Amagami SS Review: Haruka Morishima Arc

Deciding to watch this anime may have been the most whimsical decision of my life.

I went on Anime Suki, and saw, to my amazement, that only five series, with their own subforums, were listed under "Current Series". That's the fewest I've ever seen there, which is perhaps a concerning sign for the anime industry as a whole. Four were obvious: The Shounen Big Three, and K-On! Just about every anime fan knows those. However, the other anime there with its own subforum I didn't even recognize at all, which piqued my interest.

That fifth was "Amagami SS". So, I decided to run that anime title through a Google image search. I decided that if its promotional artwork or screenshots looked good, I'd check out at least an episode of it. The image at the top of this blog entry is the very first one that I noticed. And yes, it certainly looked good to me. ;)



So, I thought "Hey, what the hell; it looks pretty and its prominent enough to warrant its own subforum on Anime Suki, so I'll check it out". ^_^;;

Well, since I made that decision, I've watched the opening four episode arc for Haruka Lovely Morishima (emphasis on the "Lovely" ;) )

This might be the best non-evil smile I've ever seen...

While Haruka's supposed middle name is so absurd that it would make Captain Planet villains blush, the character herself is whimsically wonderfully winsome. Which is rather fitting given what prompted me to watch Amagami SS, and also given the overall mood of this anime.

Much of anime has always had a wish-fulfillment element to it, but usually there's at least some sort of conflict or struggle that has to be overcome for the wish to be fulfilled. Amagami SS sidesteps this almost entirely, with what might be the most straightforward plot-line I've ever seen in anime.

Consummately average guy tries to win over popular playful pretty girl. Succeeds.


And, yes, that comprehensively sums up just about 95% (or more) of the plot of the Haruka Lovely Morishima Arc (a full four episodes no less) of this anime.

Really, the other characters in this arc, beyond our cutely conspicuous couple, are little more than window dressing. The only one of any real plot relevance is Hibiki Tsukahara. Hibiki is the captain of the girls swim team, and Haruka's friend. It is Hibiki that eventually talks Haruka into "going for it" romantically. That's pretty much the extent of Hibiki's plot relevance. But at least that puts Hibiki ahead of the male lead's best same-gender friend.

These guys look like extras from a Haruhi Suzumiya film...

As far as best male friend's of an anime male lead goes, Masayoshi Umehara has to be as dull and non-impressionable as they come. But then, given what a blank slate the male lead himself is, that's hardly a surprise.

The following is pretty much all you can say about Junichi Tachibana after four episodes of Amagami SS:

1. He was deeply depressed after being stood up for a date, and it took him a long time to get over it.
2. He's a generally nice guy.
   
3. His mood is heavily dependent on his love life. He is totally down in the dumps and even unable to sleep when his love life is poor, while he's mildly charismatic, creative, and very energetic when his love life is going well, or can go well if he responds to challenges well.
   
4. He has a little sister that cares about him. Maybe more than cares about him.
   
5. He has a virtually perfect 'normal guy' balance between shyness (represented by occasional stuttering and being at a lost for words) and boldness (represented by his quick and assertive romantic confessions).
   
6. He's a very slightly kinky guy, but nothing outside the ordinary for a teenage male. He's humorously and impeccably polite in pursuing those kinky desires.

And... that's it. That's really it. We know quite a bit about his approach to love, romance, and the fairer sex in general.

But we know next to nothing about the man himself. What are his interests (aside from love and sexual contact with cute girls)? What are his attitudes towards life in general? What career or job does he hope to have when he graduates from school? Does he like sports? We don't even know how the guy is doing in school (you know, how he's doing at this little thing called 'grades'), for crying out loud.

The guy is the ultimate blank slate. This is exacerbated further by the most average of male lead character designs that I've ever seen. It's like Amagami SS took every signal non-shounen anime male lead from 1995 onward, took away each of those character's distinguishing characteristics, and then averaged them all out to arrive at the appearance and personality of Junichi Tachibana.

This makes him, in some ways, oddly preferable to the doormat male leads of some harem animes, but it also makes him a veritable cipher that you could pour virtually any personality whatsoever into. This perhaps makes him ideal for a video game character that the player experiences the game world through, but it makes him less than satisfying for a main protagonist role in a passive entertainment medium like anime.

And it's particularly jarring when he's placed in a romance with a character as dynamic and fleshed-out as this:


Haruka Morishima is a bountifully balanced, beautifully buxom, babe.

She's extremely popular, but she doesn't come across as conceited.

She's not overly easy to win over, but she's not excessively difficult either.

Her character design is realistic, but still distinctive enough that she stands out in a crowded school setting.

What she likes and finds interest in makes sense, is fairly normal, and is conveyed well.

She's ever so slightly eccentric, but not to the point where she feels too surreal.

I can't easily pigeon-hold her into any existing anime archetype.

Her character design is also quite gorgeous, in my opinion. She is a very well-proportioned young lady. ;)


In short, she's a superb character, and the makers of Amagami SS can be proud of their work with her (and probably with much of the rest of the female cast as well). However, her strengths as a character makes Junichi's weaknesses as one that much more glaring when they spend so much time sharing the screen together.


Admittedly, animes like Amagami SS achieve success primarily in how appealing their female cast is. Still, other animes of that type (Clannad, Kanon, True Tears) still manage to put forward male leads with actual personalities that go beyond just their romantic or sexual inclinations. Whether this is a fault of the source material game for Amagami SS, or if its a fault with the adaptation, I don't know. Either way, it does weaken the anime.


That being said, the Junichi/Haruka romance is certainly not without its appeal.

Anime romances could use more scenes like this one.

Junichi Tachibana's lack of character development notwithstanding, this romance feels very fun, frolicking, and friendly. In short, it feels like a real romance. The two characters don't stand around being tsundere, or perpetually shy, with each other for ages on end, and the two seem to genuinely like, love, and care about each other. Their relationship develops at a believable pace, and for fairly believable reasons. I also like how the anime hints at a gradual, and shy but cheeky, progression in the physical side of their relationship. Most animes fail spectacularly to do this.

Either you have Tomoya and Nagisa with virtually no sexual sparks flying whatsoever (the only weakness in an otherwise outstanding romance, I would argue), or you have a sudden progression from one date to easy sex. Both of these exist in real life, of course, but I think that most teenage relationships are probably more like Junichi and Haruka's: the physical side comes shortly after the romance begins, but begins as playful experimenting and then grows from there. It's nice to see this anime portray such a balanced approach unabashedly, and honestly, and with some playful charm.

Part of me hates to be as critical of Amagami SS as I have been, and will be shortly, because it really does get a lot of things right in how it handles the first romance arc that a lot of romance animes get wrong (or, at least, not as right). Still, while some good ideas on how to handle romance can be gleamed from Amagami SS, the anime's flaws are still far too large to dismiss.


The main flaw is that it all feels a bit too easy, and smooth. There's precious little actual conflict in this opening story arc, and any story (romance or otherwise) requires actual conflict in order to be truly interesting. Conflict is at the core of virtually any story.


With this in mind, I will say the following: the romance of this opening arc would work extremely well in anything except, ironically, a romance anime.

Put another way, if this was the central romance of an anime mostly about mecha action - if, for example, we replaced Junichi Tachibana with Lelouch Lamperouge, and set this romance up in Code Geass R2 - and the romance was merely meant to compliment the actual conflict of the anime - then this romance would work splendidly. It would work well as an appealing side-element to an anime primarily about something else. It would provide a welcomed break in the fighting or war action. Indeed, it would make Code Geass R2 better, I dare say (as I would have preferred it if Lelouch had seen greater resolution on the romance side of things).

But for a romance anime to really work, in my opinion, it needs real and serious romantic conflict. Either that, or external sources of conflict impacting on the romance.

Kyoto Animation realized this, and hence Kanon 2006 and Clannad turned out the way that they did. Clannad, in particular, shows how best to adapt romance games into animes. You have one story, with romance conflict arising from the competition between the girls for the male lead, and the male lead makes a choice.

Amagami SS is, instead, choosing to show one girl's story after another after another, all in a parallel universe format. This erases real romantic conflict, and makes everything too easy, and too smooth.

If this is where eroge adaptations will be going in the future, then I think that we'll likely look back at the Kyoto Animation produced ones as the high watermark for these sorts of anime.

Because I don't see eroge adaptations that work along these "parallel universe" lines appealing much to people who aren't already into eroges... whereas Clannad and Kanon 2006 managed to branch out well beyond those limitations.

7/10 for Amagami SS' first arc.