When I first saw "Mashiro-iro Symphony" from the list of upcoming anime of the Fall 2011 season, I was a bit apprehensive to give it a shot as I am not too familiar with anime adaptations of ero-games. I have only watched a few such as "Shuffle!", "Da Capo" and "Kimi ga Nozomu Eien". However, they had very good plot lines and focused much on character development.
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| (from left to right Sakuno Uryu, Airi Sena, Angelina "Ange" Nanatsu Seawell, Miu Amaha) |
My first impression as I perused the screen captures in the previews was that the animation was fairly good and gave a very bishounen/bishoujo feeling to it. Sure it couldn't hold a candle to the more popular releases currently going, but it still provides a plethora of eye candy. Included with the high quality animation, the production company recruited well-seasoned seiyuu to voice their characters such as Mai Goto (Uryu Sakuno), who is known for providing her voice for MANY ero-games, and Ryoko Ono (Sena Airi), who voiced in anime such as "Fairy Tail" and "Ouran High School Host Club". After reading the pre-production summary, the overall concept, character design and story seemed very typical of previous harem anime where the protagonist is inundated by unnumerable amount of beautiful girls. I wasn't very motivated at first but I was reluctant and forced myself to watch the first episode.
Based off the ero-game by the same name, it isnt a surprise that the basic premise of the entire storyline is the interaction and character development of all the characters within the story. This is apparent in all erotic games such as these.
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| Shingo Uryu, Student at Kagamidai Private Academy |
Enter Shingo Uryu, a normal average student of Kagamidai Private Academy. When his school decides that it would be advantageous to merge with the illustrious Yuihime Girl's Private Academy, he finds himself as the metaphorical sacrifical lamb between the two schools impending tensions. Shingo finds out that not all the girls agree with the merger.
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| Airi Sena, Student at Yuihime Girl's Private Academy |
One of these girls, Sena Airi (who he met a day prior to the first day of school) wants all the boys expelled from their beloved all-girls school and chooses Shingo as her primary target. In order to calm the storm within the school, Shingo must utilize his charm and overall good-nature to win the hearts of the girls in the school to show that the men of Kagamidai are not as incompetent as believed. For Shingo to succeed in his venture, he realizes that Airi is the "key" to opening the doors to a school life that both Yuihime and Kagamidai students can enjoy. The question is how will he gain her trust?
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| Sakuno Uryu, Miu Amaha, Sana Inui, Angelina "Ange" Nanatsu Seawell |
Although I enjoyed watching the show, I wasn't completely blown away as it had a cookie cutter feeling to it. Everything was as it should be, placed in a very neat harem anime fashion. However, despite it's orthodox appearance, I was still very much engrossed. The story wasnt complicated and was easy to understand from the get go. This was probably intended as it is more character-driven. The character personas were not deep and complex and remained very simple. Shingo was a bit too perfect in a sense that he acted much like a typical "prince" type with WAY too much charming attributes which was fairly unrealistic. The main female protagonists weren't too annoying and I found their personalities to be very likeable regardless of the cliche. I have to say that I am a sucker for the whole "tsundere" aspect that is apparent in harem anime, and I was not disappointed especially with Airi Sena (so cute). The music however was very mediocre, fit the mood of the anime but was not outstanding or memorable. The opening song "Authentic symphony" by Choucho is catchy and fun which contributes to the anime's positive demeanor.
As much as the main selling point of the game are the erotic situations Shingo gets with the girls, the anime focuses more on the way their feelings grow towards him and make the watching experience more satisfying. These elements (sans the erotic situations) are shown within the anime as well because as you watch you feel empathy towards each of the girl's situations and feel as though you too have become more personal with the characters.
Still on-going, my expectations are pretty high for this one as I believe that it could pose as one of the better harem animes that I have seen in a while. It looks as though the show will span around twelve episodes, and quite possibly an OVA or special. I look forward to finding out more as the events occur and hopefully the ending will be satisfying. Overall, I would say give this show a shot, though hit or miss, you'll come out of it with a bit of eye-candy.
Hope you enjoyed this review and look forward to more in the future! Cheers!
Animation: ★★★★☆
Story: ★★★★☆
Character Design: ★★★★☆
Music: ★★★☆☆
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆
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