Otaku Review

Akikan - Episode 1
Premiere Date: 1/7/08
Studio: Brains Base

Despite being better than I thought it would be, a weak lead makes ‘Akikan’ a little hard to swallow.

The Story

In this fantasy comedy, Daichi Kakeru is the high school student hero. He’s sixteen, a virgin, collects limited edition juice and soda cans as a hobby and has a dream of being able to find the woman of his dreams to live with and have sex with on a constant basis. On his way home one night, he purchases a can of melon soda but soon he discovers though that this particular can of soda is special. As in, whenever he takes a drink from it the can turns into a beautiful blonde girl.

The can is called an ‘Akikan’ and she has decided that since he was the one who gave her a body through his carbon dioxide filled kiss, she will live with him. His life isn’t going to be that easy though; she has no interest in being cast in his sex fantasy and there is a member of the Department of the Economy who wants to have the can and the girl for his own purposes.

Good and the Bad

Going into this first episode, I tried not to have too many expectations. All I really was hoping to see was a quirky fantasy romance with a plucky hero who meets a beautiful girl by accident. What I got instead was not quite that but close enough. Starting with the story, ‘Akikan’ feels like it’s reaching almost right away.

The set up for the story is almost instant with the key piece of dialogue being Kakeru saying ‘If only a cute, gentle girl would fall onto my lap,’ as he takes a drink of the melon soda for the first time. Right on cue, Melon appears and suddenly we have a story. Perhaps if the set up there had been a little less obvious it would have been easier to get into but instead it comes across as rushed.

It’s certainly a bit more original than many of the other fantasy romances that have come out over the last few years but is it too original? The story itself isn’t the issue with this first episode though. Over the course of twenty minutes, about half a dozen characters are introduced through various short introductions. The lead for this series is introduced as slightly sex obsessed; we know this because as soon as Melon comes into his life he starts thinking of all sorts of ways that he can train her to become his slave and that’s where I’m torn almost right away.

On one hand, you have to admit that a high school boy who wants to get laid would be ecstatic to have a cute blonde suddenly appear in his life and decide that she’s going to live with him. And it is nice to have a hero who doesn’t fall into the typical mold of the geeky, shy boy who freezes up around girls. On the other hand though, his reaction to her makes it terribly difficult to like him.

The base reaction to Melon (wanting to ‘train’ her) makes sense. All throughout the episode though, Kakeru learns the rules of how to keep Melon alive and proceeds to use all of them against her in various ways. How is the audience supposed to root for a hero that treats the heroine so poorly almost right away and for such selfish reasons?

Moving deeper into the story, the writing and dialogue in the first episode manages to stay entertaining throughout the entire episode. Relying mostly on physical comedy and sex jokes, the episode is always entertaining but never quite funny. Throughout the episode, I constantly found myself intrigued by what I saw but I really can’t remember any real instances where it made me laugh.

On the plus side, Brains Base did a great job with the animation. All of the characters and backgrounds in this episode really come across looking very crisp with bright colors and lots of little details for the audience to notice. In particular, fans should pay attention to the little strand of hair that turns into a heart on top of Najime’s head whenever she talks to Kakeru. It’s such a small detail but still very cute.

Music

The preview airing did not include the opening or ending themes and so I will save commentary on those for the second episode. The background music though really comes across strongly. As usual, piano themes are used to really highlight the particularly emotional scenes of the episode and had these pieces been accompanied by stronger dialogue, the music would have a wonderful affect on the viewer. In the early stages though, it almost feels like a waste to have such wonderful music attached to such weak characters but one can only assume that it’s going to get better from here.

Cast

Taking on the lead roles, Jun Fukuyama and Sayaka Narita had their work cut out for them as Kakeru and Melon respectively. Unfortunately neither one of them comes across particularly well here. Fukuyama’s portrayal of Kakeru is weak at best and annoying at worst here always delivering his lines so over the top that it is almost distracting.

Narita delivers a much stronger performance of the two. Melon is certainly not your typical heroine as there are no soft sides to her to begin with. Right away she is brash, violent and loud and Narita delivers the dialogue accordingly. With this first episode only delivering basic rules regarding Melon and how to keep her alive though, audiences are going to have to give her performance a much longer lead time before any sort of real opinion can be formed about her.

Overall

As mentioned earlier, I knew the basic story coming into ‘Akikan’ but all I really wanted was to be entertained and this opening episode accomplishes that. It’s certainly not the most brilliant opening to a series that anyone will ever see. There is, however, enough here to keep people coming back for more. Who is this mysterious gay older government agent who likes to hit on and seduce younger men and what does he want with Melon? What about his assistant? What’s her deal? And what exactly is the history of Melon and the steel soda can? There are still lots of questions left to be answered and the debut episode has at least left me with enough curiosity to find out more.

Final Grade: B-

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