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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:697#628] | ||||||
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(Three episodes watched): Well, episode one didn't bring a lot of strong positive or negative impressions to mind (the artist guy reminds me of Tenchi Muyo), but the show passed one critical test: it wouldn't be outright boring. Several characters get a good deal of development and become fairly interesting and likeable people. Therefore I am curious to see where this story will go. The story and dialogue of episode two seemed kind of shallow, however: being hospitalized turns out to be a great stroke of luck as a high school guy meets a cute intern nurse. It felt more like wishful thinking than something that might really happen. Likewise, episode three seemed kind of boring; not enough wit and originality was applied to leave me confident that this had been a wise use of my precious time. I am having second thoughts about Boys Be; unless it improves wholesale from here on, I'm tempted to drop it from my viewing schedule. I'll bet that the problem is that I'm watching the dubbed version, which seems kind of localized and vapid. I cannot muster the interest to procede any farther; I'd rather give up and start watching something different. Last updated Wednesday, December 02 2009. Created Tuesday, November 17 2009. | ||||||||
| Rent | 6 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:697#1552] |
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One of the more down-to-earth romantic titles I've come across, Boys Be revolves around the start of relationships for three teenage boys and three teenage girls. There's no melodrama or ridiculous comedy antics to be found in this series. The main focus is romance and Boys Be devotes all its time on the development of budding relationships. The first half of the series features an episodic approach where one of the six main characters get focused on with their interests and personality. Each one faces some sort of romantic dilemma revolving around someone they have interest in and they eventually realize what they want out of the situations they are in. The second half puts a greater amount of focus on the relationship between main characters Kyouichi and Chiharu as both face inner conflicts over how to feel for each other. A conflict in the middle of the series even tests their feelings for one another. Events with the characters flowed naturally throughout the series as nothing felt forced or thrown in. The artwork and character designs for Boys Be have nothing that greatly stood out for me visually as colors looked faded and drab. The animation felt stiff in some places of the series as well. My biggest gripe with the series though had to be the live action opening, closing, and eyecatches. They didn't fit in with the mood of the series and there were even some perverted moments in the eyecatches that turned me off. Don't be turned off by Boys Be just because of its stiff artwork and live action bits. There is a down-to-earth romantic element to the series that stands out from most romance titles you could see. That would make it worth checking out at the very least. Last updated Wednesday, September 17 2008. Created Wednesday, September 17 2008. | ||||||||
| Rent | 6 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
 Dreamer
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[series:697#2279] |
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I thought Devil Doll was quite generous in giving the Art a 9. I think the art & animation was way below par. Character design was sligtly better but not by much. As almost always, my score for music is about the same. As for the story itself, good! It's one of the better romance/drama ones out there. What made this one stand out is that the story revolves around 3 guys and "their" moments of romance, growing pains and everyday school life from their perspective. There's not a whole lot of humor, which was okay since the pace of the story & episode stories had enough other developments to keep you interested. Each character, including the 3 primary girls were pretty much well developed. That's what i love about this anime... the fact that because the story explains enough about them, you feel more in-tune with them, thus the story as a whole. And for some reason, i fell in love with Kazama Yumi! It must be the glasses. Good one to rent for sure.... aside from the art & animation. Last updated Sunday, June 08 2008. Created Sunday, June 08 2008. | ||||||||
| Rent | 9 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 9 |
 Devil Doll
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[series:697#752] |
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[Score: 82% = Rent+; episode reviews. Recommended non-Fantasy Romance Drama anime: Koi Kaze, Lamune, Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora, Suzuka, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Hachimitsu to Kuroba II]
I really like this series, which is of a type I haven't seen so far in anime. For most of the time this isn't a comedy (okay, episode 9 is extremely funny) - and that's where it is different even from Kareshi Kanojo no Jijoo, for example. Very little silly-funny stuff, no SD characters, not too much fan-service - but a lot of romance, most of it in its early stage. There's a certain melancholic mood throughout most of this series... perhaps my best bet for this would actually be Koi Kaze (which has a much more serious theme though), the narration styles of both series are similar in a way. (Recently I've been watching two other series with that melancholic touch: Kimagure Orange Road (TV) and Suzuka.) In a way this is two series in parallel. One is very episodic, focusing on a different character per episode each time; the other is a gradual development of the relation between the two lead characters. But in the end the lead characters' story dominates and is brought to a reasonable ending in the final episode. Yes, there are the standard anime settings here: Onsen, karaoke, vacation at the sea, sport festivals. But they're not simply used to fill an episode, they serve as a setting most suitable for this episode's important character's story. One may say this is standard anime material - but it is very well performed at least. And what's rare in such series - there isn't a single character that really annoyed me! All of them are at least likable - even Makoto gets what he deserves in the end... ;-) I wasn't sure about my overall rating until near the end; the final two episodes almost made me upgrade it to a "Buy". My numerical scores are all in the "good" area, except for animation which I downgraded due to the ridiculous intro with those blurry pictures of a girl with huge wings (!?) and certain real-movie scenes used in episode 10. The character visualizations (with reasonably sized eyes for the characters) are very nice; intro and trailer songs are so-so but certain piano solo parts add significantly to the mood of important scenes. No less than four tracks made it into my personal "Best of Anime" selection: Aki I (Kyoichi's photo album in episode 1), Sakura (my favorite track of this series, played before the Opening Theme of almost each episode), Shouka II (Yoshihiko talking to Chiharu in episode 3), and Hatsukoi (episode 13 opening song). Only a handful of other anime series have done so. There are two fan-subs that I've been watching. I don't like the translation by Dream-Anime which makes no sense in a lot of scenes (and they even omitted the important 30 seconds foreshadowing at the start of each episode before the OP begins!); the translation by Anime Factory is much better but sadly their files for the first half of the series are of mediocre quality. (Screen shots for episode reviews were taken from the D-A version.) Last updated Wednesday, September 01 2010. Created Wednesday, April 06 2005. | ||||||||
| Rent |
 Forbin
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[series:697#1573] | ||||||
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Drama - Med / High Comedy - Low Action - None SciFi - None Ecchi - Low Well lets see, this is a shonen version of Kare Kano. It revolves around 6 friends but the Primary is a boy named Kyoichi instead of Yukino. Where KK swing between the extremely funny to the completely serious, this only revolves around normal to serious side. Lets see, if there was mecha this would be Gunparade March. Each episode tells a story about each of them (Mostly the boys) and what each does in love, life, and the pursuit of happiness (sometimes). What makes Boys Be superior to Kare Kano? Easy, each episode is important, none of them are filler. It is only 13 episodes and even though the end is a bit open ended, you can see where it is going. KK on the other hand went to heck on Episode 8 or so where they did 99 thousand recaps and the animation went to total heck. As you see from the pics, this doesn't use big eyes or SD mode to describe actions, it uses emotions in the VA's voices that make you believe they are in the scene. My biggest problem? The OP/ED/Eyecatch. They are live action. Not Animated, and mostly consist of a girl walking around. The eyecatch is pretty pervy considering that this isn't a lolicon anime. After episode 11 they give up completely and just show some farm animals walking around. While this might be funny to some, it didn't transmit it's joke to me. Favorite Line : Makoto to Kyoichi - 'You went from dating the Barbarian to dating the Savage?' It's still a rent, those dumb Eyecatches brings down the anime, and the fact that Rightstuf hasn't brought out the R1 yet also doesn't help. Last updated Sunday, March 27 2005. Created Friday, March 25 2005. | ||||||||
