Wednesday, April 4, 2012

[Ended] Ano Natsu de Matteru: Revamp of Modern Classic


If you have seen Onegai Teacher, you'd probably would have cried foul at some point along the way because it's unarguably clear that Ano Natsu de Matteru is literally an episode by episode (if not scene by scene) revamp of Onegai Teacher. Of course, there are some new contents added to it. But if Onegai Teacher wants to take Ano Natsu to court for a plagiarism case, 10 out of 10 times it would have won it.

Having said that however, I would not say you should dismiss Ano Natsu as a "copycat" product. In fact, I would recommend this series if you ever liked Onegai Teacher. For one, Ano Natsu would actually reminded you about everything we liked about Onegai Teacher and how it became one of the modern romance anime classic. On top of that, director Tatsuyuki Nagai, who is also responsible for all the tears we shed over Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai, had done an almost equally amazing job here to set up an environment that is warm yet melancholic which resulted in a feel that is light and relaxing yet powerfully moody.

Having said that however, to some, the fact the creation process of this series is literally taking all the art work out of Ano Hana and plugged them right into Onegai Teacher could be somewhat bothersome to many. Personally, I think that's fine, so long the end result is good series. But some of you may not be so kind in overlooking these "plagiarism" factors. 

Final scoreboard:


Drama: 90 (Dramatic)
Comedy: 90 (Romance humor)
Action: 80 (For what it had)
Art/Animation: 88 (Ano Hana)
Sound/Music: 86 (So so)
Character: 88 (Interesting)
Plot: 80 (Not original)
Ending: 81 (Implied)

Re-watch value: 60 (Unlikely)

Overall: 88 - Retelling the Onegai Teacher Story in Different Form

Recommendation: Personally, because I'm very fond of both Onegai Teacher and Ano Hana, I really don't have a problem for someone try to do a makeover of those series, especially when they did a fairly good job. For people have seen neither of the referenced series, this is no substitute. But, as a stand along series by itself, I would recommend it.

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