voiceofthenight

Although the story is simple and not suprising, I could say there is something unique and much more close to life compared to other school romance animes! It is beautiful and touched my heart somehow, especially music in this anime. I really liked the main characters, a high-school boy and a girl, who have fragile backstory together behind them and they weren't just another couple of strangers who meet one beautiful day and fell in love. Their memories together makes the story more layered, gives us a chance of understanding them better and makes more believable relations between them. This is an evolving story about how to make mistakes, to rethink relationships and start to notice people around you in a new way. There are no kisses but you really feel a developing attachment and tension between main characters and I think it is more heartwarming in this way. I don't mind about ending, it suits well and you can always read manga to figure out what happens next.

A teenage girl called Anne, blessed with exceptional craftmanship in sugar arts, is the main character her, but her personality ruins the whole series in my opinion. Starting from the first episode she constantly yelling, screaming, shouting, crying etc and during the series this mess is getting so annoying, it makes me frustrated. It is usual in other animes to show female heroes as emotional, but in this anime it is unreasonably more than enough. She is basically acting more like a toddler not like young and talented lady she supposed to be in my oppinion. Being a fragile women, but still strong in her heart shouldn't be like that, at least all the time. By the way her mother is died - a narrative often used to bond us to the character, but this doesn't make me feel sorry for her. I actually started to think it would be better when her mother would be still alive, from a story point of view it would be even more interesting.

On the other side, Shall Fen Shall, a charming but little bit gloomy fairy man, is total opposite to her, but despite to complement Anne's personality, he looks mostly like tired and suppressed of Anne's behavior. I really like him and in my opinion he deserve something better. It looks like he is encountered in the wrong fairytale! So I don't get the romantic connection between them there should be at all... And suddenly I feel it was waste of my time. So sad, because actually the story isn't so bad and visually it looks dreamy and sweet like cotton candy.

Discovered this anime axidentally when searching something romantic to watch in the rainy evenings and I was immediately hooked about this weirdly quiet romcom. First it seems as a simple and easy to watch high-school love story, but there are some glimpses of violence and brutality of human nature. It emerge some dark themes (such as rape and loss of loved ones) quite well and with weirdly realistic elegance it does not obscure the main topic. This anime takes a risk to walk on a knife edge - you either love this or you don't like it at all. Depends of your beliefs or expectations.

To be clear, in reality, I am against of any kind of violence and abuse, but in fictional world I accept these as a part of the story development and a chance of character growth, so I was curious how this romantic anime handles those themes.

So, when the story begins, main character Isaku, a shy and heartfelt high school girl with some sadness in her eyes, is on her turning point of her life. We just enter her world without knowing too much. She is sweet and naive by her nature and I am so glad this anime hasn't made her a typical big-breasted babe, vice versa, she is opposite of that, but she is still beautiful girl with blond long hair and good fashion taste. And she so eager to start a fresh new beginning and I admire her boldness!

Isaku really try to move away from her old life as far as possible! To find some friends, have a normal boring lovestory, which she has never had before - but she achieves the opposite. No wonder. She is a granddoughter of yakuza boss. It means no ordinary life!

Isaku actually have not experienced the real world dangers so far what comes with being part of a yakuza family and she make several mistakes. I like how this series handles how a young person step into reality and it brings back some memories of my own. All her world has been so far swirling comfortably around one person, Keiya, a main male character portrayed as a strong young and handsome yakuza man, who has been taking care of Isaku from that moment Isaku parents died long time ago, so they started to live in his grandfather house together. Relationships between Isaku an Keiya have been like older brother and little sister so far, but they are not relatives. And Isaku have a long, one-sided crush to Keiya. Oh so complicated story.

Their brother-sister relationship start to change gradually, when Keiya discovers that Isaku may now slip far away. And it arises difficult questions and a conflict in his mind: when he start to realize, how important Isaku actually is to him, he is face to jealousy. Is it possible to love somebody in all ways at once? Can love change? Is love between family members and friends way different from romantic love? Love is still love. We shouldn't discriminate against anyone in who loves whom.

Keiya by the way is the strangest male character I have seen in anime so far (and to be mentioned, his voice actor is really good and fits this character). His personality is controversial, layered like an onion, he hides his feelings and true self damn well. In public he is a popular guy, an eye-candy to every woman. With Isaku, he acts more like a puppy and let her to see him acting more childish and playful. He tries constantly to show his caring side for her - even asked permission when he would like to move forward in their relationship. He is hard to understand -sometimes his thinking goes the opposite way of normal people. His other, brutal side, remains hidden... Until Isaku is in danger and it unleashes his devilish side! Sadly in this series and in manga we don't get to know his backstory to understand him better, yet.

It is passionate and somehow pure first love story, both of main characters have not experienced true romantic love before and they try to learn together how to handle it. This opposite dynamic and slight development of the characters seems quite real: Isaku started to realize she need to be stronger and smarter to live in yakuza world (at the same time she bump between teenage and adulthood), Keiya tries to learn how to hold back and control himself. At the end of the series we are just like at the beginning of their story!

May be thanks to yakuza theme, which is rather unusual in anime, it feels a little more different, like looking old photographs or memorizing first love. In this case, it really doesn't need superb animation quality, but to be honest, there are some moments I would have liked to watch some scenes with better animation.

On the other hand, music and sound effects are really good, I was surprised how suitable the sound quality is, including these juicy black BMW engine roars!

To sum up, if you can ignore negative feedback here and looking for something passionate, this anime might be your cup of tea.

I also strongly recommend to do some research about yakuza families before wathing this, for western people it is rather unknown world and you have to know it to understand the story better.