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| Episode Details | |
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| Kono, Tama, Kari, Sang, Mana, Lucy, Yuma, Chie, 1 | |
| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Watch | 8 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6 |
 Devil Doll
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[series:1149#752] |
[Score: 58% = "Watch"; similar nice guy slice-of-life anime with no romance: Kono Aozora ni Yakusoku wo]
Kawaii girls and nice Art, emphasizing the Moé element of Konomi and reminding me of the visual appearance of the Myself; Yourself characters; most girls look like they're 12-year-olds, and that suits their behavior well (but: We're talking about high schoolers here!) Animation of one slow motion scene during episode 1 was awful but the bicycle animation of episode 4 compensates for this by great detail, and the walking is okay. The OP song is almost a nursery rhyme, the ED a simple but nice piano ballad (Tomoshibi by Suara), nothing spectacular about the Music. As for the Characters, Takaaki is another nice guy busy fixing everyone's little issues, Konomi is way too childish for entering high school (such as insisting to sleep in the same bed as Taka-kun after watching a scary movie) - she's acting like a grade schooler (and Sasamori Karin isn't any better, not to mention the horrible twins later), thus damaging my hopes for any romance in this series early on. Even Tama-nee, the older sister of Taka-kun's best friend Yuuji, is rolling around with the other "kids" on the floor (despite being in her graduation year of high school already) while later teasing her younger friends about underwear shopping... sigh. Komaki Manaka, the class rep, is the only character with at least some depth while her buddy Tonami Yuma is permanently and completely unnerving. And it doesn't exactly improve the situation that the least likable character has been chosen to play her arc in full detail from episode 8 on... It's not like Konomi were inconsistent or boring as a character - it's just that the story lets her, Takaaki and Tama-nee all be high schoolers with just one year of age difference while they behave like being 12, 16 resp. 20 years old... and that's a coffin nail for any credible romance. No actual Story, basically feature episodes for ever new characters, and not even a vague hint of romance. Despite certain embarrassing scenes, Ruko gave life to this series that could finally have found a real story to tell about her - but immediately afterwards they completely forget about her being a very special character and everyone just accepts her odd behavior... sigh. So nothing remains except for slice of life of a group of childhood friends reunited and attending the same school again (in three different age-groups). I particularly dislike the narration style: While the events related to several girls take place in an overlapping time frame they're not shown in parallel but the story starts over and over again, showing certain events from different perspectives according to increasing knowledge of the audience about the characters; to me this looks like someone mechanically glued together different arcs from the game with a minimum of effort. And the course of events during the final episodes doesn't make the situation any better. Episode 11 ends with a great cliffhanger - but the trailer announces episode 11.5 as the next one, thus inserting a recap episode at this stage of the series. And when you got past this one and expect episode 12 to continue where episode 11 left you - wrong again, the whole cliffhanger is completely forgotten and they jump ahead to another character's situation... blah. And the ending smells like a sequel will be necessary in order to let anything of significance happen at all. All in all a complete disaster after I gave both To Heart and To Heart ~Remember My Memories~ ratings at the "Buy"/"Rent" borderline. This sequel isn't offensive in any way that would justify an "Avoid" rating but as you read above there's a long list of reasons why it got a score that's 24 points lower than the one for the original series. Last updated Wednesday, August 10 2011. Created Monday, March 10 2008. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 AstroNerdBoy
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[series:1149#436] | ||||||
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Through 1 episode... Like its predecessors, this series takes its time. There are a huge number of girls to be introduced and thus far, only one guy. However, 1st-year female student Konomi has taken the lead role as of the first episode. We'll see where this goes.Last updated Saturday, October 08 2005. Created Saturday, October 08 2005. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
|---|---|
| Original Website (Japanese) | http://www.toheart2.net/ |
