Akane Maniax OVA 01

The exciting “sequel” to Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien opens up with transfer student Gouda Jouji arriving to beat up the whole baseball team and coach. He’s all fired for next season, but he is a 3rd year and so he’ll never get a chance to lead the team to great victory. This looks to be the great tragedy of Akane Maniax, as now he has all his time and energy to devote to being a pest. Lo and behold, on his first day in class he is introduced to class representative Suzumiya Akane and he is in love. He immediately proposes to her in front of everyone, and embarrasses her greatly. She’s not too into the whole lovey dovey thing at the moment, and there is a shot of her preparing to delete Takayuki’s message (asking her to congratulate Haruka on leaving the hospital, but apologizing for not being able to meet with Haruka) on her cell phone. Gouda tries the ole one umbrella scheme, but Akane turns on him like he was Mizuki for bantering around the word “love” so carelessly. Gouda consults the uber fanservicey Kouzuki-sensei for advice and scores a tour of the school with Akane. He completely blunders this by being crass about that evil tree on the hill. Later, in the meeting to plan the cultural festival, Gouda blows yet another opportunity when he interrupts a weird competition between (Marimo) Jinguuji-sensei and Kouzuki-sensei (Marimo backs down as usual due to her lack of… self-confidence) to propose that they rename the festival as the Akane festival, complete with service. Both Akane and her buddy Chizuru go off on him, and it looks like next time Akane will try to exile Gouda to Chizuru’s class.

When I watched this OVA the first time, I felt a mix of disappointment, horror, and dismay. But upon reconsideration, I realized there might still be hope. After all, the original KimiNozo had an absolutely cliché first episode, before the wheels all fell off the bus and it became the depressing, dramatic series that I loved. Then I realized that we are only one traumatic Gouda mauling away from a repeat of this roller coaster ride. To be honest, I hate Gouda. He is the epitome of stupid shounen-ness, and he clearly never watched the original KimiNozo. His delusions about that weird Godain mech and a katana wielding Akane were slightly amusing, but he does not belong in this show. Unless he is going to get hit by a truck or something. Even his weird thick line art seems out of place compared to the normal width line art of the rest of the characters. The rest of the new characters were pretty good, and I enjoyed getting to see more of Akane, since she seems just as complex as she was in KimiNozo. Her natural cheery nature is clearly warring with her deep angst over her sister, and Gouda is not a welcome intruder. I was elated when Chizuru finally came out and said exactly what I was thinking: stop being a jackass because you don’t even know a thing about Akane or what she’s been through. Still, for the show to bring out strong feelings in me is a promising sign. I think I will eagerly be anticipating the rest of the episodes to see if Gouda gets put into a coma or something as soon as Akane starts to like him.

So overall, a pretty decent episode. I want more cameos! The production value was generally high, but there were a few moments when Gouda was very poorly drawn. The music is ok, but nothing special. I think I liked the ED more than the OP. I’m torn between hoping that they will recapture the lightning in a bottle melodrama of KimiNozo and just enjoying the light comedic ride. I also imagine that this OVA would be difficult to understand/appreciate if you have not seen the original KimiNozo.