Azusa Will Help! Review

story 6.5/10

Azusa Will Help is a fairly light hearted look at a supposedly futuristic society that has robots as a commonplace occurance. I say supposedly because although the year is 2099, you really can't tell at all, except for the addition of the robots. Anyways, these robots range from maids (no, really?!) to the more important sports playing robots, which vary in skill and power depending on, you guessed it, the cost.

The story focuses on Karu Duck High (wtf kind of a name is that?!), a semi-poor baseball team who wants to make it big. Unluckily for them, Eagle High has already purchased some of the baseball robots, and even more unlucky, Karu Duck just lost a player, making them one player short of entering the competition. They can't afford a baseball robot, so they buy a maid robot, and thus the story begins. There is no deep plot, no twists, and nothing that will make you need to think excessively. At only 45 minutes, this short OVA is centered around the team trying to make this unlikely robot turn into a master player, to help them win the game.

If I had to pick a genre to associate with it, it would probably be a light comedy, but really, there isn’t much that’s funny about it. There are several trademark jokes about the one female in the group being more like one of the guys (as opposed to Azusa), and a few borderline ecchi moments, but other than that, not much truly funny comedy to be found. I suppose it might be considered a baseball team slice of life of sorts. Anyways, while the story is engaging enough to not make you completely bored, it definitely doesn’t seem like anything unusual enough to get a very high rating. Sure, there aren’t too many anime series out there that are about baseball, but there sure are a lot about maid robots, or robots in general and their wacky antics they get into while humans are trying to teach them to do various things. This semi generic plot wasn’t highlighted by any funny comedy, endearing characters, or any emotion/situation thicker than a piece of paper, so it succeeded only at one thing: being a light hearted, shallow watch. This isn’t anything bad if you are in the mood for such a thing, but unless you really enjoy ditzy robot situations, this might not be a good use of 45 minutes of your time.

animation 7/10

The animation style of the OVA was definitely crisp and appealing, but nothing special by any means. Colors used were mostly pastels, pink/orange hair, sea green or blue uniforms. The typical maid outfit was worn by Azusa, making you quite certain that her lineage was such. The animation tended to look older, based on the lightness of the shading, the non-brilliance of the colors, and the character designs. No CG or other special effects were used that I could remember. All in all, not a very impressive eye candy viewing, but not totally bad either.

sound 7/10

The audio, like the OVA, was mostly light hearted and good spirited. Xylophone type sounds dominated a great deal of the music, which played lightly in the background during training or "comedic" situations. In a small way, the light music reminded me of something I'd hear in an RPG. Anyways, it gets higher than average points for having facets that were memorable (the xylophone beats, and generally fit well with the OVA), but still wasn't anything exceptionally good.

Voice actors did their parts well, even Azusa, whose annoying ditz voice easily convinced you of her character type.

characters 5.5/10

Definitely not a high point of the OVA, as far as I'm concerned. Now, I'll admit that with a one episode OVA, there isn't much room for character development. It isn't like I expected the baseball team to go through any sort of growth or anything. The problem was, it tried to make you feel like growth DID happen, and it was very cheesy. Each character was very shallow and 2-dimensional, not offering anything in the way of personal background or endearing traits. The only two that stuck out even a little was the main male character, and the only female, just because she was the only female. Azusa was the annoying epitome of a stupid brainless maid, who never seemed to understand anything that was going on. I don't know, in general, too much supposed character development that felt flat, and too many pointless characters.

overall 6/10

All in all, a very average light hearted baseball story. With nothing exciting about the plot and very lackluster characters, there isn't really anything to the OVA that would be memorable enough to watch again, let alone watch at all. The music was interesting enough, and the animation was decent, but in general, unless you really like baseball, robot maids, or need something brainless for 45 minutes, I probably wouldn't waste my time.