Here's the thing. There's NO WAY Takahashi-san could come up with
something so clever and entertaining as this. Do you know what her
problem is? It's so freakin' obvious that her character pairs are in
love with each other; yet, for the life of them, they can't act like
normal couples! Inuyasha and Kagome, Ranma and Akane, and to a
slightly lesser degree, Ataru and Lum, are all the same and annoying
as hell. There are many so-called "romantic comedy" in which the
characters have trouble getting together due to various reasons. As
long as those reasons are reasonable and the story doesn't just drag
on for no reason whatsoever, it won't be boring. Heck, even if it is
boring, at least it won't be annoying. I'm simply amazed that
Takahashi-san's been as popular as she is. Her characters stop
developing and just keep arguing with each other. Her only solution
is to introduce more good-for-nothing character pairs with worthless
reasons for not being together.
In Tenshi na Konamaiki, Nishimori-sensei doesn't depend on such cheap
tricks. First of all, the relationships aren't so obvious. The ones
that won't work are fairly obvious, but those aren't all that
important anyway. The ones that _might_ work aren't obvious at all
because the situation prevents anyone from making an easy decision.
Not only are the relationships more unpredictable, the reasons for all
the events are extremely complicated. To make things even more
interesting, that complexity is revealed slowly as the show goes on.
I bet many people will reach some kind of conclusion while watching
this show, only to retract later as they learn more from the later
episodes. All that strange mystery doesn't annoy you at all because
you don't even get much time to ponder about it. "Why," you ask?
Because you're laughing so hard, you have a hard to keeping track of
what's going on!
Let's talk about the characters. Yup, they're a bunch of
stereotypical anime characters... or are they. That's absolutely
untrue. Typical stereotypical anime characters are just that.
Typical. Once they're assigned their stereotypes, that's all they'll
ever be. What those characters do, stops being amusing the second
time they do it, yet they keep doing the same thing over and over.
What impressed me about this series is that the characters, despite
being marked as stereotypes, continue to amaze me as they keep
breaking the limit of their assigned stereotypes. Not only that,
they're aware of themselves when they shouldn't be and unaware of
themselves when they should be. How can you not enjoy this stuff!?
In my review for DVD 1, I said that there's not much detail in the
animation. I take it back. It's wonderfully rich. It's certainly
not a high budget animation, but they get by damn well using neat
animation tricks to cut down on complex frame needs. And unlike
"Shiawase-sou no Okojo-san," animation quality doesn't drop off.
Heck, it gets better in some later episodes.
As Hayashibara-san said in her 18-minute interview (extra for DVD
Vol.3), this role is made for Hayashibara-san. Who am I to argue with
the goddess of seiyuu?
I think there're going to be total of 13 volumes. You bet I'll be getting them all.