Baby Love Review

story 5/10

Baby Love unfortunately suffers from the young adult codependant love interest syndrome. While normal and stable adolescents/teenagers might have a crush that lasts awhile, most (at least I hope) don't become completely obsessive and secretive about convincing someone to look their way. In addition, I rarely hear 16 year olds talking about how they would die for someone they barely know, and only met briefly when they were 12. But for anime, especially romance ones? This is totally fair game, as it is in the case of Baby Love. For the obsessive nature it reminded me quite a bit of Fashion Boy is Cool. What could have been a normal puppy love crush turned into something (as far as I'm concerned) freakish and WAY too co-dependant to be amusing. Because hey, I'm female, and it really creeps me out to think that certain anime series/OVAs give women an extremely stalkerish/co dependant stereotype! (Granted, this is true in some cases, but still ;)).

As far as the actual plot, though, it is totally generic. I already mentioned Fashion Boy is Cool, and it should be brought up again. Although it also fit into this stalkerish female romance vibe, it at least had a very unique premise and story. Baby Love, on the other hand, just doesn't. Girl from past obsesses over boy in the present, boy doesn't remember her. HELLO, REPETITION!

The flow itself was decent, nothing was confusing or misleading.

There were comedic aspects sprinkled throughout the OVA, though for the most part were again right up the "obsessive insecure girl" alley. Namely, Seara's obsession with getting larger breasts, so Shuhei would pay attention to her.

All in all, a very overdone weak plot, but still had a decent flow to it, hence the average score of 5.

animation 4/10

The overall animation style of Baby Love was fairly poor, and worse yet, it was made in 1997! It definitely looks like it was made in the mid 80s, with a poor budget. Granted, the producers probably wanted it to look like the manga, and that works, but I don't feel like there is much excuse for how old the animation looks from only a few years ago.

The characters themselves are very old (animation style) looking, with huge saucer eyes and limited other facial features. Combine this with trademark poofy/flowy hair and limited shading, and you have the characters of Baby Love.

Colors were very average looking, coming from a wide palette of uninteresting shades and tones. Colors from across the board were used, mostly green, red, and blue, with lots of orange. Nothing was exceptionally vibrant or interesting as far as shading.

The one time the visuals did impress was near the end, in a forest scene with autumn colors on the leaves (which were floating on the wind), with the camera angle off center, giving the scene an unusual and nice perspective. Other than that, backgrounds and scenery were unimpressive and bland.

No CG or anything exceptional was used.

sound 6/10

The music was a very unusual mix of early 90s sounding buttrock. Although this kind of thing was played perhaps to appeal to youths, it still seemed out of place for the type of show this was. Any other music was background and boring.

Voice actors did a decent job, fitting their child-like or neutral roles they played.

characters 5/10

The characters fit their obsessive roles very nicely, but they still seemed 2-dimensional and lacking of substance. Seara was a textbook insecure child, obsessing (I keep saying this, but it fits well) over someone she barely knows, saying she'd die for him (WHY?!), and tries so badly to get him to like her. Shuhei is a typical guy, far more interested in huge breasted hotties than a 16 year old kid. The friends of Shuhei were not developed at all, and seemed fairly background and pointless. I don't know, the roles the characters played, and the short time they were on the screen, just didn't end up interesting me in the long run. Interaction between Shuhei and Seara seemed shallow, just like their attempt at a relationship.

overall 5.5/10

Baby Love was a generic look at an obsessive girl who needs to get a life. The animation was lackluster for its time, the music was out of place, and the plot was nothing to scream about. It did have decent character roles going for it (though they were very strange already, due to the obsession), so I guess that's a decent plus. All in all, a very generic watch. But hey, with only one episode of 30 minutes, it wouldn't take too long to watch if you really like romance things and want to see them all (or if you just want to see a rarity). I wouldn't watch it again, but you may find value in it, who knows.