+ | N o v a s t o r m | +

Episodes: 12
Genres: Comedy, Love-Romance
Studio: Feel
OP: “Love Power” by Aice5
ED: “Beautiful Day” by Yui Sakakibara
Official Site: http://www.starchild.co.jp/special/otome/index.html

Impressions:

The first episode was only average if you ask me. The story and setting just emanates with potential, but overall the experience was ruined by none other than the main character. The lead is practically 100% female: he sounds nothing like a guy, he does not act like a guy, he does not look like a guy in the least bit and it looks as if his mind is about to become that of a girl’s any time now as well. This anime might as well be a shoujo-ai for all I care. This is no better than Strawberry Panic, save for the ultra-deformed chibi scenes which saved the show from total destruction. The character design sucks pretty bad as well. Not only are the eyes far to long, everyone looks exactly the same save for the hair. And why can’t they just be normal Asians with normal black or brown hair?

I was really looking forward to this anime as well, but it ended up being quite mediocre. If the lead falls for someone (and I think he already has), the eventual relationship that will develop will be exactly like one you’d see in a shoujo-ai series, and they’re no fun. Totemo taikutsu! The characters’ personalities are also exactly like those in your average shoujo-ai. The ‘onee-sama’ really pisses me off because I have heard that line enough times already from other shows. Why can’t everyone just be the fun-loving, carefree type instead of the rich-daughter-who-has-excessive-manners-and-talks-like-royalty type. Ok, so a lot of girls talk like that, but the way they act is still pretty annoying. Even the girl who just said ‘gokigenyo’ annoyed me because I knew immediately what her character would be.

The only way to console this series which started badly is to introduce more fun characters and to make Mizuho’s gender thing more of a dilemma than it currently is. The one-sama thing won’t be fixed definitely because the title practically screams that word out (Otome wa Onee-sama ni Koi Shiteru). Thank god it’s a 12 episoder as that means the pace should be pretty fast, unlike Strawberry Panic where each episode was like a mini problem that had to be solved in that episode, so the entire series didn’t flow very well. There are still more characters to be introduced so at least there’s something I’m looking forward to. Maybe I should just accept this as an all-girls anime. *Sigh*

Popularity: 5% [?]