry? That actually would be pretty awesome...
Watching anime should never be physically painful, but that's what I felt as this series slowly killed itself. It's the pain you feel a promising show wastes all the good things it had going for it and falls into mediocrity. Akasaka occasionally strikes silver (no gold in this show, sorry) with a few lines of interesting dialogue and good animation, but after every good or decent episode or plot development the series feels as if it has some obligation to make up for it by spewing crap at our face. It's like you're at an amusement park and every time you have some fun, a burly security guard has to give you a swift punch in the gut. The ending begins suddenly in the last 3 episodes and was likewise promising. Too bad the conclusion of the series was so predictable that I might as well have drawn the storyboards myself and the things that you didn't predict either have no relevance to the plot or are so cheesy and/or wrong you're better off not predicting it.
I'm a little harsh on this series because it really is a shame. Akasaka goes to show you how bad writing can absolutely destroy a series with everything else going for it. The art is good, the characters and landscapes are well drawn and fun to look at. Akasaka has a voice acting cast that would remind you of the New York Yankees, with the resulting mediocrity to match. When we have Kugimiya Rie (Shana, Louise, Taiga), Inoue Marina (Chiri from Zetsubou Sensei, Yoko from TTGL), Aya Hirano (Haruhi, Konata, Misa from Death Note) and Tanaka Rie (Chi from Chobits, Sugintou) in the same anime, we're going to be excited. I had my eye on this series ever since voice actors were announced and some art was available.
In the end, the voice acting was pretty good but by itself it cannot save a series. The music (besides the terrible OP) is good. It better be good when you have five voice actors with best selling seiyuu albums on your staff. Should there be an OVA about the supporting characters I would most likely flock to it with expectations held high. I've heard that the game this is based off was really cool. Too bad I can't say the same for the anime adaptation
It was a great show, lots of drama, highly suggested to drama-lovers out there. It was an OK show until maybe episode 9-10 which is when it looks like someone else started writing the storyline. I absolutly hated the ending. NO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WHATSOEVER! basically if the show had a better ending and was maybe 24 episodes long it would be a 9.5 but how the show abruptly stops in a strange ending just dissapointes me. I Recommend quickly starting another anime quickly after you finish it. But overall i cant say it was a TOTAL waste of time. it was still an enjoyable show. Somewhat.