Opening Songs
OP 1 - Kimiiro Signal (Luna Haruna)
Ending Songs
ED 1 - Colorful (Miku Sawai)
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Episodes: 12
While I'm almost burned out by the genre itself, I do admit that I need some RomCom animes in my life once in awhile. There are plenty of mediocre entries in the genre nowadays, but sometimes a rare few do manage to end up being quite entertaining. "Saekano: How To Raise A Boring Girlfriend" tends to hover over being borderline decent in terms of its characters and story, but it does eke out to be something above its competition. Sure, while most of its characters do seem stereotypical, I do like one of the main heroines a whole lot, and considering most shows this year, "Saekano" is pretty damn impressive in the visuals department, I would even compare it to "Nisekoi:", which is pretty much beautiful because its by Shaft. "Saekano" looks GOOD, and overall as an experience its not bad at all. To prove my point, it got popular to the point of already getting a season 2 that's been green-lit for production for quite awhile. Now then, into the world of "Saekano"!
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| Feast your eyes. Feast your eyes... |
The opening theme is "Kimiiro Signal" by Luna Haruna, a singer who's been getting a decent amount of fame recently. While I cannot say that I thoroughly enjoy her songs for action oriented anime, I can say that her songs fit well for animes like this one. "Kimiiro Signal" sounds soft and inspiring, while not being too slow or boring, it works well for an opening theme like this. The ending theme is "Colorful" by Miku Sawai. Its nothing too special and is just a typical slow ending theme, so nothing much to see here.
Rating: 7.5/10
I enjoyed my time with "Saekano". For a story to have a GOAL is important, because most shows in the genre tend to end up going absolutely nowhere by the end of the series, its nice that "Saekano"'s story has something going for it from start to end. Though the series is somewhat inconsistent until later in the second half, it does back it up with amazing visuals and a rather interesting main heroine. Since this anime IS about building up a boring heroine into an interesting one, our main girl: Kano Megumi, is absolutely charming as the female lead. One can argue that she ISN'T the main heroine, but come on, no other girl is as interesting or intriguing as she is thus far. She's interesting because she's probably the most normal girl that you could ever find in an anime...ever. You really want to see the other characters size her up to become a more appealing character in the eyes of the otaku...wanting to see her evolve: that's kind of exciting. Of course, let's not forget the good visual style "Saekano" has going for it. Comedy wise, it works well enough, while the show is not drop dead funny, it has some serviceable jokes and good laughs along the way.
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| An unfinished heroine can't just go walking around! |
Aki Tomoya is an extreme otaku that's living on his own. Despite being a high school student he juggles multiple part time jobs at once to afford all the otaku merchandise he has at home. He is also extremely passionate about being an otaku, trying to spread its culture with fellow school mates in school. Instead of being rejected, despised, or hated upon by his school mates, they eventually came to accept him as who he is and open themselves up to his shenanigans. The fellow hosts anime screening events in school and stuff, he's like the anime messiah in his academy. He also owns a popular blog that has him reviewing and talking about games/anime. He is one of the most popular guys in his school. One day though, due to a certain encounter with a girl over the holidays, his inner creator awoken as he decided to create an eroge to shake the entire otaku world. For this, he needs 2 brilliant minds in school, the prodigal script writer Kasumigaoka Utaha and 18+ hentai artist Sawamura Spencer Eriri as his personal aids, the scenario writer and artist for his game. He also runs into the very girl he met during the holidays that inspired the game, an extremely normal, plain and boring girl: Kano Megumi. The 4 set out to create an eroge that Tomoya claims to be the best int he world.
"Saekano" manages to hit a lot of high points and does well as a RomCom experience that's slightly better than most of its competition in recent seasons. Its half-assed conclusion only serves to strengthen the fact that a sequel is incoming, and I'll wait for that one to fully judge the series as a whole. As it stands though, its a good enough harem experience that stands slightly above its competition.
