Hello everyone,
Here we are for yet another review. This time we'll talk about a comedy light novel/manga/anime series that got a real bad adaptation (production quality wise). It is named Akikan and is based over an original work by Riku Ranjou.
Let's start with a synopsis :
Daichi Kakeru is a sixteen year-old high school student who has never had a girlfriend. Little did he know that everything was about to change when he bought a melon soda on his way home from school. His first sip became his first kiss, as the can came to life in the form of a beautiful girl, who he called 'Melon'. The can is part of a government project called 'Akikan', where certain empty cans turn into beautiful girls.
Girls from empty can are unrealistic? Well yes, but it is a nice concept for a comedy story with some romance around.
The story by itself is not anything bad at all, in fact while being pretty clichè, the whole depth given to the characters makes the watch enjoyable. (And there are some semi-serious episodes creating a little of drama around the story)
The comedy moments are wonderful, especially when Najimi is involved with her crazy daydreaming and competitive attitude toward Melon.
The characters are few and follows the main stereotypes of girls in the anime world so there are no problem remembering each of the character (they stand out too much to forget about them)
My favourite character is (like said before) Najimi Tenkuuji with her cute voice (she is voiced by Aki Toyosaki that voiced also Yui Hirasawa) and incredible day dreaming capabilities. (Most of them are crazy illusion to be honest)
Other nice character is found in Melon, even thought her personality is a little too mono dimensional to get a lot interesting (like most of the cast of this series after all), especially when she start spewing non-sense about the battle between different types of cans.
While this can be of high importance for them, I just can't relate to them at all.
The graphical quality of the original series (light novel/manga) is top notch with a girl style that is between the one I most like in the last decade. Unfortunately, the anime adaptation fail completely to deliver an acceptable level of quality, with animation inconsistent and full of problems in most episodes.
The sound quality instead is quite good with many big names like Mamiko Noto in Yell's role, Aki Toyosaki in Najimi Tenkuuji's role. The one I most liked is Jun Fukuyama in out protagonist Kakeru Daichi's role!
Concluding, this series shows a lot of potential that is unfortunately wasted by the anime series (probably due to low budget).
I plan anyway to get the manga of this series to get more Najimi screentime so we may talk again about this later on!
See you soon,
feal87