For the series that had the most hard to remember title of the past summer season, I was expecting something like a fairy tale story with some moe elements. Instead, we got a moe story with some fairy tale elements. Obviously that was a bit of a disappointment, but it’s still a pretty decent series.
I think the best way to describe this series is that it’s generally well executed, but it has a number of things that ended up holding it down. JC Staff really put some of their best animators on this series, which really results in a show that is chock full of interesting animation, with rich and detailed movements. It’s well directed, the dialogue is also pretty well written and presented. The characters are lively and are portrayed as such. At these aspects, it’s a very charming series.
Unfortunately, this is one of those series where it’s really the plot and content that hurts it the most, in which your mileage may vary depending on how much you can stand moe and harem stereotypes, because this show is chock full of it. Maids, tsunderes, boob jokes, punks, magicians, popularity contests, fireworks, pool episodes, you name it and this show probably has it. This is great for if you love these kinds of things, but personally I was rather annoyed with all of the stock situations that this series came up with, even though it often provided some sort of twist or creative twist to their cases. You can see that this series likes to be tongue in cheek about its subject material, and it’s very much a homage to various moe stereotypes, but for my tastes it wasn’t tongue in cheek enough.
The presentation is, like mentioned above, pretty solid, though there are some strange and notable exceptions. You know the good comedies, who even when a joke falls flat remain fun and interesting to watch. Ookami doesn’t have that: when a joke falls flat, it really falls flat, and this show often has a tendency to repeat those jokes over and over again. The most notable here are the boob jokes (there are way too many of those here, and they just refuse to leave), but the narrator also has some moments in which she thinks she’s funny while she actually isn’t.
This is also one of those series that doesn’t try to hide the fact that it’s based on a still on-going series of light novels. It just ends. There is no real conclusion, and the final episodes fail miserably in their attempts to at least have some sort of climax by introducing way too many new side-plots and turning the big bad guy of the series into an evil genius with huge holes in his plans. And to the rest of the villains of this series, the creators aren’t really kind either: most of them just end up as one-dimensional punching bags for the lead characters, so they fail to introduce any kind of tension.
And yet… despite all that I said here… I do kindof like this show. The lead characters are pretty charming and nicely characterized, and all of the protagonists have their own backstory and personality. The episodic nature of this series prevents it from dragging on and the fairy tale roots of the series aren’t really a core of the series, but they do provide the series with a nice amount of symbolism which really helped this series. It is indeed a show focused heavily on moe stereotypes, but I have watched tons of blander moe shows.
| Storytelling: | 7/10 – Solid, though a bit too reliant on stereotypes at times. |
| Characters: | 8/10 – The good guys are interesting to watch, the bad guys not so much. |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 – Excellent animation, I have to admit. |
| Setting: | 7/10 – Too many moe stereotypes that will turn off those who aren’t interested in them. |
Suggestions:
– GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class
– Kannagi
–
Just Finished watching the last ep…It felt kinda out of place…No sense of closure whatsoever…But I wasn´t expecting much more…
I enjoyed the exellent animated fights the most, but the moe stuff did annoyed me more than once…
Luckylly the characters remained interesting enough so I finished it…Specially the President…
Talk about “series you hated that got high rated by **gels”. Well this is one.
I fail appointing any whatsoever good side to this show. It’s neither an harem nor moe, as it’s sure different from your average harem anime like (i.e.) Sekirei or moe anime like (i.e.) Kanamemo. It even fails citing fairy tales, as the citation are just bad and limited to the chars or tied to the plot in a very roundabout way. I mean, just look at how they made it the rabbit vs turtle fable into anime. It’s hard to tell when the actual race turned into a contest and when they had to force the rabbit image on *forgot char’s name*’s image as a child to let her resemble a turtle anyway… Bad citations and pointless at that. Just skip allo of those citation and the anime wouldn’t change a bit.
Do you want a real example on how to deal with fables? Look this: http://psgels.net/category/finished-series/otogi-juushi-akazukin/
That is the way to retell fable in anime’s way.
I usually judge animes by a large variety of factors, but as bad as they can turn out i save them if they have at least ONE good point. (put aside i bash them for the opposite reason too: having too many good points but ruining it all for ONE bad one. See Geass for this). I mean I’m able to save Strike Lolis even if it’s a loli panty fanservice party just fopr its concept!
But what about Ookami?
– Chars are flat stereotypes and bad at citation.
– plot is non-existent (except thet failed attempt with the white hair guy that *poofed* away really quick)
– moe is one sided and misdirected to ookami alone. (let aside the fart witch… is that moe?)
– fanservice is luckily toned down and being mostly verbal at the level of boob jokes. (i anticipate fanservice is the most prominent part of this anime, but not intended as a sexual fanservice. The anime as a whole is a great big ball of fanservice. Keep reading…)
– commedy is just bad. Too many overused stupid jokes and forced situations. And please, let the narrator be quiet for 10 seconds!
If you forget the plot (easy to do as there isn’t any to begin with), the citations, the chars, the fanservce and the moe what does jump to the eye? Ookami. She’s the focal point of the anime. It’s all made up to support her image. No plot, no story to begin with but something like a figurine to sell.
YES THE’YRE SELLING YOU MISS OOKAMI-SAN.
I’d rather think an anime has to convey a story and chars are part of it, not the opposite way around. This anime is a farce made to appeal otaku’s low instinct to sell you an image. As long as people sleeps and stomach this stuff, anime won’t rise again.
I’d only recommend this one to hardcore fans of the moe/tsundere thing. It was just so.. bland and insubstantial. It just reinforces my amazement at why studios feel that shows like this deserve such a big budget. I know, I know.. marketability.. but still.
I started watching this show once I heard about the narrator. I thought that a funny narrator is not used often in anime and has some great potential for humor. Sadly the narrator here spends most of her time pointing out the obvious and making comments on bust size. It’s a shame really. I would have preferred it if the narrator acted like the guys from Science mystery theater 3000 and mocked the flaws and moe of the show. I would have been brilliant!
The little red riding hood character was wasted potential too. She was often described as evil but never really did anything to show this side of herself. It would have been great to show her as the “Evil genius” character pulling off master plans with a “Just as planned” face.
All and all I didn’t expect much from this show so I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a nice time waster but nothing more than that. They can’t do much about the story as they are following light novels but they could have booted up the comedy to make up for the story’s shortcomings.
This review pretty much reflects my opinion of the series, and I appreciate you summing it up so well.
I really liked the characters, the animation, the setting, and the character design, all of it, but I really wish this show (or I suppose I should say the original story author) had made better use of it to tell a more original and interesting story.
So much wasted potential, but I still love drawing sketches of Ookami and Ringo. -.-
I was disappointed by the stereotypes and repeated use of bad gags. The ending was also weak, but for some reason I still found the series okay.
Did anyone notice Echizen Ryouma from Prince of Tennis in the first episode, in the background where the girl says that “i would come watch him sometimes”?