There are a lot of anime series out there and this is one that the packaging just got my attention. I mean it is orange ant it looks like a Chocolate wrapper. It is also has a lot of shiny bits to it so it catches the eye. I got this series very cheaply at around the $15 mark for a 5 volume set and this was a great by around 10 years ago. Well the first disc came lose in the box when it got smashed during a move and I wanted to test it out to make sure it worked. I figured this series would be pretty fun so I decided to go ahead and try it out.
This series is about Cacao a rather rambunctious teenager
and Hinano a tree spirit that was magically trapped in a wooden doll. They have
plenty of adventures throughout their strange school and have a lot of dealings
with magical creatures, robots and even vampires. Through it all we must hold
hope for the love of a teenage glutton and his wooden doll.
This series is very colorful and it makes the series
appealing to look at some of the time. The DVD series has very cool box art and
it is right effective at drawing the eye as seen above. I also love the second
ender it is energetic and enjoyable. There are a few jokes that even had me
chuckle a bit when I watched the series and that was a good thing. I am also a
fan of Ted Cole (English Kuno from Ranma 1/2 ) so his voice stylings are always
entertaining to listen to I kind of miss him as the only positive part of the 4
kids One Piece Dub. One last fun part about this series is that it is only 20 episodes
when it could have been 24 or 26.
I really didn’t like this show for many reasons. Lets start
with the animation and color scheme. Though It brings you in it is waaaay to
bright and is a tad garish. If you watch this moderate to low quality animation
you can even get a headache. It is plain with some missing action scenes and
jumps from point A to point C at times. The story was supposed to be a quirky
romantic comedy but a lot of the time the jokes fall flat on their face and the
strangeness involved leaves you scratching your head most of the time. The
story, or lack thereof kind of takes a weird turn in the middle of the series
and overall doesn’t make much sense to me. I mean what is it with the “evil
organization” appearing half-way through the series. What are these “monster”
cards that keep appearing and is there a
resolution? Why is one of the organizations hunting down all magic users? On top of that I don’t even get the setting
with all these odd monsters tech and wizards I don’t get the series premise at
all. They do a flimsy half-hearted attempt to explain all of these things but
it felt lazy and the development of the characters and villains especially was
weak at best. Of course I feel like the series actually hoped to get a
continuation…heh. Finally we talk about the characters. The main character is a
Jerk, he’s a lazy glutton that has very little redeeming value with even Ataru
from Urusei Yatsura being more likable as a protagonist. The main female
interest in a source of extreme annoyance and the other characters are simply forgettable
anime stereotypes. What about the voice acting and music you ask? Well I tend
to like most English Dubs but I feel the actors liked this series about as much
as I did for the quality of acting with the quality produced. The first ender
is ok but the opener is catchy in an annoying way that makes you wish it was
never heard in the first place.
This is not a super bad series in the end but it is so
predictable and lazy that it falls totally flat of any potential it might have
had.
Rating: 3/10
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