I guess I don't REALLY know why I decided to buy this series in it's entirety, but I did. I found the first disk at Half Price Books and it had made it onto my "List of Anime I Want to See/See More of/See Again", so I bought it. Because that's what we do. And then I still didn't watch the first disc. And then I found the third disc. And then I bought the rest of it while The Right Stuf was having their Geneon sale....... And here we are.

So I took some time to watch the first disc finally, since I had taken another look at my list and realized that I had only WATCHED one of the things on it and added several. This, therefore, is my thoughts immediately following the first 5 episodes of this show. I'll try to watch more sometime and update you on how I feel through the rest of it.

Here's the summary:
Kaoru Hanabishi is a college student who is also a member of the Photo Club (although you don't know that right away, it will be important later). He's 18, and the first thing we see is a flashback to when he was small and fixing the strap on the zori of a small, blue-haired, traditionally dressed girl named Aoi. The next thing we see is Aoi on the train. Then we see Kaoru in class watching all the couples eating lunch together and seemingly thinking about how hungry he is and how he wishes someone would make him a bento. Then he leaves, and we see Aoi having mishaps at the train station. He helps her out (starting with fixing her zori strap again), and takes her to where she is trying to meet some guy. They apparently haven't bothered to introduce themselves yet, because, you guessed it, the guy she's trying to meet is him. The reason he doesn't know that is that she wrote the address wrong and ended up at a vacant lot. It starts raining, so Kaoru brings her back to his house and tries to help her out again. When he asks if she has any other clues about who this guy is, she pulls out a photo of them when they were young. Then Kaoru remembers, then they realize that he's Kaoru and she's Aoi, then she tells him she's there to become his wife just like their families promised 18 years ago. This of course, is a shock to Kaoru, and he thinks that it's some ploy by his family (the Hanabishi clan) to get him to return to them, so he yells at her and tells her to leave. Then he realizes that she's too sweet of a girl to do something like that, so he brings her back in and the story continues. Of course, if someone you only KINDA knew 12 years ago came back and said they were there to marry you, it's not like you'd say oh, ok fine....so Kaoru tries to explain to Aoi that he can't just marry her and that she should go home, but he sees how determined she is. He finds himself liking her more and more, and lets her stay with him. Then he gets kinda used to having someone around, and he finds that he really is falling in love with her. The main complications are, of course, that her family doesn't want her to marry him, since he's cut all ties with the Hanabishi and is no longer a "person of power", and they try to take her home. But she runs back to him, and both of them tell her mother with conviction that they WILL get married no matter what. Her mother, seeing her conviction and how much she has matured, says ok.....and the two begin a new life living in a new home.......with Aoi's personal assistant......and several other girls who show up along the way and try to hit on Kaoru. Hey.....it IS a harem series, after all.

Characters:
Aoi Sakuraba is an 18 year old daughter of the 300 year old Sakuraba kimono and trading company. A long time ago, when she was small, her parents told her that she was to marry the heir to the Hanabishi clan, Kaoru Hanabishi. From then on, Aoi watched everything Kaoru did in order to learn about him and eventually become his wife. When Kaoru parted ways with the Hanabishi and left her behind, Aoi thought it was because Kaoru didn't like her, when really it was that he didn't like his family. She's your typical harem anime main female though.....she's cute, she's small, she's hapless, she gets lost easily. The main difference with Aoi is that she's 100% devoted to becoming Kaoru's wife. She cooks for him, she cleans for him, she does his laundry....really, she is like a housewife to him for the most part. The harem trouble comes in when the Sakuraba family move Kaoru and Aoi away to a new house, and they tell them that no one can find out about their engagement to avoid a Sakuraba scandal. Aoi is REALLY cute, and honestly it's hard to not find her adorable. In many ways, she's the typical dependent female character, but she's also pretty strong, and she has her convictions.....even if her convictions are "become the best housewife I can".

Kaoru is also your typical male harem star in many ways, but he also differs from the norm. To start with, he's living by himself, but he's used to it. He kinda likes it. It's not like he found Aoi by obsessively trying to get a girlfriend or remember the girl from his past....he was just a nice enough guy to help her at the train station when no one else would. He thought it would end there. I mean, he liked her, but like I mentioned before, it's hard not to like her. Then, when she tells him she wants to live with him and be his wife, he tells her that she shouldn't because they don't know anything about each other and it doesn't make sense. He's not the typical harem hero who would drool and snap up the opportunity to have a cute girl slaving over him. Sure, he does have his faults, like thinking about her while she's in the shower, or wishing she'd come in and scrub his back, or looking at her undies as she has them folded outside the bath, but when it comes down to them sleeping, he always insists on sleeping separately. He's really a gentleman, he's just also an 18 year old male without a girlfriend.

The harem girl characters don't really come in until the last episode. There, we see Kaoru actually hanging out with the members of the photo club that he's supposedly a member of. There are two other guys in the club, apparently. Now they also have a new girl, Taeko, who they make dress up in cosplay outfits and take her picture, and their old member, Tina Foster, an American who was raised in Kyushu, who has a huge crush on Kaoru. Tina gets Kaoru drunk for her "reunion party" while Aoi is waiting for Kaoru to come home for dinner. The next morning, Aoi finds Kaoru and Tina sharing a futon. When Kaoru and Tina explain that it was because they were drinking and they fell asleep, Aoi believes them because Kaoru isn't that kind of person. And he's not. But because Aoi and Kaoru have to hide their relationship because of a scandal, Aoi has to tell Tina that she is Kaoru's landlord. Which leads to Tina saying she needs a place to live, and eventually moving in. I imagine that Taeko will also end up living there with them as well....and probably more people that we haven't met. And everything would be ok if Kaoru and Aoi could just explain their situation, but because of her stupid family, they can't. But Kaoru's a good guy, and Aoi trusts him.....so unlike most harem series, you know that she'll forgive him every time. And I think that's what makes me like this one as opposed to the others. You know that even under all the mishaps and misunderstandings, those two will remain deeply in love. And that's really really cute.

After the first disc...I give this series a B+. And I give it an A as far as watchability of a harem series.

Stay tuned for more.

Posted by Yukino 2:33 PM September 8, 2008