Hello everyone,
Today we'll talk about the first episode of the romantic/comedy anime named Mashiro Iro Symphony adapted from a visual novel with the same name from Palette that had quite a success a couple of years ago.
I was a bit sceptic over this adaptation due to the low level of quality shown in the promotional video (and the very fact that there was only a single promotional video), but I'm now genuinely surprised by the faithful adaptation they've created.
The story start slow with the lovely little sister of our protagonist (Sakuno) that get lost in the middle of the city. The protagonist goes out to search her, but her phone battery is off before he's able to find her.
After a bit of time (during the while Sakuno looks like a cute discarded cat on a corner of the street) he's able to get in contact again thanks to a passing girl (lost as well) named Sena Airi that manages to reach the park and reunite brother and sister.
The whole prologue of the original visual novel is incredibly well adapted (with some cut due to the length of the episode) and I was quite happy to see again Sakuno and Airi together again.
Ouch, why refuse such a cute, innocent and lovable sister?! By the way, this is the only fanservice scene of the episode and don't hope for much in that regard as the original series was devoid of it as well.
I find this a positive aspect in a romantic story in order to keep a realistic approach. (Sorry, I'm still hurt from watching the first episode of Maken-Ki...)
The animation, as I said before, was better than I thought when I first saw the promotional video. The animation by itself is pretty fluid and the close-up on the characters looks pretty good. (When they closed in Sakuno's face I skipped a beat)
Obviously this can't be compared to the VN style, but its more than enough for my tastes. (even if, as always, when the characters are very far away the graphic quality go down considerably)
I'm loving at the moment Sakuno's voice by Mai Gotou. I was really shocked to know she has done the role of the energetic Mika Nogizaka from Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu because the style of voice is definitely different!
I'm looking forward to see which of the route they'll decide to adapt (I know it will be Sena, but I try to keep hope for our lovely Sana/Sakuno pair...) and I'll probably blog about this pretty regularly.
See you soon,
feal87