If you read some of my contributions on Anime Instrumentality Blog, it’s a known fact that I am a fan of Sphere because the girls can sing great (with Toyosaki Aki being an exception). Now, they are creating an original anime called Natsuiro Kiseki, which means Summer Color Miracle in Japanese. Since it combine one of my favorite group of singers with one of the best animation studios, Sunrise who recently produced Daily Lives Of High School Boys, what could go wrong?
Sadly, the first episode disappointed me for various reasons. It’s starts off with Saki fighting with Natsumi to the point where they don’t want to become friends. The reason why they broke up seemed ridiculous. I know friends fight sometimes over stupid things. However, Natsumi taking it to another level because her friend didn’t attend morning tennis practice seemed unreasonable. With Saki’s decision on transferring out without telling her friends, it gave me more mixed feelings. Having the girls fight without knowing anything about them is bad story telling. The producers should have introduced them properly before bringing in the conflict, so we will have some idea on who they are.
Even with the two fighting, the characters are pretty mediocre. There is not much that stands out about them, except for the fact that Saki and Natsumi gets into arguments with each other and then make up. As for the other two girls, we don’t learn much about them, except that they are friends since their childhood.
However, the interesting thing that relates to Sphere is that all the girls in the show have a dream of becoming idols during their childhood. The girls use a big rock behind the temple that allows them to grant wishes. Once they revealed that, it’s very apparent that each member of Sphere voiced their respective character in the show. It also reminds me of AKB48 making an anime as a self-promotion that will air in a few weeks. The only big difference is that they are taking a different approach.
Aside from that, the first episode kind of disappointed me. Sure the animation looks decent and the openings/endings meets expectations, but I’m not feeling any sense of satisfaction. The characters were bland because this episode lacked any proper character development. The only part that particularly interested me is the scene where the girls float high in the sky, proving that the wishing rock is real. Except for that, I will hold off until later on to see if the show actually improves. Hopefully by then, the characters will get developed enough that I can enjoy it.
Other Impressions from other bloggers (because hardly anyone is posting impressions about it):
- Inushinde found the first episode so boring that he fell asleep.
- Hh elly doesn’t know what to think about it after the girls flown in the air.
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The only reason I tried it out was the fact that the seiyuus were from sphere. It wasnt as special as I has hoped it would be. apart from that supernatural thing..the rest was pretty much dull.
Compared to the other slice of life shows, I never experience one that felt so dull. It’s probably because they started in a light hearted manner and introduced the characters in the first few episodes before going on. But yeah, I don’t see anything special about the show except for the wish making rock.
While the characters don’t shine in this first episode, I do like the premise that is a bit different from series of the same genre. I’ll continue to watch this…:P
I seriously hope it improves as it goes on since they have a nice thing going… But they must address the character development a bit more since its currently bland. We will find out once it actually begins, since this is a preairimg.