Just a quick note before I get underway with the main article, hybridial has informed me that Alone in the Dark sucks. Apparently it was too ambitious a project for the team behind it to undertake, and so it’s broken (full of glitches). It’s a bit of a shame since it promised so much and the demos showed great potential. Well, there’s always Soul Calibur IV and Fable 2 to look forward to. Anyway, onto the article!
Karin
It’s not easy being a vampire that gets ridiculed by their family for being a mutant. Poor Karin Maaka has to put up with being a day-walking vampire that gets massive nose-bleeds when her blood level rises and she can’t bite someone to inject her blood into them, as well as put up with her family’s jibes. To make matters worse, the new transfer student, Kenta Usui, makes her blood level rise dramatically whenever he is in close proximity. Her peculiar behaviour catches the eye of Kenta, and he takes it upon himself to investigate why she acts so oddly. Despite finding out what she is, Kenta is quite accepting of her. In fact, some more than just friends feeling begin to appear quickly. Throughout the course of the series Karin and Kenta come across many barriers, including Karin’s lookalike grandmother and a vampire hunter (Winner) that falls in love with Karin.
Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for embarrassed girls like Karin that I like this anime. I think a lot of Karin’s dialogue revolves around her sense of embarrassment. “Hazukashii!” (It’s embarrassing!) is something she says a lot. Putting my…preferences…aside, I think it’s a fun concept that she makes blood and has to bite people to lower her blood level. Another twist is that vampires bite people with certain emotions/characteristics. For Karin, her blood reacts to depression. As you can imagine, this is somehwat inconvenient since depression covers a lot of areas, and there are lots of depressed people in the world. What I like about Kenta is that he isn’t the usual gormless male lead. He actually has a good personality and no pretentious sense of justice, yet is always willing to help Karin in times of need. This is recommended viewing if you like romantic comedies with a twist.
D.C. Da Capo
On the small island of Hatsunejima, the sakura trees are always in full blossom. This doesn’t happen anywhere else in Japan. However, the residents have grown used to it. It is said that a giant sakura tree causes them to forever bloom, and also grants wishes. This aspect of the giant sakura tree is the basis of how every character relates to the main character, Jun’ichi Asakura. As a matter of fact, Jun’ichi can see into the dreams of others. When he is viewing the dream of a girl he knew long ago (and she sense him in the dream), he is woken up by his sister, Nemu Asakura. Despite not being real siblings, they still have a very close relationship. Later on that day, the girl in the dream appears. She is Jun’ichi’s cousin, Sakura Yoshino (what harem is complete without a girl called Sakura, eh?). Throughout the series, Jun’ichi meets other girls with their own various quirks and situations. However, the series focuses on the conflicts bewteen Sakura and Nemu, who are both seemingly in love with Jun’ichi.
I know, I know. It’s a harem anime. Maybe I’m being biased/nostalgic, but this one of the first romance anime that I saw when I got into anime (the other being Please Teacher) almost three years ago. I have heard people say that it’s average and comes with many cliches. However, I think that’s what makes it work. Unlike pretty much every other harem anime, Da Capo manages to keep itself from being shallow. Instead of having girls pining for a inept nice guy, our male lead actually helps the girls better themselves in some way. It’s refreshing to see a guy help girls, without having an ulterior motive (which is only seen in Key anime adapatations like Kanon). Of course, I am slightly worried about the fact that Sakura is his cousin and is very open about being in love with him. However, it doesn’t bother me that Nemu and Jun’ichi were raised together. I mean, there were always some feelings of love, so it’s not like they considered to be real siblings anyway. Also, it creates a bit of a taboo that creates some interesting conflicts towards the end of the series. There are magical aspects, but they don’t play much of a role other than being a plot device. I’d recommend this to those who like the harem genre of anime, or just like romantic anime in general.
Posted by Maxon 