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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | ||||||||||||||||
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| Rent | 8 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Devil Doll | # | |||||||||||||||
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[Score: 80%]
9 episodes of a net length of 10 minutes (plus OP & ED) each equals an OVA of 4 standard sized episodes - so there is time enough for story and character development. Both leads are introduced and linked together in episode 1; each episode has enough content to deal with another stage of their relationship. And the fact that this relationship is the one important element of this show allows for meaningful slices of 12 minutes length - this is exactly the right form to present this story. They just left out a lot of the usual filler elements, such as silly-funny stuff or fan-service. This super kawaii Aka girl compensates for most of this anyway... Art is today's standard (and as such quite my taste); Animation has some nice special effects during Fumihiko's dream. Not a lot of Music (instead there are movie sounds, rain, sirens...), mostly annoying to me but appropriate for its setting (advertisement jingles etc.), thus I shouldn't rate it too low. Characters: Matsumaro Fumihiko is a passive but kind guy who tends to get himself into embarrassing situations, Onda Aka is a kind of weird young woman but that's appropriate for her job as forthcoming seiyuu (and her seiyuu has an interesting job of letting her use ever changing voices when this girl voice-acts other persons). Series Story: After the opening part (bringing the couple-to-be together, including them having sex in order to soothe the desperate girl) I was disappointed by Episode 2 because it contained too many embarrassing scenes of stupid behaviour by Matsumaru - it was too much of a silly comedy for my taste. Later episodes use this element of embarrassment more sparingly - I appreciate that a lot and it made me give Episode Story a very high value. Then again, Aka's behavior in this episode was quite mature, providing hope for her character to develop further. Episodes 3 and 4 keep showing Aka as a cute but serious young woman and Matsumaro as a shy and insecure but honest man. Cliché - but it works. Episodes 5 and 6 push the relation forward, with episode 5 providing a bit of fan-service but handling the ecchi subject tastefully as well as funny (using one of those rare cases of an embarrassing situation not annoying me as it is used reasonably and in the proper context). Episode 6 rings the bell for the finale - it's about time for the leads to make up their mind. As of Episode 7 the drama has fully emerged... but how surprised was I to see the roles reversed in episode 8! The final episode provides the ending we all expected but how things end up this way was a nice surprise for me. The conflict we're shown is between the frustrated man (who has seen his dreams crumbling at the age of 26 already) and the cheerful girl who's about to chase her dreams (facing the harsh reality at times - that's when her manager has to help her out) but not yet able to clearly identify them. Aka getting ever more successful throughout the series and Matsumaru becoming ever more frustrated about his own job is an important part of the scenario (probably even more so in a Japanese story with traditional expectations of the role of genders). There's daily life comedy as well as some romance - but this character combination is what attracts me most to this nice series. Somehow it feels a little like Koi Kaze - just with a much less complicated relation between the leads. Perhaps the best aspect is how the side characters mostly remain irrelevant but don't feel underused so that the show can completely focus on the couple-to-be, making full use of what little amount of airing time this short series has. The only exception is Aka's manager (as she insists being referred to...) whose influence as reasonable counselor is growing throughout the series; Matsumaru's co-worker has his best scenes during the final episode but basically remains the comical relief element of the show. I'm not a fan of Audrey Hepburn but those who are might find a lot of references to her movies in this anime, including all episode titles and a number of quotes by Aka. Some of the fansubbing groups did a wonderful job in explaining many of these references. All in all, a nice little romance with sufficient doses of both comedy and character drama, with the drama influence growing as the story develops. A serious story with a jaunty presentation, in a combination that works very well for me: This anime just narrowly missed a "Buy" rating in the end. The DVD special episode "7.5" features Tanaka-san (the woman Matsumaru-kun was about to date in episode 1) and adds some jealousy to the mix as Matsumaru-kun is so awfully nice even at the wrong moments... Last updated Tuesday, December 18 2007. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Rent | Stretch | # | |||||||||||||||||||||
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(All episodes watched--twice): This is a fun, heartwarming romantic series which is over almost before it begins. I watched it once when it first came out, but nothing particularly intelligent to say about it came to mind. Perhaps the fact that I have watched it yet again is indicative of just how enjoyable it is. I think my favorite episode was the one in which Aka finds herself doing voices for an H-game. The way she and Matsumaru made up after their quarrel at the end was good, too--it really could happen that way. Thus, a balanced mix of comedy and drama--neither one of absolutely stellar quality, but this show seems to have accomplished what it set out to do quite handily, so I can't fault it. Nine short episodes doesn't demand a major committment of time and concentration, and REC doesn't overstay it's welcome. The sum total of the lengths of all the episodes would be approximately that of a movie, and it just might work in that format as well. The OP song would probably get on your nerves after awhile, though... Last updated Friday, March 23 2007. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Rent | 8 | 8 | 9 | 7 | 9 | 8 | chibi | # | |||||||||||||||
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This is a nice "little" series about a grown-up romance. Nothing very complicated in the story, mostly about balancing a relationship and a career, but the two main characters are very appealing, and the few supporting characters do exactly that: support the story. It's short, nicely produced, and well worth an evening or two to watch. I find myself going back and pulling up one episode or another to re-experience when there's nothing new to watch.
Last updated Monday, December 18 2006. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Rent | Forbin | # | |||||||||||||||||||||
Rec is really about a guy and a girl and how they deal with living together. The fact that he creates snack foods and she is a VA is just the background. It is really about them. Also the fact that she is obsessed with Audrey Hepburn movies is also just background. When I saw the first episode I was thinking 'What a Stupid Sex Scene!' but without that exact scene there isn't an anime. That one scene both brought forward and halted these 2 relationships. If they just saw the movie, then that would be it. If there was just the fire, that would be it. But because of the fire and the movie they saw earlier, this leads up to that scene and the underlying issues of this anime. This was very good. It would earn a BUY rating except that it is really a single OVA broken up into 9 episodes. This should've been an OVA but then I probably would not have watched it. (Episodes are easy to digest). If you like people relationships, then this is the anime for you. It's not as deep as KGNE but it could've been. Things I liked about it:
Things I wondered about it:
All in all, a wonderful show. Too bad it wasn't comedy heavy. Magikano completely blew this out of the water for me, but I still grabbed each release as soon as I saw it ready. Episodes Review:
Last updated Sunday, April 09 2006. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| Official Japanese Series Web Site | http://www.tbs.co.jp/rec-aka/ |
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