..Is this really necessary .. A Review of R-15

Light Novel Cover

R-15 as stated in the pic above, is a light novel series written by Hiroyuki Fushimi with illustration from Takuya Fujima. The first volume of the the light novel was Kadokawa Shoten in July of 2009 with eight volumes currently out and still ongoing as of now. The series also has a manga adaption "which I highly recommend at this point in time" which started in June 2010 that is illustrated by Hayato Ōhashi, with a total of two full volumes out from the same creator/publisher. The anime adaption Is being handled by Studio Aic, that started to air July 2011 on six major t.v. stations in japan. One thing i do wish to add is that two T.V. stations in Japan pulled the show before airing which has me thinking.. wow is this going to be good or what? 

So yet again, another anime series based off an light novel. These seem to be a dime a dozen in this day age, not that it is a bad thing, it just feels over used at this point in time. Oh well at  least it's good exposure for people to see a series that would have only been available in printed text in Japan.. but is this a good thing this time around ??? To be blunt with with you I like the idea and premises of this series "which still baffles me..". Sadly some of the the execution for the series, the current t.v. airing/streams with huge amount of censors, drag it down greatly. This even brings it down from being a guilty pleasure for many people, which includes me as well.

MY EYES, THEY BURN!

So what the initial plot in R-15?? ... Well it's about our male lead Taketo Akutagawa who has a genius talent for writing erotic novels, due to this he has go to private school for other geniuses with talents in music, photography, drawing and so forth. Epiosde one starts during the middle of class with Taketo having a dream/Idea for one of his novels. It's after school with the sun going down.. hmm I see where this heading... you see a random high-school female about to get boned by her teacher... whoa.. ? wait, really.. wat? What kind of person has those types of dreams in the middle of day.. oh wait he is only a freshmen in high-school so it makes sense.

After his dream..Taketo's teacher properly wakes him up..then we see one of our female leads Meiki who plays the role of our classic tsundere.Meiki loves to take photo's of Taketo when he goes in his "writer mode" because of his beastly side... heh I sense a closet masochist as well. Taketo also works for the news paper club, where he tries to get scoops for the president only to be referred to as chief...she has to be one the biggest sadist I have seen In a while as well. She just loves to cause trouble for other people and has fun time getting off to other people's misfortune...I think that I'm love, Oh feel free to watch the op below

R-15 OP

The only other character worth mentioning is Narukara-san due to her calm nature. She is a music prodigy at the school that that usually keeps to herself. Taketo happened to walk up where Naurkara was practicing, happening to see her extra reed .. so what does he do?? He tries to eat it like it was food... thus causing an awkward misunderstanding to commence, such as Nakukara telling other students that Taketo tried to eat it. So if you haven't figured it out, they are mostly likely going to the be the OTP or "only true paring" for this series. I might be wrong for calling it so early but I have seen way to harem series to know where this going to head. To be honest I prefer the pop idol from epiosde two but that's just a personal opinion.

So with all of this originality, story setup, plot why is the anime one of the worst for 2011?? Well for starters it's the horrible amount of censorship used in the t.v. broadcast. Personally I am really sick, tired and frustrated of fuc*** solar flare beams on the screen, just to cover up a damn panty shot or cover up a naked ass... but at-least let there be an option to air in un-cut online. Listen I understand that that shows have to abide by certain guidelines and so-froth but this is an insult the animators, to the director, hell to everyone that worked on the project. Even if your not a fan of these types of shows, think of what Naruto, Bleach, FMA ect, would be like with half of the fighting cut-out due to violence. To those that have complained there is no un-cut version anywhere so this is a DVD/bluray sales pitch that will work, but it's highly unlikely that we will ever see it here un-cut.. legally that is.

Classic Type A Tsundere

One other problem that is worth pointing out in the series is the drops in animation quailty in certain parts. Now I am not one to speak for watching Higurashi/Umineko after all but at least I am willing to admit it, the drops are just so noticeable and bad.. they have a budget why not use it, there are some nice characters designs there.Who knows maybe I am wrong about the quailty drops due to nearly being blinded every four to five God da** minutes from blinding lights but.. okay.. enough ranting about that. Now I will give R-15 props for having a  male lead not being A-typical, he is a wimp but he knows how to turn the ladies on with his writing, although most just think Taketo is a pervert..but of course. On a plus note, in epiosde two he got a pop-idol to strip from his words alone.. that takes some massive skills man.

   

So is  the music for R-15 anything special?? Hmm... Well now there happen to be some catchy bgm music. This anime also a pretty nice op/ed but nothing really stood out to me besides the opening. So is this anime really that bad?? .. Well it depends on what your taste, standards or view of censorship is. There is a story with room to grow, characters that can develop over time, however it might be to much for some to handle. Even though I am writing a review for this show .. this is the only one this season I am dropped this season next to twin angel. Until a un-cut version becomes available. I just can-not watch it at this point in time with the amount of distractions etc. The real sad part is I want to watch/enjoy this show. Well that's all on this, I will be giving this anime two scores as well and if you really want to watch it go for it.

-Cecil The Dark Knight

Age Rating 16+

Censored Fan Haters: 1.5/5

Normal Fans: 3.5/5

Nico Nico Stream

Crunchy-Roll Stream 

Okay Enough Umineko/Higurash TIme For My First Spring Review "A Bridge To The Starry Skies"

two of our leading ladies

What anime am I doing this time around? It is "A Bridge To The Starry Skies", and this is about as generic as it can get people. Also reviewing  another anime based on Visual Novel or "Eroge" is the better term.  You ask might  ask  yourself "OH I see he only does reviews on those type of anime.. Suck my dick people, I didn't even know this game/anime even existed until "Crunchy Roll" announced the license for it "Aside for the chart which I hardly use anymore".This "Eroge" is from the company "Feng" the same people that did "Akaneiro ni Somaru Saka" which also has an anime adaptation as well.  The game came out  on "October  15th 2010 on the PC only so why an anime so soon"? Are game sales that low for the product??

I don't really mind the fact they pick do anime adaptation's of visual novels or adult ones "Eroge" but due to the fact that most of the time they feel rushed out the door just in order to sale more copies of the original source material. These can be done right however and I have seen it happen before look at "Clannad" and "Kanon" from "Key Studios" , but  I suppose this is marketing strategy for "Feng". One thing that is funny there is no voice over change this time around. This is a big surprise that they are using the same voice actors from the game in the anime which strikes me as odd to do. Perhaps it has to do with contracts with the game and voice actors since the game is not even over a year old.

The major gripe I do have though is cutting down to twelve episodes and only choosing to do one ending only is not a good way to do things because it cuts out so much material and back story for each character and doesn't show the other realms of possibility "The visual novel is good which is why I am complaining look at the video above." Alone there is over seven different endings or more for this game alone,  this is not something that works to their benefit all the time. Take the school days anime for a prime example they did the worst route/ending possible out of twenty one other endings possible at the time.  I suppose that  I can be a little optimistic about this because Yousga no Sora  proved me wrong, however I don't think they will be able to pull that type of ending agian.

Insert generic kiss joke here

I mean really there are more but I will not there isn't a point in doing so, even getting the ecchi elements out the way and no it's not really on par with fan-service. Personally this is  just a time killer that's pretty visuals to look at, which is a good point in favor of this anime. It's very well animated and looks clean crisp, most things seem to go pretty fluid and there
doesn't really seem to be a lot of chops in the animation. The music is another high point I love piano and instrumental music overall to express emotions and it does it pretty well but even then with these perks the rest of it drag it down.

The characters and story overall are just generic, "Kazuma Hoshino moves out of town to take care of his younger sibling Ayumu Hoshino because he is frail and the country side seems to be better for him.. really?." They did establish however in episode two that there parents are "ALIVE" and might be coming to live with them after they are done packing from the previous Home. "I just have to give it some credit for but there are still no main parents around what a surprise.." I guess for the set up there doesn't need to be any nosy parents butting into the affairs of teens fun.

There isn't a damn thing here ground breaking at all or mold changing at all so do not expect much what so ever it's just basic setup for a for a basic harem anime 101.  From the child hood friend the male lead forgot to the typical shy/timid girl. It also doesn't help that each female character also has a different hair color as well which is really getting old now. The last bit of praise I can give it though this time around is the fact that it has three male characters "even if Kazuma Hoshino little brother Ayumu Hoshino looks like a girl" at least they trying to get more males in the cast this time around and maybe even "Ayumu Hoshino" will get a girl as well who knows? At the end of the day this just an average harem anime that's okay to watch just don't expect nothing great or ground breaking from this series.

Now I am going to ask in all honestly are any of you going to re-watch this more than once and if so would you even care about this series from a year now or even bother to buy the DVDs if they come to your country? This is why I am so thankful for legal streaming so I can still watch the shows I want to but cut down on the crap to want to legally buy instead of those early blind buys that I grew up with in the 90's. Well that wraps things up people I have a lot more material to cover so look forward to it~

Art:4/5


Music: 4/5


Story: 3/5


Plot: 3/5


Characters: 2/5

Overall Rating:  3/5 

Legal Stream

Age Rating 13+ 

- Cecil The Dark Knight