Anime: Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi

Hoshizora is an interesting ecchi harem, so much so that it took two complete viewings for me to collect my thoughts. It isn't a particularly innovative series but still manages to entertain through decent character interactions and late-building tension. Despite giving very early signs of which harem girl will win Kazuma's hand, the series still puts forth a decently plausible plot line, especially compared to some more recent flops in 2012. If you're looking for a simple harem devoid of senseless action or magical elements to spend six hours on, look no further.

Animation:
Hoshizora is a fair looking series with minimal CGI elements and some pretty good looking water effects. It uses a pleasing color palette ranging from a slightly under-saturated base appearance to heavily-oversaturated scenes (such as sunsets). The backgrounds are also quite good; in fact they are so detailed at times that the less-detailed characters look comical when superimposed in front of the background. While lacking in details occasionally, the character styling is fairly good. All important characters are easily distinguishable, including siblings with impossibly different hair colors. My only major critique is Ui; the real world is not so forgiving to those who gorge on monster parfaits and snacks on a daily basis. The series could have also done with a better QA as there were instances of mysteriously, instantaneous costume changes.

This is a relatively calm series where the highlight in terms of action is a school race. There's no hint of magic (other than Ui's metabolism) in this series as well. What you will find, instead, is a fairly generous portion of ecchi panty shots and naked scenes full of god rays and mystic mist. The series' overall approach is a bit more conservative than 30-sai in terms of sexual references and the characters are (thankfully) a bit more mature in feel than those in R-15.

Sound:
Each episode starts with a progressive but melodically challenged OP. It starts as a calm lullaby but then evolves into a frantic-paced jpop song. I can't put my finger on it but I didn't particularly like the singer's voice. The main ED is a fast and playful work that sounds as if it served as the baseline inspiration for Nichijou's OPs. It heavily relies on synthesized sounds, which makes it blend with the BGM quite well. The 10th episode is special in that Madoka gets her own fitting ED, you can probably guess why. The BGM is unusually limited in variation so be prepared to hear the same playful synthetic songs over and over.

At the time of its release, the voice cast for this show isn't what I'd consider an all star team. While the VAs gave an adequate performance, I think the script severely limited them at times. Consider the following example from the first episode:

Kazuma (with an incredulous tone): "Hey... you're a girl?"
Ui: "Yes, I'm a girl."

I still can't quite grasp what the scriptwriter was thinking at some points. Script aside, I was also a bit annoyed at how girlish Ayumu sounded. Overall, don't expect this to match the level of drama in Ano Hana.

Story:
Kazuma and his weak brother, Ayumu, move in with a family friend Oba-er... One-san Senka Yorozu in a quiet, rural town, where the residents gloat about their convenience store that closes at 8PM. Soon, Kazuma starts bumping into girls (literally) left and right and before you know it a harem has developed.

The story is told in a slice-of-life, episodic manner with only minimal connectivity. It's a bit strange in that episodes sometimes end abruptly, not at cliffhangers but just as if the director decided to chop up one long movie into chunks. The overall pacing is a bit slow and, with the random episode transition points, the series doesn't really push you forwards.There are a handful of episodes where the ending isn't so arbitrary, specifically episodes that focus on a particular harem candidate. The story doesn't really have any rising action until the last two episodes, which builds to a predictable but satisfying climax and conclusion.

Overall, the plot is extremely predictable and closely follows established harem patterns. The majority of the involvement comes as a big lump towards the end of the show so pace accordingly. Compared to other shows in its season, the story is a bit boring and overly conservative. Luckily the characters bring a bit of life to the series.

Character:
Kazuma is your typical harem lead, a nice dude who is oblivious to girls' feelings and who blushes at anything ecchi. He somehow miraculously adapts to the slow pacing of rural life after living the majority of his life in "the big city" and is shortly somehow surrounded by all the school's idols. The series makes use of a lot of established character patterns (useless comic-relief guy friend, a bunch of tsunderes to spice up the mix, etc.) but successfully presents them in a mostly plausible manner. Though, honestly, the bulk of the juicy, drama-filled interactions occur very late towards the end of the show. This is where you'll find some decent character development and some hard choices. If not for this last glimmer of inspired presentation (similar in feel to the better parts of Mashiro-iro Symphony), I would have called this series a flop.

Value:
Overall, the series had some decent comedic scenes as well as some solid development late in the season. If you can deal with some minor inconsistencies and some shamelessly haphazard episode transitions, this series is a fair watch. It treads on very safe grounds using existing cliches and harem patterns but is brave enough to at least forces a conclusion that may disappoint some fans. This is by no means an outstanding harem, but seeing at how bad some of the recent 2012 harems have been, it seems directors ought to be looking back in time for some much needed inspiration.

Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi: This year's harem now comes with more variations in hair colour than legitimate plot points.

A 2011 spring anime based on yet another visual novel, Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi ("A Bridge to the Starry Skies") follows the standard outlet of one man, many women, this time in the shockingly original setting of... A distant remote town, which I think it must have been a whole four months since last an anime of this exact type was set in this exact setting.

Meet Kazuma Hoshino (not a meaningful name at all, no, no, no...), who moves to the countryside town he spent a summer in his childhood (complete with obscured-face childhood girlfriend, because if it's one thing this show will do by gum it's completely failing to innovate) to take care of his sick little brother Ayumu (which, incidentally, is a girl's name). On the way there he accidentally meets a strange girl called Ui Nakatsugawa in the forest and, in the best spirit of the Victorian Age, permanently bonds to her by accidental lip-lock, ruining her forever for marriage or happiness with anyone other than himself. This is immediately following being dealt a violent response head-blow (which unfortunately fails at turning him permanently vegetative) by her archetypical violent passive-aggressive best friend Ibuki Hinata. As Hoshino enters the town proper, it turns out these two archetypes are (naturally) his class-mates, alongside a half-dozen other non-unique snowflakes of harem anime archetypes who all flock to him like flies to honey.

Of course, Victorian mores have spoken, and (as can be seen clearly on the poster of the anime) the bloody winning girl is pretty much decided five minutes in. The ensuing 12 episodes, then, are naturally spent not developing the Chosen Pair one bit, since they're already 'destined' to be together or such rot and thus showing any on-screen development of their romance is completely superfluous (this is actually better than it sounds, since she has the personality of an autistic space cadet with the dumbest Tragic Backstory I've seen, and any moment not spent having her on-screen is one slightly over par). This leads to two very immediate issues: One, a romance anime where there is no actual romance. Two, a harem anime where the 'harem' is completely superfluous. The result, as they say, ain't pretty.

Animation and Visuals: 4/10 – I wonder how much radioactive waste got dumped into the local groundwater to get those natural hair colours. Mind you, since they're all identical apart from said hair colour....

The immediate thing one notices about Hoshizora is how colourful it is. Like Angel Beats, this is one show that feels that skimping on the colour, both in terms of sets and characters, is for wusses. It's too bad that, like Angel Beats!, Hoshizora has no idea how to make characters look distinct at all: Barring their shiny hair colours, the characters' faces are practically identical. And then, on top of it, is the fact that *unlike* Angel Beats!, Hoshizora has a much lower animation budget and can't spend nearly as much time on doing much else than stand around flapping their mouth-holes and looking vapid and shallow. The backgrounds are still decent, though, despite the boring character design, which ultimately means Hoshizora isn't *too* much below average on the visuals front. At least for the harem anime genre. It looks fairer than Mayoi Neko Overrun!, for one, as well as the similarly running Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai.

Oh, and also, I must mention Ui's eyes. You know, the thing about Ui... She's got lifeless eyes. Dull, pupil-less, blue-green eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When she comes on-screen, it doesn't seem like she's living... Until he she looks at ya, and those improbable eyes just stare straight into your soul and then...

*Ahem* Went a little off topic there... Moving right along.

Audio: 3/10 – Oh come, now, you aren't even trying.

So, for the audio. How shall I put this delicately? Quite flat. The voice actors (with the possible exception of Ibuki's seiyuu, who may give a little energy to the boring tsundere archetype) don't even seem to be trying: Most of them just belt out a stereotypical voice for the archetype they're supposed to represent. You have Hoshino as the boring, shallow and friendly harem lead, with a nasally voice that sounds like doing your taxes is more exciting than listening to him talk for more than a minute, his stereotypical 'energetic loser guy best friend who makes boring shallow harem lead the better man by comparison' Daigo, with his standard "oh, let's go do something perverted and wacky!" delivery, the shy demure girl, the Sakaki-like upperclassman, the busty life-loving girl, the annoying underaged-looking bratty munchkin, etc, etc, etc. Oh, and Ui's voice, which sounds like she is functionally retarded in the mental faculties and never progressed beyond the age of six (which, to be fair, is something I'm not ruling out...) and also like she has a lifelong career in front of her curdling milk with her voice.

It's not really *that* bad overall, it's just... Terribly dull. Even Infinite Stratos had the occasional line that sounded like it had some emotion behind it: This anime really don't. Oh, and as for the music: Standard piano and violin, subpar OP and boring J-pop ED, nothing more to see, moving along.

Story: 3/10 – It certainly makes you wish for an outbreak of Oyashiro-sama's Curse. Maybe that's where said radioactive waste comes in...

So, the story. As I said in the intro, the story of this show has the very obvious problem in that it's supposed to be a romance anime, in other words having a focus on building a relationship between two potential lovers and see their relationship blossom into something unique and beautiful over the series as they show mutual and attraction to each other, and a harem anime, in which a single male is surrounded by females that he's attracted and lavish attention on their all, either solving it by ending up with the 'best' match or just not resolving it.

But in blatantly making the winning girl obvious five minutes in, and *then* keeping the protagonist from forming any romantic bonds until about five minutes before the ending, the story of Hoshizora essentially kills both these foci in one fell swoop, making most of the story focused on trivialities and meaningless slice-of-life with little if any pay-off. The story, literally goes like this: Twenty minutes of introducing Winning Girl and rest of losing harem-ettes, eight episodes of slice-of-life, in which the cast present all the romance, eroticism and chemistry as a dead giraffe and the main character gets to showcase his obliviousness and complete lack of masculinity, three episodes of letting down some other girls we wanted to pretend may have had a chance, and then the last ten minutes for Winning Girl lovin' time.

This is not a Very Good Thing, the way they've chosen to handle it. Oh, sure, CLANNAD, that golden calf of romance anime, had the same problem with the 'harem' part, but a) it had an actual romance between main characters Nagisa and Tomoya going on strong through the series, and b) even though the other harem-ettes were archetypical, they worked as characters on their own, even though it was blatantly obvious from five minutes in they hadn't a snowball's chance in heck of winning (alternate universe OVAs notwithstanding). Hoshizora... Really doesn't have either. The pacing is awkward and the focus is off, being built more along the stereotypical ideals of "oh, let's have a festival episode" and "oh, let's have a beach episode" than any attempt at telling a story.

It's all disjointed and, as I said, does very poorly in developing the inevitable romance, leaving the finale rushed, unfinished and emotionally unsatisfying (especially if you hated the leads' guts, but more on that later). In addition, there's the standard problems of happy-happy setting of idyllic small-town life without so much as an attempt of twists or drama from sources outside of the girls' troubles, which take the form of the standard Tragic Backstories all around, and of course the Winning Girl has big-brother issues she projects onto the protagonist, and yadda yadda yadda. There's some local divinity and local legends that could only tie more obviously into the awkward love plot by having someone beat the characters over the head with a sign saying "OMG SYMBOLISM!!!". Clichés and trivialities dominate the entire story, pacing and setting, and the sheer (lack of) drama underwhelms me. I can't even recall how much focus there was on meaningless ecchi and panty shots, which gives you the idea of how dull it was. At least the story *goes* somewhere, but that's it.

About the only originality in this story is the fact that the 'tragic forgotten childhood girlfriend' wasn't the winner... Of course, since came down to a battle of clichés in its vain duel against the twin 'first girl introduced' and 'accidentally kissed protagonist' clichés, originality was throwing in the towel either way.

Characters: 2/10 – ....Certainly said radioactive waste explains the personality disorders.

Then there's the 'characters', note apostrophes. Standard rules for rushed porn VN adaptations apply, in that the cast are criminally under-explored and are little more than the flat, 2D archetypes they initially look like. While the visual novels usually have the luxury of time and multiple routes to work in some twists and character exploration, the show does not and the entire cast are flat, vapid and dull as a result. There's the boring-as-cardboard leading male, his energetic-perverted-loser classmate foil, the vapid-airhead-space-cadet-cute-girl, the tsundere, the painfully-shy-around-men, the cool-older-sister type (two of them, actually, but I'll hazard a guess that the game only makes one of them romance-able), and the bratty-overreacting-underage-munchkin. About the only thing the show lacks is the "crushing on big brother" little sister type, but have no fear: The main character's brother Ayumu is so girly he may as well be one. I still can't tell if it's because he's a boy-love incest interest in the VN, or if it's because the writers think viewers are such morons they can't handle a brother-brother relationship unless one of them talks and acts like said Cute Little Sister archetype.

Character exploration is near nil, character development is almost equally so. Most of the girls fall for the main character for no reason, but never express it properly and he's already taken by Winning Girl even though the two have absolutely no romantic development whatsoever and look about as enamoured with each other as my forehead and desk do (as in, they meet each other repeatedly during the show but the interactions only give me a blinding headache). The worst aspect, by far, is the attempt to give Ui a tragic backstory for the main character to help her through, in classic "female must be weak and vulnerable" style. "So, what is it?", I hear you cry. "Is it molestation?" No (what do you think this is, a Nasuverse story?). "Is it parental abandonment?". Classic, but no. "Is it a faltering friendship?". No. It's the fact that her big brother got happily married to a loving woman, moved out of his parents' basement, and got a life. Yeah, I can feel the trauma seeping through my monitor here... Seriously, that's not "dramatic". And it's not what I find "sympathetic" either. It's just "pathetic". And she gets basically through it on her own in a segment that has practically no bearing on the overall story whatsoever anyway, so... What was the point of adding that again? Did you somehow think your airhead space-cadet with a room-temp IQ wasn't annoying enough to begin with?

Value: 3/10 –- "And another one goes and another one goes, another one bites the dust..."

Hoshizora is another erotic VN adaptation, and one without the slightest attempt at doing something new with it. It's made for the lonely male crowd, and not for children, women or old folks. I have really little to add at this juncture: The show has no re-watch value whatsoever, will inevitably be licensed for a pittance and sell uncomfortably large quantities both in its homeland and the States (and Europe will get away). The only thing it has for it is that it's not so full of plot holes and conflicting genres as Princess Lover! and Infinite Stratos: It's merely predictable and dull rather than outright illogical and stupid. It's also not quite as vapid, disgusting, and has as annoying a Winning Girl as Yosuga no Sora and isn't quite as blatant in its view of women and idyllic land life, but that's pretty faint damning praise.

If you liked this (and I pity you if you do, but hey, it's your taste and not mine... Thankfully), you will find another one like this show in every season of anime ever made since Love Hina first made this genre popular. Heck, most seasons you'll find two. Just watch Shuffle! or Yosuga no Sora or something; it's all the same. Add said Love Hina for the historical interest. I will recommend you Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni in an attempt to lead you onto a path of a little more... Subversiveness in these happy-happy small-town stories, though. If I can help even one person with that, it will have to be enough, because there's certainly no other kinds of 'worth' in this anime from where I'm standing.

Entertainment: 3/10 – Just read a book instead.

So, dull, predictable, vapid, lacking substance in both story and characters, lacks romantic appeal, lacks storytelling appeal, lacks any kind of appeal to pretty much anyone outside its intended demographic... What more is to be said? Heck, there's not even any ecchi or eroticism to be attracted/incensed over to compensate for the lack of actual emotional investment. This show is boring and not really worth much more exposition on that point. I can't even feel properly incensed about it: Not worth the effort.

Total: 3/10 –- "A bridge to the starry sky"? More like a "Highway to hell", or at least "Bicycle trail to boredom".

Really, is there much more to say in summary? Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi is standard, standard, standard and boring, boring, boring. Badly told, badly characterized, badly paced, wastes its story on nothing, main characters are flat and annoying, and the main girl's hair is stupid and her eyes makes her look like she's in the soul-stealing business. Really, I don't think picking any of the other haremettes would have improved matters much beyond making the main pairing slightly less annoying: They'd still have the problem that the main male lead has no chemistry with anyone, and the story doesn't even try to make him fit in with anyone for anything more than a single episode.

In short, I recommend all but the most die-hard fan of aimless harem please avoid this anime: You're wasting your time, and it's already wasted enough of mine. I'd hate for you to make the same mistake.