Ajimu Kaigan Monogatari

Title: Ajimu Kaigan Monogatari Ajimu Beach Story Overall: Rent Keywords: 2001, 2002, Drama, Fan Service, Modern, Music Oriented, OVA, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Shounen Notables: CHIBA Saeko ISHIDA Akira MADONO Mitsuaki MIYAMURA Yuko MORIKUBO Shoutaro One morning as 17-year-old Nakaido Hirosuke arrives at the train station on his way to high school, he catches sight of a beautiful girl, Ajimu Yasuna, and immediately falls for her - but has a bad start to say the least. Yet over time the two of them get to know each other and become friends, but he can't confess his feelings and she is unsure of hers: Yasuna's heart still holds the memory of her friend who left her two years ago. And then another girl makes her move towards Hirosuke... [OVA (originally released for Nifty subscribers only, English & Spanish fansubs available), 2001-2002, 4 episodes, 28 min; images top-down: Otomine Yuuma & Ajimu Yasuna, Takemoto Suzue & Nakaido Hirosuke, Izumiya Kazuki & Izumiya Moe] 1:58min Series Opening - YouTube Video

Overall	Art	Animation	Character Design	Music	Series Story	Episode Story	Reviewer
Rent 4	8	6	9	7	6	9	Devil Doll	#
Ajimu Kaigan Monogatari [Score: 76%] Drama: Med (even a plain teenager romance is a story - and look at the ending...) Comedy: Low (a romance doesn't need to be a comedy) Action: None (despite the dramatic final episode) SciFi: None (plain old world, normal people) Ecchi: Low (not much more than the "bad start") Clichés galore, a little fan-service and slapstick humor now and then, and the usual high-school romance settings. Light stuff, so to say - you've probably seen all of this before. Being a low-budget production, the animation isn't that good (Yasuna is out of synch most every time when she sings or plays her four-string Ukulele); music is heavy on Hawaiian sound - well, this is a beach story and Yasuna is a singer/songwriter (and all of her lyrics are important for the storyline, which is why the story is "Music Oriented"). As for the art, just look at the character's faces. So what's good about this mini series? You get exactly what you expect: Intertwining love triangles, confessions, insecurity, unrequited love, tears, even drama during the final episode (which disappointed me - I didn't expect them to rely on this kind of mechanism to resolve the main issue). All the characters are likable in their own way; the occasional "comic relief" side character isn't overused, and the focus is on the thoughts and emotions of the lead characters. Consequently the narration speed is rather high - with just four episodes there's no time for a lot of filler scenes. I watched this OVA as I would read a manga version of it: I stopped after each scene, sometimes even after each spoken line, and tried to guess what would happen during the next minutes, and which character's face would show which type of reaction to certain events. It was easy to see where the story would go, but the how and the when still were interesting, While there's not much of a storyline, I'd say the made the best of it, that's why I give "Episode Story" the highest rating, as to express the fun I had while watching this. So despite being that predictable, Ajimu gave me some nice ride for about twice its airing time, in a similar way as Boys Be and Video Girl Ai did, or certain parts of the longer series Ai Yori Aoshi and Love Hina. It might not have enough rewatchability value to buy it, and my stop&go method wouldn't have worked with a "Watch" (i. e. TV airing), so "Rent" should the perfect rating for this show. I'll be rewatching it tomorrow already, this time without interrupting the flow. If you liked this story then True Love Story ~ Summer Days, and yet... might be worth a try as well. Last updated Tuesday, December 18 2007.

Other Sites

Name	URL
Releaser's page for Ajimu	http://www.nifty.com/ajimu/
japanese only