No-Rin

Title:No-Rin
Nourin
のうりん
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , , , , ,
Notables: ASANUMA Shintaro
TAMURA Yukari
When the national idol Kusakabe Yuka suddenly retired from the entertainment business, it shocked the world and it devastated teenager Hata Kousaku. Kousaku was Yuka's biggest fan and her departure left him depressed. His classmates at the Tamo Agriculture School finally are able to get him to leave his room and attend his class, but to everyone's amazement, Kusakabe Yuka (her stage name) comes into the class under the name Kinoshita Ringo as a transfer student. Kousaku realizes he has the once in a lifetime opportunity to get to personally know his dream girl and, together with his group of friends, try to find out why she is here and become closer than just classmates.

Source: MangaHelpers

[TV series, 2014, 12 episodes, 23 min; based on an ongoing Seinen light novel series with 7+ volumes since 2011; animation by Silver Link.]

The title might be a wordplay. "のうりん" ("nourin", normally written as "農林") = "agriculture and forestry" which might refer to the agricultural school the characters are attending, but in the form of "No-Rin" it might also hint at the name "kiNOshita RINgo".
Episode Details 
1893
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 8 7 7 5 6 6 Ggultra2764 [series:2845#1552]
Nourin is a strange mix of ecchi comedy and rural living slice-of-life in its focus on agricultural school student Kousaku being smitten with pop idol Ringo who retires from her idol career and becomes a student at the agricultural school that Kousaku is at, alongside Kouta's friends Minori and Kei. On the one hand, Nourin does a believable job exploring the challenges and hardships that come with relying on agriculture to maintain one's livelihood with sustaining crops, selling produce, and the debate between natural and artificial food production. On the other hand though, a good chunk of the series exists purely to cater to otaku viewers with its perverted humor (many boob jokes and fan service shots), Kousaku being an obsessed fan of Ringo, and the characters all being cutout archetypes typical of conventional premises of anime. Even the supposed love triangle that the series attempts to push with Kousaku, Minori, and Ringo gets poor focus and a rather half-assed resolution since the series doesn't devote much time to it and is more focused on either typical perverted and otaku-focused humor (which turned me off) or some of the challenges faced by students at the agricultural school (which I cared more for and helped to slightly bump scores up for Story). Otherwise, No-Rin's attempts to blend typical otaku trappings with rural-focused livelihood were an underwhelming mix as I would have preferred something more like Silver Spoon that focused more on rural life and not the overexposed otaku-pandering schlock I have to put up with from many anime titles nowadays.

Last updated Sunday, February 19 2017. Created Sunday, February 19 2017.
Unevaluated Stretch [series:2845#628]
(Seven episodes watched):

Lots of boob jokes; a handful of fairly funny ones (about things other than boobs), but not much of a laugh:time ratio. Pretty infantile. Those are the thoughts that came to mind as I watched episode one of Nourin. The guy's personality consists of little more than his unrealistic infatuation with an idol singer; the girl's personality consists of her obvious wish that he forget about that Idol and take an interest in her. Kei is just a straight-man that we know nothing about. The agricultural background reminds me of Silver Spoon. With jokes as modest as these, some sort of interesting personalities and plot are needed, but I find few signs that the plot will go anywhere original. I'm guessing that Yuka has become disenchanted with her glitzy lifestyle, and, since Kousaku sent her a gift, she'll ask him to provide a hiding place for her (or something like that). But weren't Kou's letters anonymous, and didn't Yuka reveal that she already has a boyfriend? If these were engaging characters I might be prepared to make some effort to figure this out, but since they aren't, I won't. Maybe I'll watch another episode, maybe not.

Actually, episode two was kind of funny, with the extended discussion of what the significance of panties is. This show will hardly be brilliant, but I get a few laughs out of it. It is clearly fanservice driven, but at least it doesn't patronize us by pretending that it isn't; and, paradoxically, that causes me to feel a little respect for it.

I had thought that this would be all about a romantic triangle (and maybe it still will be), but it has gone off on some wild tangents about strange people in other branches of the school and a get rich quick scheme. For the most part these were fairly amusing, though they don't seem to contribute to the main plot and thus aren't as rewarding to watch as they might have been. We learn a few things about agriculture but, while what humor there is is slightly above average, there isn't all that much of it. Halfway through I still have little idea what the main plot will be, or, for that matter, whether there really is a main plot at all. I'm guessing that Yuka will be called upon to put her skills as an idol singer to work to solve some sort of problem. But at this point I had fallen seriously behind the various Winter series, and the most obvious way to catch up was to drop so-so shows like Nourin.

Last updated Thursday, May 01 2014. Created Thursday, January 16 2014.

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