Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Ah, thank goodness. I was fearing that Henderson would end up ruining the entire series, but thankfully I was wrong. This episode returned back to the darker roots of this series, and was absolutely nothing like the past Marysville arc, and it’s a great thing to see that this series is attempting to go back to the quality of the first ten episodes. In this episode, we return back to Bert, who is being approached by one of his colleagues, who’s planning to rob the place he works at. He only finds out at the last possible moment, but at that point he’s already broken into the office and stolen the key to the valuable goods of the train station, with nothing there really is to do about it. The episode ends as he is suspected to be the one to have robbed it and gets taken away. This episode really showed that Bert is very easily influenced by the sight of money, and that even though he sobered up, he still hates his current life and wants to be able to spend money on something nice. His biggest sin however was trying to involve Anne with it. She probably is the member of his family that he feels the most comfortable with, but in this episode he really overdid it. As for Henderson… okay, I’m not going to lie. As much as I hate that woman, she really had her best episode here in which she proposed to Eggman (who looks really different with his beard and hair shaved off!). I’d love to see her move away to a different town, but it’s good enough to see that she’s going to stop teaching and instead leave things to the new teacher. Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>

Haha! Finally an episode that doesn’t focus on Henderson, and it also was much better than the previous episodes and much less annoying. Instead, this episode develops Mildred, and pushes her character into a different direction. A nice idea, and I especially liked the moments in which nothing was said, yet we all could see how Mildred is longing for attention. Unfortunately, this episode again played out like a soap opera. The moment in which Mildred came running to Anne and the two made up was cheesy at best. This is the kind of drama you’d expect from a teenaged romantic comedy, not the World Masterpiece Theatre for God’s sake. I’m not sure how many people were following the summaries I wrote for this series, but I’m going to quit doing them. This series simply isn’t good enough for that, especially since I’m now also writing detailed summaries on GA. I can only hope that the cheese isn’t going to hop over to the Thomas family. This series is in a way like Ie Naki Ko Remi: some parts were really cheesy, but others made a huge impact on me. The big difference is that Remi was an adventure series, while Anne is slice of life. But still, Henderson is much more annoying than the worst character of Remi (which was the character that the big bad guy developed into; in the end he just became a bit too stereotypical for his own good). She’s now reached the point with me that any scene she appears in becomes annoying. Even though the past few episodes have been dramatic, you can see that this series is building up to some of the more darker parts. We know that Anne is going to have to leave the Thomas family at one point, and arrive at a new family of hers. That’s where I have my hopes on for this series. With a bit of luck she’ll also move away to a different city so that that Henderson will also disappear. At the moment, the creators are going to have to put in a lot of development to get Anne to the character she was at the start of Anne of Green Gables, so let’s see whether the creators can do this, or they become too caught up in their own cheese. Rating: (Enjoyable)]]>

Oh for god’s sake! The start of this episode really spelled out promise: with an episode title of “Love’s Course”, and a start of the episode that showed a lot of Eggman, this seemed like a great episode in which we finally get some in-depth look at his back-story. But that turned out to be pretty much a false hope when HENDERSON butted in again. This episode wasn’t about Eggman’s past love, it was about Henderson FALLING IN LOVE with Eggman. What a let-down! Henderson has really turned into the Saji Crossroad of this series, and I’m sure that this series would have been much better if it wasn’t for her constant whining and cheesy morals. Sure, the episode around Randolf would have been a tad annoying, but at least he managed to grow into an interesting character after that. Henderson just continues to be downright obnoxious, she continues to overshadow all of the other characters with her cheesy, dull and uninteresting problems and she sticks out in this series like sore thumb. And to think that usually it’s the kids that are annoying! Henderson: you’re a grown adult, for god’s sake! Grow the bloody hell up and move far away from this series! I really don’t feel like summarizing this episode. The reason why I started doing these summaries was because I loved Porfy no Nagai Tabi, and I wanted other people who had problems understanding the raws to have a few pointers. Porfy really was an incredibly well crafted series, with imaginative and yet realistic situations that Porfy was thrown in. It’s a shame that Konnichiwa Anne couldn’t live up to its standards, but at least the Thomas family made this series worthwhile in its own way. The focus on Henderson starting from the Marysville arc has completely destroyed my fanboyism for this series and I really don’t feel like writing an incredibly long summary about that woman anymore. There was one point I liked in this episode though: Anne’s hilariously horrible letter in which she pretended to be Henderson. It really looked like the handwriting of a kid who just learned to write letters and you have to give it to the creators: they really did their research in how little kids behave. I just wish that they also did this for teachers. *headdesk* Rating: — (Lacking)]]>

Okay, so that play turned out to be utterly terrible, but then again that was most likely the intention of the creators. I don’t want to know how stupid I looked when I performed as a kid in the plays we had in elementary school.

Anyway, this episode starts with a little recap of what happened in the previous episode, with the play getting cancelled and Henderson temporarily suspended and all. Anne overhears this, and tells it to the others who are pretty shocked. Mildred starts feeling guilty, and when Micheal notes that it was indeed her whining that caused her mother to overreact, she really gets defensive.

Henderson then calls them to class, with the message that the play is getting called off, and she’s suspended. She then continues with some boring speech about morals and chasing your dreams that I don’t want to summarize.

The new teacher then arrives and takes over, though we never get to see him teach. After class, everyone is down because the play is cancelled. They’re thinking of throwing away the props they made, but that would be a waste as well. Anne then suggests that even though the play was cancelled for school, they could still perform it in order to show the adults that Henderson is right.

Meanwhile, Mildred tries to talk to Henderson but runs away a the last minute. Henderson tries to stop her, and since she knows that Mildred’s anger at the role decisions was what caused the play to be cancelled, she tries to make Mildred feel better, instead of scolding her. This doesn’t work however, because she never seemed to know that Mildred was jealous of how much attention Henderson gave to Anne instead of her. Mildred breaks down, and when Henderson tries to hug her, she runs away to her parents.

We then see Henderson as she drops by Eggman’s place, probably for moral support. What follows is yet another boring speech on morals that I again don’t want to summarize.

The next day, the kids are thinking of a place they can perform their play, since the school has become off-limits. Randolf then comes with the idea: at the church! Yeah. They quickly gather everyone and the necessary props and costumes. Anne runs off to Eggman to tell him about this plan, when it seems that Henderson has been bugging him again in her worries of what to do next. And so she learns of the plans to continue the play, even though it was supposed to be a secret for her to not get her in trouble.

At the church, everyone is in costume, but at the same time they’re too scared to go on stage. Nobody really has the courage when the moment comes there, but Mildred arrives and saves the day by announcing the play to everyone sitting in the church. Reluctantly everyone arrives, but everyone is way too scared to read their lines. Anne however is different and she starts reciting until Mildred’s parents arrive and see what’s going on.

What follows is YET ANOTHER boring speech on morals that eventually gets enough funds for the library, and I again don’t want to summarize it.

As much as I’m a fan of the World Masterpiece Theatre series, I do have to admit that they can be divided into two categories: First Tier and Second Tier. the first tier is everything the franchise is supposed to be: incredibly realistic characters and they stand on their own as unique and touching series. Examples of those (that I watched anyway) are Perrine Monogatari, Anne of Green Gables, Little Princess Sara, Les Miserables and Porfy no Nagai Tabi. These are the series that made me fall in love with this wonderful franchise.

Then there is the second tier, which can usually be recognized by one thing: cheese. Perhaps the characters aren’t fleshed out enough, they don’t mix well with the storyline, or the direction is simply flawed. Either way, the dramatic scenes are very hard to buy and are laughable, rather than charming and touching. The Trapp Monogatari for example is a bit too full of teenaged angst (especially Hedwig delivered them with buckets at the time), Ie Naki Ko had its very generic finale and Anne of Green Gables unfortunately also belongs to this category after the Marysville arc.

And believe me, these series are nowhere near bad: they achieve things that a lot of series couldn’t even hope of achieving: Trapp, despite the angst, has some of the most realistic angst out there. Ie Naki Ko was incredibly heart-warming at times and did have its moment of brilliance, and Konnichiwa Anne had its first ten episodes. However, the standard for the World Masterpiece Theatre is high. These series are enjoyable, but nowhere near the masterpieces of the First Tier.

In this episode, it was Mildred who surprised me the most. I’m happy to see that she finally managed to completely cast her shell away as a rip-off from the Emily of the New Moon universe, and established herself as a character of her own. I also liked that scene in which Anne tried to tell Eggman about the play, while she didn’t know that Henderson was listening.

It would have been nice and all, but what really bugged me in this episode was that the moral lessons just WOULDN’T SHUT THE HELL UP. The creators really tried to shove their cheesy morals down our throats over and over. I know that it’s supposed to be a children’s show and all, but I doubt that even kids are going to appreciate being told these life lessons. What made it even worse was the downright cheesy reaction of all the adults who were at the church. I mean, people were living in a strict Christian environment, as shown in the early episodes of Anne of Green Gables. I find it hard to believe that the library issue would be solved that easily. It was of course awesome to see the kids trying to gather their courage, but they would probably just have been sent away before they would have been able to come up with that cheesy speech of theirs.

And it’s not like this series can’t produce good filler episodes either. The episode in the beginning of this series, in which Anne was invited to play with that rich spoiled little kid was downright awesome. Very witty and it had a great characterization. The past few episodes have just been dull and boring due to Henderson’s moral ramblings that just went on and on and on. And on.
Rating: – (Disappointing)

This show is overplaying Anne’s thirst for learning. In a way, the creators made this show too “Japanese”. More on that later, first the summary:

The episode starts with Anne, reading a book at Eggman’s while Eggman is picking Tomatoes, and she’s getting impressed with it as always. We then cut to a scene in which Henderson talks with a couple of the children after class about books. One of them (Michael) wants to be a newspaper editor, and so Henderson gives him a book on the matter. He’s very happy with this, since they don’t have any books with them at home.

Henderson then passionately continues on how books are going to be very important for the class. Anne then thanks Henderson for lending her the book of King Arthur (it took me a while to figure out that “aasaa” stood for “Arthur”; damned Katakana), and asks whether she can loan it again. Her classmates then get angry because they too want to read the book, and rip it apart in the process.

The problem is that there are hardly any books around, so that’s why Henderson suggests to start a school library, and therefore she asks the children to bring some books from their homes. Unfortunately, nobody has any except for the book by Robert Browning from Anne. Mildred’s father has a ton of books, but her father doesn’t find it necessary for her to be reading books, since she’s going to get married to a rich guy anyway.

Since there are so few books, Anne suggests Henderson to pay a visit to Eggman, who she reckons is bound to have some idea. Eggman still acts rather grumpy against anyone who isn’t Anne. Eggman is disinclined at first, but in the end he becomes friendly with Henderson, and suggests that they should host a play in order to collect the funds needed to buy books.

Eggman writes the script, while Henderson is busy dividing the roles. Randolf wants to play Arthur, while Anne and Mildred both want to play the female heroine of Guineviere (however you spell that), so auditions on that are going to happen the next day. Eggman meanwhile managed to rewrite the script into some strange fantasy story, and for some reason Henderson loves it.

The class loves the script too, and so everyone spends the rest of the day rehearsing the script for the parts that they want to audition, while Henderson draws up a poster for the play, which gathers quite a bit of attention. The next day, Anne seems to have not just memorized her own lines, but also those of the entire script and so gets admired by the whole class.

During the auditions, everyone does well apart from Mildred, who gets a black-out because she loses her cheat sheet. So yeah, Anne gets to play the role of Guineviere, Randolf becomes Arthur, and Mildred becomes a little fairy. Obviously, the latter is angry and disappointed. She complains about it to her father and mother. Her mother then gets angry at the teacher for organizing a play while she should be teaching, and so the episode ends with the entire play getting blown off because her mother used her influence and refuses to listen.

I’d really wish that the Marysville arc is going to end soon so that we can get back to what’s really important: the Thomas family, but it’s certain that we’re still going to bet at least three episodes about them: one about Mildred, one about the play and one about Eggman’s dead daughter. It’s a bloody shame: the first arc of this series was a true emotional roller-coaster ride, but none of the newly introduced characters in Marysville are interesting, and most of them are just Kaze no Shoujo Emily rip-offs.

I’ve really been trying to not compare this series to the original Akage no Anne series, since that would just give me unreasonable expectations, and for the most part this worked. However, there is one thing that really bugs me: Anne’s thirst for knowledge. I have so many issues with that, I hardly know where to start.

The reason why I meant that this series is too “Japanese” at the beginning of this post is the following, and do correct me if I’m wrong about this, but the children here are way too obsessed with learning and books. Perhaps Japanese kids are like this: obsessed with learning. However, Anne is SEVEN. When I was that age, all I cared about was playing and having fun and school was boring. Only when I entered high school (or whatever the school is that you enter at the age of twelve) did I start getting interested in learning, and I was a real geek back then.

The thing is that at the moment, this series doesn’t feel in canon with the original Anne of Green Gables. What strikes me the most was how Anne at the beginning of the series indeed was a huge talker, but all she talked about was girly things, like puffed sleeves, rainbows and scenery. Not once did she mention her thirst for knowledge: that only became apparent gradually throughout the series, when she developed into the perfectionist we came to love. The Anne right here is completely obsessed with knowledge, so the second half of this series is going to have to include some really weird development in order to get that one right.

Als, probably the most annoying thing about this episode: ANNE IS NOT THE NEXT EINSTEIN. I mean, seriously: she’s six or seven years old; what the heck is she doing reading advanced books and stuff: she should be too busy catching up with everyone, doing her endless repetitions of basic summations and getting a good grasp of the written language. I know that she learned a bit from Elisa, but learning really doesn’t go that easily. She worked really hard in the Akage no Anne series. If she really were a naturally born genius, she would have blown away Gilbert Blythe’s efforts without any problems. The way she completely memorized the entire script in less than one week, while taking care of the housework at the same time is very hard to believe.

I praised this series for how it so naturally portrayed a bunch of little children. And really, Horace and Edward really feel like bunch of small brats. Anne also started out really well and down to earth, but I think that this series screws up at the character-development: the only well developed characters here are Bert and Johanna. The development of especially Mildred and Randolf feels superficial. And Anne… the creators seem to be forgetting that little kids don’t have the biggest attention span, which is something that the first bunch of episodes did really well, but completely disappeared once Anne became obsessed with learning and reading.
Rating: – (Disappointing)