juliko25

I give this moving short anime about two lovers caught in the Civil War...an 85/100!

Some time last year, I decided to hunker down and read the massive novel that is Gone With The Wind, an epic romance taking place during the Civil War and the reconstruction period that followed. To be honest, I'm not a fan of it. If you've read my review, the tl;dr version is that it goes on for way too long, the characters were all either annoying, useless, or outright reprehensible, the plot never seemed to go anywhere, and the authoress really went out of her way to romanticize the South and make the case that slavery of people of color was good for them. Yeah...I think anyone can see how that wouldn't go over well nowadays. But the reason I bring up Gone With The Wind is that I found out that a fansub group I follow randomly subbed an obscure anime from the late 70s called Kinpatsu no Jeanie, which has a similar premise. Being a fan of old anime in the style of the World Masterpiece Theater, I decided to give it a try, as I wanted to scratch that WMT itch I hadn't had in a while. Seriously, I did NOT expect this anime to turn out as amazing as it did! And keep in mind, this anime was made in 1979, when the medium was still fairly young in Japan, and it's amazing to think that even in that time period, the anime industry already managed to churn out its fair share of masterpieces and great stories.

Now, for anyone who might get confused by the English title, Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair (Which makes no sense to me because they made Jeanie's hair blonde), this is nothing like the 1992 anime that's basically an animated biopic about Stephen Foster and his wife, Jeanie MacDowell, whom the titular song he wrote is based on. This 1979 anime does use the title for the show, and has a cover of the song used for the opening theme, but other than those two things, this iteration tells an entirely original story out of whole cloth. The story goes as follows: 15-year-old Jeanie Reed lives a nice, happy life with her family in the town of Agatha, Virginia. Five years ago, she met a nice boy, Robert McBee, and the two fell in love. But due to circumstances involving his family, he was forced to move to Pennsylvania. Robert does promise that once his situation is stable, he'll return and they'll get married. Even now, Jeanie still waits patiently for him. There's just one big problem though: The Civil War is afoot, and the two lovers find themselves on opposite sides of it: Jeanie and her family live among Confederates, and Robert is a commanding officer in the Union Army. This in and of itself is bad enough, but to complicate matters further, Jeanie discovers that her family has kept secrets that completely shatter her worldview forever. In light of these revelations, both Jeanie and Robert have to make hard decisions just to be able to survive the Civil War.

Seriously, where the hell has this anime been all my life?! This anime seemed to go out of its way to address every single issue I had with Gone With The Wind tenfold. The anime only has 13 episodes, so completing it isn't hard for people who want to watch something short, and Kinpatsu no Jeanie really makes optimal use of its short run time. It leaves no moment wasted, it never drags on for longer than is needed, the story is always moving forward, and it's always developing all of its characters and fleshing them out whenever possible, delivering the perfect combination of drama, humor, and heart. It helps that while the anime is limited by the confines of, well, being made in the 70s, with plenty of animation issues that hold it back, along with overly theatrical acting and sound effects that were common at the time, all of the drama it does manage to show is meaningful and brings out the best in the characters, giving them far more depth and nuance than other stories of this caliber. Continuing onto that, unlike Gone With The Wind, which is very heavily biased towards the South, Kinpatsu no Jeanie makes absolutely no attempt to present one side of the war as being wholly in the right. It shows that both the North and the South make their fair share of bad decisions and do their fair share of bad things while not presenting either side as being outright villainous.

On the subject of animation, it's clear that this anime was made in the late seventies, complete with shoujo-esque character designs, limited character motion, rough linework, and painted backgrounds. The animators really tried hard to make this anime look as good as they could, and even with the occasional goofs here and there, it's clear there's a lot of care put into this. But Kinpatsu no Jeanie does have some pretty glaring animation flaws. For one, the backgrounds are beautifully painted, but during scenes where characters are either running or riding horses, when the background is scrolling past them, it often looks like the animators just looped the same backgrounds over and over again while making no attempt to make the transition look seamless, almost like a gif. Plus, there are times when the creators outright spell English words or names wrong. At several points, there are saloon signs that spell Agatha as Agata, and even Jeanie's last name is spelled as Leed instead of Reed, even though the latter is the correct spelling. Other anime did this as well, even the various World Masterpiece Theater anime, but yeah, they could have tried a little harder with that. On the other hand, the soundtrack is very pleasant to listen to and really captures the feel of old timey America, complete with harmonicas, trumpets, saxophones, banjos, and ukuleles. At one point, the anime uses the instrumentation for Camptown Races during a saloon scene, and the only reason I even know about that song is because I heard it in an episode of Hey Arnold.

Returning to the characters, the show makes great use of them even with its short run time. Every character, from Jeanie and her family to even minor characters who only appear in one episode, are all amazingly well developed and fleshed out, given multiple sides to their personalities, and all serve their roles perfectly, with all of them feeling fresh. Jeanie herself is a great main character, who grows as a person throughout the course of the series from a naive, sheltered, lovestruck girl to a brave, open-minded, caring young woman who is much more aware of the things going on around her, but she also has enough flaws and weaknesses to make her feel like a three-dimensional human being. The other characters also get the right amount of time in the limelight, and even the characters who look like they could be villains at first glance are not only surprisingly competent, but are given plenty of depth and nuance so that they feel like regular people just doing their jobs in a bad situation, or feel they've been wrong by the other side, rather than just incompetent villains who are evil just for the sake of it. Take note, Gone With The Wind. Of course, the series makes no attempt to portray Jeanie and her family as being paragons of good, as they don't hide the fact that Jeanie's family does own slaves and make plenty of dubious decisions in the wake of the war, Jeanie included, but given the time period, I think it makes some degree of sense, and I'm glad the creators didn't try to whitewash history or make the main characters pure paragons of goodness. Seriously, the people who wrote the scripts for this series are incredible, as every single episode was solid, engaging, had great build-up, delivered excellent characterization, and a conclusion that was believable, intelligent, and pushed the characters even further in terms of their development, even if it still left some things unresolved.

However, as much as I really want to praise this anime to high heaven, and believe me, I really wish I could, this series does have another glaring flaw holding it back, alongside the limited animation. There are times when the anime really wants to make things more convenient for itself in order for the plot to happen, so it often contradicts things it did in previous episodes, forcing the viewers to really stretch their suspension of disbelief. What do I mean? Here's an example: In one episode, Jeanie, a nun named Elizabeth, and a group of orphaned children try to strike out on their own when the war starts getting violent. The journey is shown as being very dangerous, and they almost lose their lives on multiple occasions just getting to a certain location. But after they get to said location, the series just forgets that the first way of getting there was perilous, and the characters always manage to find their way to and from that location no matter what, often within minutes, even though the episode showing how Jeanie and friends got there showed that said location was not easy to access. Secondly, one character is shot and falls down a ravine, only to somehow not only survive, but climb out of said ravine with zero explanation as to how he survived and got out of there. A third example, and I'm going to keep this as spoiler free as I can: Near the end of the series, a character commits suicide by shooting himself in the head with a gun, but he's shown completely unharmed, with no blood or brain matter whatsoever, and there isn't a single mark on him even though he's explicitly confirmed to be dead. For this one though, I can only assume that the creators weren't allowed to show the character with a hole in their head and leaking out blood, since Kinpatsu no Jeanie is considered a children's series, and I heard that graphically depicting suicide in a children's anime is considered taboo in Japan in recent years due to the country's high suicide rates...though how they're allowed to actually show characters outright dying, along with showing small amounts of blood at all, is beyond me. Not that I mind, as I respect Japan for having higher, looser standards for their kid's anime and not being afraid to show frightening content. Oh, and for anyone wondering: There is a person of color who dies for the purpose of advancing a white character's development. So yeah, even back in the seventies, Japan was still far behind in terms of non-racist portrayals of minorities, even though the character of color in question is treated with respect and given a reasonable amount of development, and not a stereotype, but I know plenty of people will still take issue with it in regards to the racial implications. But I'm not the best person to speak about this in detail, as I'm sure there are others who can go into this in more depth than I'm capable of doing.

For what this series is though, I can wholeheartedly say that I'm glad I decided to take a chance on this show. I would never have even known of its existence had I not randomly stumbled across Old Castle Fansubs' announcement that they subbed the whole thing, and since before then Kinpatsu no Jeanie had never received any subs ever, I think it's good that it finally got pulled out of obscurity. It's easier to find now if you want to check it out. To me, this is what Gone With The Wind should have been like: a short, moving, romantic epic about flawed but good people just trying to make their way through a terrible time. It's shows like Kinpatsu no Jeanie that remind me that children's anime can be refined and mature, and not just silly entertainment for the sake of it. If you ever want to scratch that historical fiction itch, please give the 1979 Kinpatsu no Jeanie anime a try!

I give this trite romance involving an uninteresting boy and a sick girl...a 52/100.

Random question: Who here has seen this old movie called Love Story? The one starring Ryan O'Neill and Ali MacGraw? The one that seemingly started the trend of romance media involving guys/girls falling in love with a terminally ill love interest who winds up dying in some capacity. There have been hundreds, if not thousands of movies, books, and other things involving those tropes, and it's practically become a cliche at this point. Some of them manage to do it well, others...not so much. Movies like that and The Fault In Our Stars tend to glamorize and glorify stuff like cancer and portray anyone who has it as some sort of saintly, beautiful, tragic figure who only exists to be sick and have no personality other than teaching people moral lessons about life and death and love and all that saccharine crap before they die beautifully, which we all know is absolutely not true in real life. This isn't limited to just cancer, either. This has happened with media portrayals of people with physical or mental disabilities, like a missing limb, diabetes, autism, ADHD, and so on. This is commonly referred to as inspiration porn. When I first heard about this novel, even after having gotten past the weird as hell title, given it's premise and nature, I somehow knew it was going to go into those tired, cliche tropes involving someone falling in love with a terminally ill love interest. Needless to say, I'm not surprised. I didn't like it at all, and I honestly don't see what all the hype is all about.

Tell me you've heard this story premise before. A quiet guy (who doesn't get named until the end of the movie) finds himself reluctantly befriending a classmate of his named Sakura Yamauchi after discovering her secret diary, where he learns she has pancreatic cancer and is going to die in a few months. After this, and a series of events, Sakura forces her way into his life and the two find themselves spending time together. Along the way, the guy learns more about the beauty of being with friends and life in general as he opens up to her and learns more about her and why she's trying to live out her final days the best way she can. Yeah, not gonna lie, the premise is really cliche and unoriginal, having been used and abused many, many times in lots of other stories before this. There's literally nothing about it that tries to stand out or do something new with the premise. The whole novel is just the guy and Sakura spending time together, that's it.

Not helping matters is the characters themselves aren't really...characters. Just stereotypes. Sakura is the happy-go-lucky, energetic, life-loving sick girl who teaches the main guy about life, death, and spends time with him and is loved by everybody. She doesn't really have any real flaws except playing pranks and being a bit reckless, but even that's treated as endearing and sweet instead of really humanizing her and making her into...well, just a girl, instead of some beautiful cancerous being who manages to find some degree of philosophical profundity in her death. There is one moment where she is genuinely scared and sad about her short life, but nothing really comes of it. Her illness doesn't make her deep or special or anything, and using it to make a character special is not only insulting, it's also bad writing. The main guy is especially bad. I found him really annoying and bland. Unlike Sakura, the main guy basically has zero personality other than being gloomy, snarky, and reading books, and his only "hobby" is imagining how other people see him and avoiding people. Dude, that's not a hobby. Also, I find his backstory absolutely implausible. I cannot imagine anyone not going through life without having made ONE single friend AND not knowing anything about interacting with and loving people all their lives. Shouldn't he have developed some social skills or people skills with his parents? Or even having emotions or expressing some interest in anything? I find it really hard to believe that meeting this one random girl taught him absolutely everything about the value of life, love, emotions, caring about others, and all that stuff, because that's something you learn from people around you and your environment, not from one person. Because they're both cliche and don't really feel like people, it's really hard to get invested in their relationship, especially when the unnamed main guy is little more than a wooden plank who doesn't change until the very end of the book, and in a really forced, unsubtle way. Even the side characters are little more than one-note personas, like the overprotective best friend and the greedy ex-boyfriend who hates the main guy just because he commits the crime of being around the popular girl. The best friend character, Kyoko, doesn't really do much except act needlessly hostile towards the main guy just for being around Sakura, like she hates the idea of Sakura being around anyone who's not her.

(On a random note: I was reading an interview about the anime movie version, and Erica Mendez, who happened to adapt the movie's English script, said that she intentionally changed some of Kyoko's dialogue to make her come off less clingy and possessive. I think that was a pretty good move on her part.)

The prose and writing is rather blah. It's all told from the guy's point of view, and we do get a look into his mind, but there isn't much other than snarking about stuff, complaining about Sakura dragging him everywhere, and blathering on about stupid stuff. That's really it. The writing isn't in engaging in any way whatsoever, and since the main character is about as interesting as drying paint, the dull writing style makes the audience even less inclined to care about him. Now, if this was all that was wrong with the book, and the overall story as a whole, I'd have considered it rather boring, but still cute and serviceable. But the twist ending absolutely killed it for me. I won't spoil anything, but the reveal at the end is absolutely one of the worst end of story twists I have ever seen in that it comes right the heck out of nowhere. Worst of all, it further adds to the terrible portrayal of pancreatic cancer by the fact that the author used it as little more than drama window dressing, which isn't a good way to write about a terminally ill person at all. It also felt like the author did this so they could avoid having to address all of the nuances that come with having cancer or a terminal illness, like treatment or debilitating side effects or things of that nature.

So yeah, the novel's just yet another cloying, condescending, saccharine piece of inspiration porn. I read the manga and watched the anime version, and while they're both relatively faithful to the story, barring a few changes, they still keep a lot of the problems that plague the light novel so badly, and none of them are really better or worse than each other. The anime movie adds this really long, unnecessarily drawn out scene near the end where Sakura waxes poetic wisdom about her upcoming death while framed with beautiful flowery imagery, further painting her as a saintly figure whose sole purpose is to die beautifully while inspiring everyone else. It doesn't add anything to the story otherwise, so why bother?

If you're looking for a cute, serviceable romance with a bittersweet twist to it, feel free to read it. But if you're looking for a realistic romance and a nuanced portrayal of someone dealing with cancer, steer clear. This isn't worth it, and the hype over it is pretty overblown. That said, if you want to watch the anime, watch the English dub. It's really good.

I give this short anime...a 60/100.

Some anime get hyped up hard, so much so that you get tired of hearing about it and seeing ads for them. Others, like this anime here, barely make so much as a blip on the internet. Some anime that get this treatment do wind up being good, and you wonder why they're so underrated. Others don't fare as well, and sometimes they're better off not being that popular. Clione no Akari is one of those titles.

The story's about as cliche as it can get. A poor little sick orphan girl is always bullied by her classmates for...her very existence, apparently. Two of her classmates, a girl named Kyoko and a guy named Takashi, want to stand up for her, but are scared of getting bullied themselves. One day, they run into her outside of school, and they finally decide to get to know her better, eventually being friends with her for real. One day, she winds up getting so sick she has to stay in the hospital for two months, not being able to attend school. During that time, Takashi and Kyoko get a strange text from someone, telling them about a summer festival coming up.

Yeah, the story's pretty cliche, and the anime doesn't even try to do anything to make it interesting or intriguing in any way whatsoever. It's been done before a million times, others have done better, others not so much, and Clione no Akari doesn't really make much of an attempt to try anything new with it, other than Minori's interest in sea creatures, namely clione, which barely appear much. The series is very short, only having twelve episodes, all of which are under ten minutes long, so it does have that going for it. The voice acting is relatively good as well, though I admit that at times, Takashi's voice could be kinda grating. The music, while unremarkable, is nice as well, and I did like the ending song.

Unfortunately, those are the only positives for this show that I can think of. The rest of it is, quite frankly, uninteresting and unremarkable. The animation isn't too special, and other times some of the character's faces looked really wonky and messed up, like an eye wasn't aligned properly or someone's limbs looked dislocated in a few scenes. The characters are all plain, bland, and one-dimensional, with very little depth to them. Minori, the sick girl in question, is hit especially hard with this, as she's pretty much a Mary Sue: a pure, sweet, naive, lovely little girl with no faults other than being shy and meek, who's always sick and getting bullied by other kids just because she's the perfect victim. She's portrayed as being a perfect, misunderstood little angel, and that's not good character writing. The rest of the characters fare little better, with only having one personality trait and not much else, completely lacking in substance. I did appreciate that the anime tried to redeem Yukine, one girl with dark pink hair, and make her see the error of her ways. If anything, she's actually the most interesting character in the show. But it's still not much compared to everyone else. The bullies were just as stupid and one-dimensional, hating on Minori for no reason at all, even straight up blaming her for things that it's obvious she'd never do. I've seen better, much more three-dimensional bullies elsewhere. Also, one guy claims Minori is prostituting herself. Seriously?! What in the world gave them that idea?!

I also felt that Takashi and Kyoko's reasons for being friends with Minori came off as extremely shallow and superficial. It was basically, "Oh, she's always getting bullied. We feel bad for her, so let's be friends with her so she'll feel good and so we can make ourselves feel better!" They instantly befriend her just like that. No chemistry, no build-up, no genuinely good intentions, nothing. This is a trope that I see a lot in most anime, characters being instant friends just because they're in the same class or they just happen to make eye contact, etc. I find it really stupid because as someone who's always had trouble making friends all throughout my school years, friendship isn't like that at all. You have to make connections with people, find things you have in common with them, build on them, make the effort to get to know them better, and NOT just hang around them out of pity or to make yourself look good. I always made friends by looking for people who share the same hobbies and interests as me (anime and manga), and if they do share that interest, I try to build on it from there. You don't just randomly decide you're friends with someone just because you're in the same school. That's not how real friendships work! That's my biggest beef with this anime, personally, and the main reason why I dropped this one anime called Wakaba Girl, because it pulled the same stunt, and it was so stupid and poorly executed that it made me want to barf.

Okay, that's enough of that elephant in the room. Furthermore, the anime's ending episodes were pretty poorly written, and the final twist was just mind-boggling if you even try to apply any kind of logic to it. So...yeah, while I do like this anime and did find things to like about it, unfortunately, it's a bland, mediocre, poorly made and written anime that was far too shallow and superficial for its own good. Seriously, I can write a better story than this, with the exact same premise and themes. If you're looking for a good anime, or other piece of media, that handles friendship and bullying better, give this one a miss. It's not worth it.

I give this odd but still sweet and charming little game...a 92/100!

If there's one game I worked tirelessly to get my hands on for years, it's this one. I first heard about Child of Light through this review of it on Anime News Network. I liked the review and was initially curious, but since I was going through some rough stuff at the time, I didn't think too much of it. Then one of my favorite internet reviewers, The Cartoon Hero, reviewed the game himself here. That finally spurred me to check out the game for myself. But that would prove to be a challenge. Hoooooo boy, getting this game had to be one of the most frustrating experiences of my life.

When I first found out about this game, I didn't have any of the consoles needed to play it except for my desktop computer, and I didn't have a Steam account at the time. I didn't even know Steam existed until later. Then I made an account, put some money into it, and tried to play the demo...which absolutely refused to work. I tried downloading all that Uplay stuff it asked me to, but it just kept piling up and even after I downloaded what I could, the game still refused to play. I eventually got aggravated and deleted the demo out of sheer frustration. Then an online friend bought me the actual game off Steam this past Christmas, and even that didn't play on my computer. I felt so bad when I had to get rid of it (though he got his money back), and yet so frustrated because everybody I knew kept telling me this game was good. Then I looked up the consoles needed to play it, and found out that the ONLY console that didn't require having Uplay to play it was the Wii U. All the ones I could find were all $230-300. After lots of searching, I finally found a cheap Wii U on Ebay, then got a job, saved up more than enough to buy it, set it up, and finally, FINALLY managed to buy it off the Wii U's Virtual Console.

So after going through ALL THAT, I ask the fateful question: Was it all worth it? My answer: HELL YEAH!

On the surface, the premise isn't all that groundbreaking. It's practically based on Sleeping Beauty. Aurora, the daughter of a young Austrian duke, is suddenly found dead in her bed one day after her father remarries. Only she isn't dead. Instead, she's been transported to a strange world called Lemuria, and an evil sorceress and her daughters stole the sun, moon, and stars. With some quirky companions by her side, who also have their own problems to deal with, Aurora journeys through Lemuria in order to find a way to save it, along with getting back home and reuniting with her father. Yeah, we've seen this premise many many times before. But just because the story is nothing new doesn't make it bad. I found it to be a rather interesting and unorthodox take on the traditional Sleeping Beauty tale, and in case you're wondering, Aurora doesn't need a prince to save her. Nothing like that is even remotely here, so you can rest assured on that one.

Another thing Child of Light has going for it is its art style and animation. With beautiful watercolor pastels, gorgeous fairy-tale like backgrounds with fine details in every aspect of the environment, and the amazingly fluid movements, Child of Light looks and acts like a modern fairytale. Not many games really attempt such a style, much less put this much effort into it. Just from the opening scene alone, you can tell the creators put a lot of love into this project, from the stained glass window-like images to the character models. They all just look like they pop out from the screen, like the pictures in a pop-up book. But at the same time, the character designs are still distinct, and every character has their own look and appearance, unlike in most anime where almost everyone has the same facial and eye structure. I don't have much to say about the music other than that its good, too. Every piece of music fits and adds their own atmosphere to every scene its in, from somber and abject to upbeat and cheerful to epic and bombastic during the battle scenes.

The gameplay, while simple, is still pretty good in its own right. Turn order is decided by a gauge, and if you cast a spell, depending on how long the spell takes, you can attack enemies just fine. But sometimes enemies can attack right back as you're casting, sending you further back and interrupting the spell, and then you have to try again. This can be rectified if you have certain items or characters who know a certain spell called Unstoppable, which prevents getting interrupted while casting. I do have to admit, one flaw I found with this game is that you're only able to use two party members during battle. During the game, you can have eight party members total, but only two are allowed in battle. Granted, you can switch them around during battle, but sometimes you can get outnumbered by groups of enemies, the highest number being three, and if you're not careful, you can get defeated and it's game over. Unlike most games where you can switch party members out if they get defeated, Child of Light doesn't have this option, so if your two primary party members die in battle, it's game over, no switching period. Yeah, that can be kinda annoying if you don't know what you're doing.

The characters, I have to admit, are a bit two-dimensional other than a few subtleties here and there, which can be easy for younger players to miss. Now don't get me wrong, I love all the characters, as they all have their own distinct personalities, dreams, interests, and involvement in the story, and they're all decently likeable enough. However, they don't really get fleshed out too much other than through a few conversations the characters have, which are very few and far in-between. I really wanted to know more about Rubella's life living in the sky, or Genovefa's interest in Piscean spells, or Oengus's life before Umbra took over Lemuria. Stuff like that would have really enriched the characters a lot more. But I still like them enough, and Aurora is definitely a great female character in that she breaks the princess mold in many ways. One: she isn't obsessed with guys or princesses. Two: She feels relatable in that she gets scared and sad in the face of danger and when she misses her father, making her feel more human. Three: Even though she's still scared and misses home, she still tries to help Lemuria and those living in it. She's not the damsel in distress, she's the hero this time around. There is, however, one character I couldn't like: Robert the mouse archer. I don't hate him, but I thought he was just kinda bland and shallow. All he really cared about was money, business, and hooking up with a mouse girl, Margaret, who makes it very clear that she absolutely refuses to have anything to do with him, romantically or otherwise, and he can't take the hint. He also has the least fleshed out backstory and character overall, making him the weakest character in terms of characterization. But he's still useful in battle, so he has that going for him.

The game also has some neat lore behind it which isn't explored. There are several sidequests that look into Lemuria's history but we never see much of it other than that. Optional bosses can be very hard to find if you don't know where to look, and these things called Confessions don't really serve much of a purpose, especially the ones by this unseen character named Sophie. Also, the entire script of the game is written in rhyme, which adds to the fairy tale theme, but some of the rhymes can be real groaners. But don't let that stop you from playing the game. There's plenty of good stuff Child of Light has, too...or doesn't have. One: NO MONEY. You don't need to worry about money in this game, because there isn't any! Plus, getting healing items and stat booster potions are pathetically easy, and even then you don't have to use them much since you have healers in your party anyway, so you don't need to suckle on healing potions constantly.

It's a shame not many people know about Child of Light. Even with its flaws, it's still a great game that needs to be played and experienced. It may not have the most original story or the most riveting characters, but that's no reason to kick it to the curb. It's still a lot of fun, the foes are decently challenging enough, the scope of the game is massive and there's a lot to see in every nook and cranny of the screen, the cliche stuff is handled very well for the most part, and the battle system is pretty fun to experiment with. I have to thank Eli Stone aka The Cartoon Hero for finally introducing me to this game. If I hadn't seen his review, I don't think I would have given Child of Light the time of day, and I sure am glad I got to play it. I may have had a hard time just getting what I needed to play this game, but in the end, it was so worth it, and I don't regret it one bit.

Not the best game ever, but it's a cute little fairytale that'll really mesmerize you if you open your eyes to the otherworldly.

I give this cute but kinda 80's anime OVA...an 83/100!

In 1983, Studio Pierrot decided to release magical girl anime, the first being Creamy Mami, which proved to be an instant runaway hit. They continued this trend of magical girl series until about 1986-88. They started wavering in popularity, reflected by the decreasing number of episodes each series had. Creamy Mami had 52 while Pastel Yumi, in 1986, only received 25. In 1988, however, they tried something else. They produced an OVA called Harbor Light Story: Fashion Lala Yori. Unfortunately, it wasn't green-lit for a TV series, and it was scrapped for a full 10 years later until it was remade into Fancy Lala in 1998, though it was overshadowed by anime like Card Captor Sakura. I only just recently found this OVA and while I did like it for what it was, it does have a lot of things wrong with it.

Basically, it's another Cinderella story. Like with Fancy Lala, our lead character is a little girl named Miho whose father is away on business and has been left in the care of her aunt and three cousins. But they don't like her for some reason, save for one cousin named Shuri, who tries her best to be a good big sister to her to an extent. Miho dreams of being a designer, but her designer aunt and haughty cousins scoff at her dream, deeming her incapable. Miho learns that all the teenaged girls are going to partake in a disco contest that'll decide the new disco queen. Miho wants to design a dress for her cousin Shuri so she can win, but things don't always go in their favor.

Being made in 1988, of course you can tell that the animation has 80's written all over it.

(more to come soon)