If you’ve been watching the trends in aniblogging recently, the “what I was forced to watch” category of post recently shot up in popularity (sorted by author) by a whopping 100%, going from just one author (JP) in this genre, to two authors (JP and Hinano), overnight (last night, to be exact).

This is obviously a sign that these types of posts, reviewing old anime no one else would normally touch, are the next big thing, a new recession-proof bubble for the otakusphere to post in (helpful for when old, wizened blogs are collapsing left and right)

As such I am promptly pulling all of my money out of the Bank of Editorial and Analytical Writing and investing it all in old sucky anime which I can sarcastically review to great success and profit.

First up was Lamune, one of a great pile of many visual-novel slash eroge conversions, chosen for being the first anime on the Great List of Anime People Have Mentioned Once In Their Life I could find download links for. I promptly grabbed the whole series, stuffed it onto my portable media player of choice, and bought a ticket for the closest 6-hour train ride I could find.

After attempting to execute my brilliant plan, however, I found that Lamune presented me with a bunch of problems.

First off, I still like to watch new anime (mostly to suck and/or lick the genitalia of popular animation studios), and I still like to write long eloquent fanboy-rave-filled editorials.
Secondly, my train ride was only 3 hours long, so I had to split it into 2 halves – one for the trip down to my weekend getaway spot, and one half for the way back.
Thirdly, I never really have time to marathon shows, so I can’t make this into a feature.

And fourthly, Lamune didn’t suck.


So this is probably going to end up being a rather ordinary review of a rather old show with no cool pretenses or anything, and probably lacking in sarcasm and attitude as well.

This is mostly because of the type of harem-alike anime Lamune is, for better or for worse. I’m beginning to imagine a sort of categorization among the vast, vast field of visual-novel-conversion anime, into one of four separate groups:

1) Dramatic. The harem aspects of the show are played off mostly for tension or drama. Conflict between two or more characters is common, if not required, in these types of shows. Logic and sensibility is frequently thrown out in favor of shock and an intense feeling. Examples include School Days, Higurashi, KimiNozo, and H2O.

2) Emotional. Could also be termed a ‘crying anime’ most of the time, these anime are meant to induce a large emotional response from the viewer, by presenting many different stories about many different cute girls, and the often-depressing things that happen to them. Usually the conflict here is internal, or not between main heroines. Examples are any Key work, and parts of Tsukihime or Da Capo.

3) Healing. A gentle story that is meant to warm a viewer’s heart, often through liberal applications of moe and a general upbeat mood. Conflict is minimal here, with a typically straightforward storyline where the core group of characters gets along well. Examples here would be Nanatsuiro Drops, Tokimeki Memorial, and – a non-VN example, but harem-like – Haruka’s Secret.

4) Perverted. The easiest category to explain – it’s a mostly lighthearted genre with the emphasis on shoving a lot of improbably beautiful women in various stages of undress into your face. Any hentai OVA will fall into this category, as well as some of the dirtier adaptations with little in terms of plot.

And while there’s often a lot of overlap between said categories, in the case of works like ef (emotional-dramatic), sometimes it’s quite easy to see where an anime is coming from, and that case today is Lamune.

Lamune couldn’t be any more healing-type if you set it on an aquatic city in Mars and made the lead girl, Nanami, a naive, shy but self-confident ojou-sama otaku, and actually, those two statements are kind of true.

A small, rural town by the oceanside is the setting for Lamune, which gives it a very peaceful atmosphere, and a close-knit cast with a strong bond between them all. And Nanami herself isn’t too far off from a certain Haruka Nogizaka, being very spacey and naive, having a kind heart, and generally being very adorable in nature.

And this is quite a good point to start from for Lamune. After the first episode I was already getting the vibes of another Haruka’s Secret, except plus true harem aspects. It had a fairly obvious ‘end girl’ with a pleasant relationship, and a fairly strong supporting cast.

I figured that if it stayed on a peaceful path, instead of devolving into pointless waffling and drama, that it could perhaps knock Haruka’s Secret off the spot of “best romance-type healing show in recent memory”. Not particularly a hard feat considering how Haruka crashed hard in its latter half.

Unfortunately, as the show progressed it was easy to see Lamune’s roots in a multiple-route game, as we devolved into To Heart 2 / Da Capo II territory, spending needless time developing side characters for a single episode.

My problem with this is not the spread of attention amongst characters, which seems justifiable enough. I know I wouldn’t be happy if a series I loved as a visual novel (or manga, etc) totally blew over characters, and in Lamune, the main relationship between Kenji and Nanami was kept in the frame at all times.

The larger issue is the standalone nature of all the episodes, how none of them really feel tied to each other. In a sense, although it doesn’t lose sight of the end pairing, it doesn’t do anything in that regard, nor does it advance much between Kenji and the side heroines as well. In all senses it is basically a zero-sum episode, and this is something that I find hard to swallow for a good half of the show, composing much of the middle half.

This is something that I frequently find myself butting heads with in ‘healing’ shows like this, their frequent nature to have very little happen. They’re not quite amusing enough to be good as stand-alones, and not continuous enough to bring interest from one episode to the next. I have a feeling that episodes like this are meant to be the defining point of ‘healing’ shows, and so my issue here is less an issue with Lamune and more an issue with the genre as a whole.

Still, it goes to show that Lamune is perhaps not that conducive to a drawn-out, marathon sitting, and my point still stands that there could have been at least some acknowledgment of previous events.

At this point I was nearing the three-quarters mark of Lamune, watching it go back and forth between the upper bound of Haruka’s Secret and the lower bound of To Heart 2, and really not forming much of an opinion on it, beyond “Nanami is modestly moe,” with modestly defined as “not as world-melting as other renowned moeblobs, but otherwise worth noting.” On par with the middle-tier Clannad girls, approximately.

Luckily, something very good happened in the form of Sakura’s arc.

Sakura seemed to be another stereotype in a crowd of mostly stereotypical – therefore, cute, yet forgettable – characters, from the tomboy-slash-tsundere, to the kind sister (actually blood-related, for once, I think), to the gentle onee-san.

Being the shy girl, she had a sort of natural appeal to me that I couldn’t deny, as overdone as that type is, but I didn’t expect her to amount to much more than the other characters.

Of course, I underestimated the power of a longshot confession, the shy character’s specialty, a sort of emotional bomb strapped to their chest (to be particularly incorrect, political-wise) meant to turn the world upside-down.

And while I was initially worried that her arc would cause a lot of unnecessary drama, it actually turned out quite pleasantly, and so I found her part the most touching and memorable part of Lamune, even more than the finishing arc.

On the finishing arc, while we are there, it drew to a satisfactory conclusion, but not an outstanding one. I was left rather nonplussed by it all, and found myself more affected by Sakura’s crying and emotion than Nanami’s outburst, which bordered too much on that overdone line of “can’t live without you” that the feeling of moe is all about.

Maybe it was something about Sakura’s maturity that surprised me. Desperation drives people to do many things, but Sakura composed herself through a tough time quite well, for such a shy, weak-looking person on the outside.

Perhaps during the second episode of her arc she did too much hiding and running away from herself, but watching Kenji – and most importantly, Nanami – understand her true feelings that she couldn’t convey, culminating in a final conversation on the train tracks at the end, really meant something.

It’s probably because, if anything, it led to one of those brilliantly quotable lines, “You can’t always think ‘that’s fine’,” which deserves to be quoted in the Romance Motivation Lines Hall-of-Fame, and poignant scenes with a strong finisher line are always extremely memorable for me.

And ‘memories’ are something that I find to be in shortage when it comes to ‘healing’ shows, distressingly so. I’ve found very little reason to think about this genre of shows when it comes to looking back and reminiscing; perhaps this is because since they lack conflict, they often don’t grab my attention in a way that leaves a mark. Rather, they tend to do the opposite, acting as a sort of visual drug to clear the mind for a short period of time.

As such, ‘healing’ shows work reasonably well for rewatching, during stressful times to relax and soothe the soul, but when you’re as behind on anime on as constant a basis as I am…it really never happens.

There are a lot of anime like this out there, that just don’t stick to the mind or the heart for long, and as natural a process that it is, I still feel a tinge of sadness every time I let go of one forever.

Especially for shows like Lamune, which make a grand leap from the large pile of mediocre anime towards the promised land of the greats and the eternal, only to fall short into that purgatory, too weak to be loved, but too strong to be forgotten.

I suppose my posts like this are a countermeasure to that, Chihiro’s diary of sorts, so that I can flip back one day when I’ve lost hope and remember something about a show I would have otherwise forgotten.

One day, I will remember the charm of a simple, modest show set by the sea, with a lovable lead couple and a strong secondary cast, and I will look back on it fondly, and I will remember the sweet taste of Lamune.

That’s my wish.

-CCY