wDec 9, 2007


Lovely Complex

Lovely Complex is a 24-episode series focusing on high school students. The series focuses on Risa Koizumi, Atsushi Otani, and their group of friends. Risa (the girl) is 172cm tall, while Otani (the boy) is 156cm tall. Risa soon discovers that she likes Otani more than a friend, but before anything can happen, she needs to overcome her own insecurities about their height difference, and Otani's complete obliviousness. This is one of the few shows, in the media of both anime and TV shows, where the protagonist's chemistry with one another is truly shown in a way that the audience can understand. Risa and Otani are constantly laughing, arguing, and teasing one another - and they know each other better than anyone else. While Risa and Otani can be a bit hyper, their friends are more "normal."

At its best (which luckily is quite frequent), the series is both hilarious and poignant. It uses the quick wit of the characters and exaggerated facial expressions to capture humor, but it also does an excellent job of portraying poignant situations, and the impact of high school drama on the lives teenagers still in high school, trying to figure things out.

At its worst, though, the series can fumble. It's really clear when the series gets over-budget, because the animation quality can a huge nose-dive in some episodes. This is unfortunate, because when their game is on, the characters can look quite nice. I also was not a huge fan of the series' soundtrack, aside from the opening and closing songs. The inside-tracks often reminded me of elevator music, or were simply overly-dramatic. Also, in the latter episodes especially, I feel like not enough time was spent developing newly introduced characters.

I feel that this series could have been much, much stronger if it had only been 12-14 episodes long, instead of 24, by just extracting all of the awesome from the mediocre and less-than-mediocre. That said, I still enjoyed it a lot.

The first opening:



The second opening (I love this one!):



The manga version of the story (which came first) is available in the US right now, although I believe under its shortened name: Lov*Com. I intend to check it out, just to see how the art style is, etc.

Labels: ,

scribbled mystickeeper at 7:36 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:

I finally got around to watching the first episode today (and I have plans to continue watching them in succession, now), and all I can say is...

squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

By Blogger Gordon, at 1:06 PM, December 10, 2007  

Post a Comment