It's Gravitation!
Eeep! I haven't updated in a looooooooooooong while. Here's something for all those who's been waiting.. The series is kinda old, so.. ^^; Oh well. At least there's something to put up. KKM reviews will be back up soon. I just have to watch everything over again since my PC crashed and erased all of them.. ^^;;;
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Gravitation: TV Series
It started as a manga by Maki Murakami and ended as one of the best shounen ai anime ever aired in televesion. In 1996, it started airing, though I'm not quite sure which Japanese tv station aired it. Actually, a really really die-hard Maki Murakami fan would say that Gravitation wouldn't exist if Help! did not exist. But this review isn't about Help! I don't even know where I could get my hands on a copy of Help!
Aaaaaanyway, after years and years and years of grovelling and digging and crying my eyes out forlusting wanting to have a copy of Gravitation, I finally managed to get fansubs! Yay! See, I got my hands on the OAV first before the series, which was just so wrong because i got tempted to watch it first. I succumbed into the temptation and told myself that i ABSOLUTELY HAD TO HAVE the series. And today, I finally finished getting them all. Hyep, all thirteen lovely episodes of Gravitation.
Anyway, enough about how I got mygreedy hands on Gravi. Let's head on for the review! yay! First off, I shall state at this point that I am extremely attatched to Shuichi Shindo and Sakuma Ryuichi, and I'll try my best not to be biased. :D
Gravitation is all about this 18-year old pocky-overdosed pink-haired purple-eyed shounen called Shuichi Shindou. It's always been his dream to become like his idol, Sakuma Ryuichi, the vocalist of Nittle Graspers. So during his High School days, he formed Bad Luck with his best friend, Hiroshi Nakano (who, from this point onwards shall be called Hiro, the only other character you'd never expect to be horrifyingly uke OxO) and later on, joined by Fujisaki Suguru. Bad Luck is under the care of Sakano-san and is part of NG Productions, which is owned by Seguchi Tohma (Godof Everything). The show actually centers it's very story on Shuichi's relationship with Yuki Eiri, the guy who eternally has a stick shoved up his ass has a lot of bad habits, treats Shuichi like he's an idiot (wait, Shuichi *is* an idiot..), has a super secret past, but he's really really nice inside. Deep, deep, *deep* inside. o__O; Almost all episodes have extremely cute sweet, cuddly and insanely funny romance scenes to the extent that Shuichi wears a dress. Honestly speaking, I cringed when i saw him in make up. *shudder* Where does the Graspers take part in this? Basically, they're there to give Bad Luck a) inspiration and b) competition. And it's just adorable that Ryuichi Sakuma-sama tells Shuichi to "shine", because "that is what a song is". Aww..
Anyway, over all, Gravitation is a fun anime to watch, especially if you're a sucker for fanservice. I mean, look at all those suggestive scenes in the middle of the episodes, the suggestive dialogue, the almost all-male cast!! There are only three females that played somewhat big parts in the series (Mika Seguchi, Noriko Ukai and Ayaka Usami.. or whatever her last name is).
The quality of the animation is really good. It's smooth and most of the time constant. There were only certain scenes that some characters looked god-awful. One bad point though, is that they sort of recycle clips of The Rage Beat. At first, I thought you'd never get tired of Gravi songs. I was wrong. That's another point for Gravitation. The music, may they be the songs or BGM, are absolutely wunnerful. <3 You have to love the songs. The songs are all upbeat and very coolies. Though you really do have to admit that The Rage Beat sort of gets to your nerves because of too much air time. The opening and ending themes are wonderful, although they could have made a better animation for them. Also, in the span of 13 episodes, it's got good character developments. From being dependent, genki, stupid and idiotic, Shuichi became determined, genki, stupid and not-so idiotic anymore. ^^ Or maybe he just went from straight to gay, but who cares about that. xD Anyway, the character developments fit the 13 episode limit, and the characters did show maturity, one way or another. Plot development, however, was somehow muddled. From what seemed to be just a small time band making it into bigger audiences to just developing the relationship between Shuichi and Yuki. Whichever the plot was, I think both were underdeveloped.
All in all, I give Gravitation an 8/10. It's got lots of good points and it's share of bad points. And I reccommend you watch it, even if the series *is* quite old.
Gravitation - OAV
Released in 1999, the OAV had different animators and the rest of the old crew. The story still revolves around Shuichi and Yuki, or maybe more on Shuichi's obsession to get Yuki to notice him. The basic story is that Yuki has been ignoring Shuichi as of late. Also, the Tokyo Bay Music Fest is coming up, and that Tohma Seguchi has something in store for Nittle Graspers, the band representing Japan in the Music Fest. Turns out that Yuki Eiri was writing a song for them. This breaks Shuichi's heart and goes back to his home. In the end, Ryuichi was able to lift Shuichi's spirits andKumagoro Beamed him gave him tickest to the Music Fest. Somehow, it ends happily ever after where it is implied that Yuki and Shuichi made happy sweet love. So much for plot.
As for animation, it sucked. Colors, lines and the whole quality sucked major ass. There were also some inconsistencies in the flashbacks, such as that time where Shuichi first met Yuki. It wasn't in some dark alleyway. It was in some pathway in a park. Or at least, it looked like a park to me. Also, when Shuichi wasn't able to sing because he saw Yuki in the crowd and was simply dumbstruck. It was during their opening act for ASK in Zepp Tokyo, not somewhere else.
Blah. It really really sucked. So the songs were good. So what? It's just sooo darn sucky compared to the series. The story wasn't even as good as the series. The colors were screwed, Fujisaki looked like a girl, Noriko didn't have purple hair, eyecolors weren't right, everything was just so wrong.
I give this OAV a 4/10. Maybe if you have tolerance for sucky quality animations with sucky quality plot you can watch this. I don't really reccommend it.
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And there you go! A review! Yay! ^^ Now Rika shall go back programming in Java.
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Gravitation: TV Series
It started as a manga by Maki Murakami and ended as one of the best shounen ai anime ever aired in televesion. In 1996, it started airing, though I'm not quite sure which Japanese tv station aired it. Actually, a really really die-hard Maki Murakami fan would say that Gravitation wouldn't exist if Help! did not exist. But this review isn't about Help! I don't even know where I could get my hands on a copy of Help!
Aaaaaanyway, after years and years and years of grovelling and digging and crying my eyes out for
Anyway, enough about how I got my
Gravitation is all about this 18-year old pocky-overdosed pink-haired purple-eyed shounen called Shuichi Shindou. It's always been his dream to become like his idol, Sakuma Ryuichi, the vocalist of Nittle Graspers. So during his High School days, he formed Bad Luck with his best friend, Hiroshi Nakano (who, from this point onwards shall be called Hiro, the only other character you'd never expect to be horrifyingly uke OxO) and later on, joined by Fujisaki Suguru. Bad Luck is under the care of Sakano-san and is part of NG Productions, which is owned by Seguchi Tohma (God
Anyway, over all, Gravitation is a fun anime to watch, especially if you're a sucker for fanservice. I mean, look at all those suggestive scenes in the middle of the episodes, the suggestive dialogue, the almost all-male cast!! There are only three females that played somewhat big parts in the series (Mika Seguchi, Noriko Ukai and Ayaka Usami.. or whatever her last name is).
The quality of the animation is really good. It's smooth and most of the time constant. There were only certain scenes that some characters looked god-awful. One bad point though, is that they sort of recycle clips of The Rage Beat. At first, I thought you'd never get tired of Gravi songs. I was wrong. That's another point for Gravitation. The music, may they be the songs or BGM, are absolutely wunnerful. <3 You have to love the songs. The songs are all upbeat and very coolies. Though you really do have to admit that The Rage Beat sort of gets to your nerves because of too much air time. The opening and ending themes are wonderful, although they could have made a better animation for them. Also, in the span of 13 episodes, it's got good character developments. From being dependent, genki, stupid and idiotic, Shuichi became determined, genki, stupid and not-so idiotic anymore. ^^ Or maybe he just went from straight to gay, but who cares about that. xD Anyway, the character developments fit the 13 episode limit, and the characters did show maturity, one way or another. Plot development, however, was somehow muddled. From what seemed to be just a small time band making it into bigger audiences to just developing the relationship between Shuichi and Yuki. Whichever the plot was, I think both were underdeveloped.
All in all, I give Gravitation an 8/10. It's got lots of good points and it's share of bad points. And I reccommend you watch it, even if the series *is* quite old.
Gravitation - OAV
Released in 1999, the OAV had different animators and the rest of the old crew. The story still revolves around Shuichi and Yuki, or maybe more on Shuichi's obsession to get Yuki to notice him. The basic story is that Yuki has been ignoring Shuichi as of late. Also, the Tokyo Bay Music Fest is coming up, and that Tohma Seguchi has something in store for Nittle Graspers, the band representing Japan in the Music Fest. Turns out that Yuki Eiri was writing a song for them. This breaks Shuichi's heart and goes back to his home. In the end, Ryuichi was able to lift Shuichi's spirits and
As for animation, it sucked. Colors, lines and the whole quality sucked major ass. There were also some inconsistencies in the flashbacks, such as that time where Shuichi first met Yuki. It wasn't in some dark alleyway. It was in some pathway in a park. Or at least, it looked like a park to me. Also, when Shuichi wasn't able to sing because he saw Yuki in the crowd and was simply dumbstruck. It was during their opening act for ASK in Zepp Tokyo, not somewhere else.
Blah. It really really sucked. So the songs were good. So what? It's just sooo darn sucky compared to the series. The story wasn't even as good as the series. The colors were screwed, Fujisaki looked like a girl, Noriko didn't have purple hair, eyecolors weren't right, everything was just so wrong.
I give this OAV a 4/10. Maybe if you have tolerance for sucky quality animations with sucky quality plot you can watch this. I don't really reccommend it.
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And there you go! A review! Yay! ^^ Now Rika shall go back programming in Java.
