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Now in Japan
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Written by maehara
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Friday, 21 January 2005 12:45 |
 Very soon there's going to be a point where I start screaming
"Please make it stop!" when I see another dating-sim-to-anime
conversion. Kakyuusei 2 joins a long and not very
distinguished line of such shows - I had originally passed on the show
back when it first aired last season, but a number of rather good Megami posters based on the show persuaded me to give it a go. Mistake...
1 - A Visitor from the Past
Tamaki has a problem - there's a kickboxing tournament coming up, and
their star fighter (and her childhood friend) Rouma's nowhere to be
found. What she doesn't know is that Rouma's suffering from a
painful knee injury - but he's such a nice guy he's covering it
up. He still needs some time to himself every so often to deal
with the pain, though - and that's why Tamaki can't find him
today. So it's particularly annoying for the poor guy when one of
Tama's first acts when she finally finds him is to inflict some pain of her own
on him... Meanwhile, Amadou (the chairman of the basketball club)
seems to be having to clean up another mess of Rouma's - he's been
challenged by a group of out-of-school kids, who claim to have been
attacked - and the guy they describe sounds a lot like Rouma...
2 - The Wandering Foreigner
The kickboxing club's being threatened with a budget cut - or worse,
losing its official status - if they don't get some good tournament
results soon. Just another problem for Tamaki to worry about, in
between trying to persuade Rouma to train. When she can find
him. It's only after Amadou lets her know about Rouma's injury
that she begins to understand why he's been so hard to track down around
practice time. Another worry: her boyfriend hasn't been calling
for a while. Classmate Chiho's trying to persuade her to give up
& break it off, but she's not so keen on the idea, yet...
Kakyuusei 2 has got to be one of the slowest-moving shows I've ever
seen - and given the pacing of a lot of anime out there, that's saying
something. All you get to break things up is the occasional piece
of comic relief, usually involving Tama beating up on poor Rouma. Shades of Love Hina there, only not even half as enjoyable.
There seems to be another story under the surface here, other than the
harem that's slowly building around Rouma - there's a new freshman
student who seems to be having a strange effect of some of the staff
and pupils, but there's nothing other than the most vague of hints
given that there's something about him - blink and you'll miss
it. I get the feeling that the underlying plot may turn out to be
far more interesting than the headline harem, but I just don't have the
patience to wait and see it develop.
All shows need a hook of some sort, and it preferably should be
something that's shown quite early in the show - otherwise the poor sod
watching isn't going to stick with the show very long. Kakyuusei 2
may have some nice character designs, but after 2 episodes there's
nothing I've seen that makes me think it's worth sticking with.
Pass.
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