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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Watch | 9 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 6 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:2588#1552] |
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Talk about a big waste of potential. On paper, Natsuyuki Rendezvous's premise seemed like a unique one in its focus on a love triangle involving a young part-time flower shop worker, his older manager, and the ghost of his manager's dead husband. The dynamics of the triangle involved Ryosuke trying to start up a relationship with Rokka, Rokka learning to move on with her life following her husband's death and Atsushi learning to let go of his attachment to his wife. The series shows some signs of its potential with Atsushi later possessing Ryosuke's body and realizing how short-sighted his actions were with wanting to stay with his wife, while Rokka starts to slowly fall for Ryosuke throughout the course of the series. The presentation for the series is also quite good with vibrant color, gorgeous scenery shots of locations like the sketchbook world that Atsushi's soul is transferred into and some nice animated sequences coming from Atsushi's presence in the mentioned sketchbook. So with such a unique premise, what could lead me to want to rate it so low? Maybe mostly because of the title's two male leads. While both are supposedly kind and gentle with their actions to attract Rokka, both frequently wind up being jerks with their behavior. Atsushi treats Ryosuke like crap and even considers committing murder later on in an attempt to keep Rokka and Ryosuke apart from one another. Ryosuke isn't much better as he is often insensitive to the desires of both Rokka and Atsushi. The series suffers greatly in the fact that both male leads fail to make any attempt to empathize with one another and try to understand the issues each of them face with their predicaments. The second half of the series remedies this to an extent when Atsushi possesses Ryosuke's body. But by that point, I only cared more for how Rokka was affected by all this instead of the two male leads. Issues with the male leads weren't the only issues I had here. The series is prominently focused on the perspectives of the three central characters throughout their conflict and with exception to one character (who doesn't get enough presence to influence the plot in any way), we don't see any other characters related to the three central ones whom we could get to know so we could better understand and empathize with them. Sure, the sketchbook world allows one a look into the head of Rokka so we could better understand how she views both the men she has attraction to so she is better fleshed out as a character. But the two male leads don't get this kind of focus so I could better relate to them and not perceive them as bad love interests for Rokka. Overall, Natsuyuki Rendezvous is a series that has quite a bit of wasted potential. While having a potentially unique premise for a romance anime and a likeable female lead in the form of Rokka, the unlikeable behavior of the two male leads and a lack of major focus on elements that would allow one to better empathize with them hurt the quality of this series greatly for me. Last updated Sunday, January 26 2014. Created Sunday, January 26 2014. | ||||||||
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[series:2588#628] | ||||||
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(All episodes watched): By the time the OP sequence music began to play during episode one I was already feeling optimistic about this show. The opening monologue quickly introduces us to the male protagonist and leaves me thinking that he will develop as an interesting and presumably likeable person. I wasn't expecting the bizarre premise, and maybe it wasn't my first choice about how a romance would develop, but it definitely grabbed my attention. Surely a show with such an odd premise has got to go somewhere, right? Natsuyuki Rendezvous was looking like a winner, probably the thoughtful, moving show of the season. But sadly, NatsRen didn't measure up to the first impressions it left. How do I describe my impressions? It feels as if no clear, obvious main thrust of the plot emerged, at least not until near the end. And how come Hazuki can see Shimao, but his own wife can't? It is never explained. Also, the characters don't develop enough. Early on Hazuki struggles to court Rokka. Sometimes things seem to go well for him, sometimes not; you wonder what Rokka feels, and how loyal to her late-husband she remains. Maybe we never got to know her well enough to be able to tell; or maybe we just don't really care, for the same reason. Things seemed to get interesting when Shimao, Rokka's late husband, possesses Hazuki's body. Ryousuke's mind is sent to some fantasy land, which never makes much sense. But Shimao won't dare to try to convince Rokka that she really is in touch with him (he could ask her to ask him any question which only she and he would know the answer to), instead he just observes, which isn't all that exciting. The story just drags on, and I got bored. I just wish it had been more obvious where the story is going, because things not being clear makes it harder to enjoy the show. It's more difficult to remember what happened last time when whatever happened didn't seem all that critical to the long-term plot. I wondered about things like whether it would ever be explained why Hazuki could see Shimao; since the remainder of the show didn't engage me all that much, I thought about things like that. I couldn't help feeling that an interesting premise wasn't being fully exploited, and instead felt muddled and boring. It got to the point where I just wanted to get the latest episode over with quickly so that I could move on to something better. I was tempted to drop the series altogether near the end, and might have done so if it hadn't been a mere 11 episodes. With hindsight, even that seems like more time than was needed to contain the worthwhile elements of the story. The conclusion was better than I expected given how fatigued I had become. But it wasn't anything spectacular. Was that the best way things could have worked out for the threesome? Were they really happy afterwards? What the hell was the deal with Hazuki's trip through fantasyland? All sorts of questions remain at the end, but I don't really care much about what the answers might be--I'm just glad that NatsRen is finally over. If I were to summarize it with one word, that word would be 'muddled'. It never seems to focus on what the critical issues are; the viewer can guess that things like which guy Rokka loves most must be important, but the show itself never confirms or denies your guesses. Instead of telling you a story, NatsRen largely leaves it up to you to figure the story out, and hope that you have reached the right conclusions. Last updated Friday, September 28 2012. Created Sunday, July 08 2012. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| Official Japanese Series Web Site | http://natsuyuki.tv/ |
