(Part of a Anime Blogging Collective Valentine’s Day post rush; refer to IKnight’s handy article collection for links to all the others.)

Who is she? I don’t know, but she has glasses and a valentine. Instant kill, no saving throw.

With the rise of the Internet, it’s easier than ever for people to destroy their personal privacy and post up their biggest, darkest secrets all over the Web, where nobody - except everybody - can see it.

As such budding paparazzi such as myself consider the blogging scene a veritable goldmine for digging up the dirty, the dorky, and the dunce-headed on the most popular or intriguing idols of today, and this isn’t any exception when it comes to the anime community.

No, I’m not talking about the anime blogging community, as many iconic characters as it has. Rather, there’s a lot you didn’t know your favorite anime character was up to on everyone’s favorite romantic holiday, and I’ve taken it upon myself as a freelance reporter to peruse the masses of entries every day for the most exciting, interesting, and controversial stories of what “everyday” life shapes up to be for the biggest names in harem, magical girl, and straight-up romance anime. I think you’ll be very surprised at what dirt I’ve got on them.

(Disclaimer: As you may have guessed, this is a fictional entry based on fictional characters, and a lot of the preceding was patent nonsense. I’m not part of the paparazzi nor a reporter, and if you see any blogs by anime characters I think you need to pinch yourself a bit harder. This is just a fun little idea for a Valentine’s Day post, based off this similar Christmas idea by Stripey, in imagining the (likely much more exciting) happenings of some popular anime heroes and heroines. Please enjoy.

Oh, and yes, I’m trying to inject a little analysis into this as well; these shows all have ties to romance in some way - although most of them, as predicted from someone like me, are harem - and I’ll be commenting on why this show might be something interesting to watch for someone in the mood for a little lovin’ on a day like today.)

(Yeah, I kinda minorly spoil KimiKiss, ef, and Clannad, in a roundabout way.) (more…)

The “12 Days of Christmas” series is a joint feature by some members of the Anime Blogging Collective recognizing twelve moments, twelve series, or just twelve things about anime that we’ve enjoyed over the past year, that really make us enjoy loving what we do, and that is being an anime fan. Feel free to join in the list-making fun too if you wish. We hope you enjoy this feature.

If I had to trace my anime history all the way back to its roots I would end up sitting in the kitchen, staring at a Cardcaptor Sakura DVD.

It was checked out from the library by my parents, in hopes of me enjoying it. I wonder what I first thought. I have to had been skeptical of the adventures of some pink, frilly girl and her plush toy.

I might never know if only because I can’t imagine that thought anymore. I consider Cardcaptor Sakura my first love of anime, and as such it’s nigh-impossible for me to sing anything but praise for it. (And trust me; I’ve tried singing the OPs.)

Perhaps I’m lucky in a sense that Cardcaptor Sakura actually is one that stands the test of time; there are none of those moments where I looked back and thought, “what was I thinking back then?” The only crime I could probably be guilty of would be excessive fanboying, as always does happen when there is only one object to be focused on.

It’s been a while since I truly sat down and watched CCS though. That’s not to say I’ve forgotten CCS at all; like the aforementioned first love, you look back, think “Ah, those were the days”, and move on. It sort of becomes the motivation that drives you, the hopes of experiencing that same bliss as the first time.

It may be the case that that feeling may never come again, if only because the new taste du jour, harem shows, have a wildly different feel than magical girl ones, despite both having strong elements of romance. There will be feelings of awesome (11 more, to be exact), just different ones.

Getting to the point (bloody finally, I hear you), I won’t deny that I still have a bit of an urge for the throwback machine, the magical girl days of yore, and although pure magical girl shows are increasingly hard to find, there always seems to be one hidden in the rough.

Nanatsuiro Drops was that show.
(more…)

“It is a magical story of, ‘A seven-colored first love that encompasses you.’”

A Cardcaptor Sakura for the 21st century.

At first glance Nanatsuiro Drops is one of your standard magical girl shows with a target audience age that can be counted on your two hands. In some aspects of it, it is exceedingly sugary and simplistic.

But delve into the origin of NanaDrops, and you’ll discover, curiously enough, that it was adapted from an eroge, which would seem to suggest quite the contrary to what one would expect from an anime of this type.

Now of course NanaDrops still looks and acts like an anime that has nothing to do with its ero roots. But this isn’t to say that it renounced its background altogether. Somehow it feels that NanaDrops isn’t the type of eroge to be a mindless sex romp but rather one with more of an actual story feel to it, which just happens to have H-scenes.

This isn’t to say that NanaDrops is a deep anime, or a complex one. But it’d be wrong to call it a simplistic anime. It does work the magical girl formula in an innovative way and quite different than what one might expect.

Rather than being focused on the magic aspect of it, there is a larger emphasis on the relationship between characters. It’s a refreshing departure from the “let’s take the whole series to build up to a confession” concept utilized far too often by a lot of romance shows.

Nanatsuiro Drops really is a curious show in that it’s a magical girl show with very little emphasis on the magic. The magical parts of the show really come across as more of a prop towards the development of the two main characters and their relationship together.

And one can even detect a hint of tongue-in-cheek in the magical elements, in the sense that it really feels like Magical Girls for Dummies at times with a real feeling that given the setting, anyone could have been the magical girl, it’s that easy.

It will still be a series twenty times too sweet for someone who can’t handle magical girl shows, and maybe even for someone who can; NanaDrops is the ultimate feel-good story that really has the power to bring a giddy, childlike smile to your face.

The plot is something you’ve probably seen before in some fashion, but the strength in NanaDrops lies in it’s power to throw you into the way-back machine to the good ol’ days of shows like Cardcaptor Sakura; where the characters are pure, the romance innocent, and a mood shining as bright as the sun.

If that’s your thing, Nanatsuiro Drops really is an underrated, seven-colored gem.
(more…)

The summer season has been somewhat of a trip into the way-back machine for me, with these two quite under-the-radar romance shows. I’ve always watched a lot of shows with romantic aspects in them but to have a straight up story between one boy and one girl (with a possible Runner-Up Girl) is almost a fresh premise at this point.

The last title I remember that works like that was the legendary (and quite old) Cardcaptor Sakura, and as such how fitting that one of the shows that has captured my attention is almost a spiritual successor to it, Nanatsuiro Drops.

Although, to tell the truth, they’re similar more on the exterior than on the interior; but magical girl shows in general all feel and act the same in the magical regard; the relationship aspects of Nanatsuiro Drops are what are boding to be quite interesting.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have a show that about three people have heard of, or at least blogged about - Code-E. Code-E is billed as a comedy/romance show which is a promising if not well-traveled road but with an original story and without any big names behind it Code-E is a really difficult show to come across.

Both of these shows, from at least a romance fan’s perspective, are quite enjoyable in their own regards and have their own merits; despite being from the same genre they aren’t exactly fighting over the same audience and they both have widely different approaches to the main topic of today: first loves.

(Spoilers through episode 7 of both series)
(more…)

Nanatsuiro Drops has always been somewhat of a paradox to me.

It’s background is an eroge, which usually means that the anime adaptation will have a generally male target audience. Not necessarily fanservice up the behind like Shuffle or to a lesser note Da Capo, but sometimes just a moe flood of cute characters in shows like Kanon. While the latter show arguably worked just as well for both genders, the fact of the matter is that both types of shows are ones guys don’t mind being caught dead watching.

Now, Nanatsuiro Drops is pretty much straight-up magical girl stuff. Think about it. Eroge + magical girl = confused audience.

Sometimes magical girl shows can work for a male audience, in the case of raw loli-fests (I’m tempted to say Moetan, but I have no actual experience with that show), but NanaDrops pretty much plays the magical girl card straight, at least in the anime.

It seems that the anime has pretty much renounced any tendencies for fanservice or whatnot in favor of attracting a target audience of an age probably not old enough to buy the PC game NanaDrops was based on.

It’s not to say that Nanatsuiro Drops is expressly one of those Not For Guys shows, since magical girl shows have worked for a larger audience in the past; not sure what is the draw of Nanoha, not having watched that, but it has a simply ridiculously huge fanbase, and even old-school, straight magical girl shows like Cardcaptor Sakura (it’s by Clamp, shouldn’t that be enough of a warning to straight guys?) are generally acknowledged to be one of those Top Tier shows. CCS was simply one of those shows that got people into anime.

NanaDrops, though, coming ten years after Sakura’s adventures, may be what some consider “behind the times”. While it may have worked long ago, now tastes seem to have changed away from the sugary, fluffy, heartwarming stuff towards, well, whatever it is you like today. Loli shows, fanservice shows, slice-of-life, moe, dramatic shows…none of these can really fit NanaDrops, which in an era of anime where there are No Girls On The Internet, really just doesn’t click with at least a lot of people in the English anime crowd.

Nevertheless, NanaDrops does have it’s devout supporters, both on AnimeSuki and on local anime blogs. Supposedly it’s not as Magical Girly as it looks, rather turning some typical tropes on its head and generally poking fun at the cliches of the genre. Supposedly the relationship and character development is handled quite well and creatively, unlike the usual “rivals who fall in love” or the “boy meets girl in awkward situation; hijinks and crushing ensue” found in this genre.

But there are always going to be the rabid fans of any series that will stand up for it to the bitter end. Show me a moe harem show and I’ll show you unhealthy levels of adoration. Show a lolicon Moetan and they’ll show you the “merits” of a show like that. So perhaps it’s possible that the fans behind NanaDrops are overhyping it.

As usual, the only way to find out is to watch a show, and thus embarked an second adventure into the cavity-filled sugarland of magical girl shows. Full opinion and perhaps some discussion of the actual show and the first 3 episodes after the jump.
(more…)