Anime: Aishiteru ze Baby

This series looked promising, really. But it turned out to be a complete disaster, terribly predictable... a waste of time. It's not even funny. [br][br]The animation is awful. Everything seems to be happening in slow
motion. Characters also react slowly to events (e.g. almost any dialog
involving Yuzu, Kippei or Kokro). It goes like: Character A line, pause of 3 seconds, character A line, pause of 5 seconds, character B line... And so forth and so on. Yuzu's voice is irritating. Kokoro's
voice conveys the same feelings of a robot. This anime relays heavily
on the "poor-little-girl" factor. It's just boring.[br]
[br]
To top it all, the Openig theme, the Ending theme, and the original sound track are painful to the ear.

just to add on to what the other reviewers have said.....aishiteruze baby is a good anime....but i have no idea why the people did not complete the show.....it is left hanging in the air.....they dont tell you what is going to happen to Yuzuyu...will she go back to her mom or any hints...for those who feel this way and want to know what happens after this....GO READ THE MANGA which is now complete....i just finished reading it.....it wrapped things up very nicely....so i highly recommend the manga to people who loved this series.....for those who think the anime is different from the manga it is not.....it followed the anime closely and it is easy to find the missing parts

(Writers note: If you read this review, RATE this review. Authors thrive on feedback, whether it be a simple happy face, or an in-depth critique.)

Summary/Outline: Aishiteruze Baby is a rather simple tale. Kippei seems like your average high school pretty boy. Women swarm around him, yet he has no girlfriend, preferring the attention of many. Everything changes however, when he is given guardianship of Yuzuyu, his 5 year old cousin. Yuzuyu's father has passed away, and her mother has abandoned her, believing herself unfit to raise a daughter. Thus begins a slice of life dramedy that will leave you laughing and tearful, often at the same time.

First, the technical aspects: I hate to admit it, but the animation is... awful. Really awful. The drawings are excellent, but when they try to move around inside the frame, it's often choppy and odd looking. It felt like someone was shifting cardboard cut-outs around on top of a painted background. Thankfully, everything else about this series is near perfect, most notable being the music. When you notice it, it's beautiful, like the opening and ending songs. When it's relegated to the background, it adds something to every scene. I'm downloading the soundtrack as I type this, if that tells you anything.

It should be said that Aishiteruze Baby's strong points far outweigh its weak animation. I liken the feeling to an old video game, like Secret of Mana. The visuals are terrible by today's standards, but the gameplay and soundtrack are so good that it just doesn't matter how it looks. After 5 minutes of play, you've been sucked in by the superior story and rock solid gameplay. Such is the feeling I got while watching Aishiteruze Baby.

I mentioned during the Utena debacle that I was going to look for it's anti-thesis to cheer me up. Well, I couldn't have made a better choice than Aishiteruze Baby. For one thing, there are no villians. Any villainous character, such as the mother who strikes her child, are humanized and/or healed within the span of an episode or two. There is quite a large cast, filled entirely with sympathetic characters. Very little time is spent on the supporting cast, however. The series focuses mainly on Yuzuyu, the 5 year old, Kippei, her 17 year old guardian, and his girlfriend Kokoro.

Thanks to an excellent cast of voice actors, as well as some exceptional writers, these three main characters are always believable and interesting. I never felt for a second that Yuzuyu was anything other than an adorable little 5 year old pre-schooler who wishes her mother would come home. Seeing the world through a 5 year olds eyes is one of the more original ideas in Aishiteruze Baby, and one of it's greatest strengths. Yuzuyu is an absolute joy to watch and listen to. She asks questions that a 5 year old might ask. She acts as a 5 year old acts. When you see her asleep on the living room floor, or curled up with Kippei in the park, your heart melts. It's like watching a kitten with a ball of yarn; simultaneously heartwarming and funny. She is easily the best character in the series. She also has the most screen time, which is something I've thankful for. New characters will pop in from time to time, leaving an indelible mark on the personalities and lives of the main characters. The writers for this series did an excellent job expressing Yuzuyu's innocence. How the smallest of events can have a powerful effect on a 5 year old's mind, for better or worse.

Kippei is the first male lead I've seen that, I believe, not only deserved to have women swoon around him, but you can see and understand why they do. He's kind, charismatic, funny, and original. He's also doing an excellent job of caring for his 5 year old cousin, which wins him a lot of brownie points with the ladies.

Kokoro is not your typical high school Shoujo girlfriend, either. She has a very distinct personality that sometimes clashes with Kippei's. She's very calm and reserved, rarely smiling, expressing emotion through her eyes, and through small variations in her voice. Her mother passed away when she was 6, and her father has asked her to move out so that he can be alone with his new wife. Another strength of Aishiteruze Baby is that we the audience are not expected to rely soley on this information. We can see the effect in Kokoro's character, the way she talks and acts. Someone who has experienced great loss in her short life, and is dealing with it in her own way.

While Aishiteruze Baby is mainly a sweet comedy, it also tackles some very serious themes, ranging from child abuse, to the more complicated aspects of life without your parents. For instance, a relative of Kippei's considers suicide after suffering through prolonged, extreme emotional abuse at school. Yuzuyu has trouble coping with her mother abandoning her. Kokoro, forced to live alone, has to deal with the inevitable loneliness of her situation. These themes play out as great drama in-between the smiles and laughs of the rest of the series.

I greatly enjoyed Aishiteruze Baby, and would recommend it to anyone but a die hard fan of CGI. The animation can be a bit off putting in the early episodes until you get used to it, or at least until the story grabs you and sucks you in. Will Yuzuyu's mother return? Will Kippei ever settle down with Kokoro? Will Kokoro ever go home? Watch and find out. You won't be dissapointed.

Animation:
I felt that quality of the animation was alright. About average compared to other series I've seen. There's a lot of bright vivid colors and such throughout the series. But there were also a lot of flashbacks and "touchy-happy-scenes" where they used a washed out version of their colors. The number of these scenes started becoming noticable, however. (I suppose they flowed with the story, it started to distract me in any case.) Overall, the animation was smooth and fairly consistent throughout most of the series. (They also had an occasional switch-up. They changed the animation style in a handful of scenes which were done mostly for humor purposes. And they were done well, in my opinion, so I don't have any complaints about that.)

Sound:
They have nice soft J-pop songs for the OP and the ED. (I really liked the OP and ED. I felt that it fit nicely with the series, and watched both every episode.) Background music was also nice and did a good job setting mood. A lot of classical, piano, and that "happy-afternoon-walk" kind of music that they play whenever people are having an afternoon walk in anime. =) (I have no clue what it's called... but I hope you know what I mean.) Most of the time, the BGM fit well with the current scene, although there were some points where I felt that the atmosphere in a handful situations did not correlate at all with the music. The music in itself still created a strong mood, but in those cases, I felt the mood should've been set to something else. (But then again, I'm artistically impaired. So, it may have been meant to be that way. I just found it distracting.)

Story (Sorry if I sound too vague. I just don't want to spoil the story for anyone...):
Alright, this was interesting.... It seems like the way the series played out, there was one main issue per episode (or per 2 episdodes) that the main characters have to deal with (I will call these episodic issues). Meanwhlie, there's this other storyline that's kinda in the background throughout the whole thing (I will call this the mainline issues.) Each of the issues are very unique and very well done. Although, I can't personally relate to any of these situations but they seemed to situations that are or could be experienced in real-life. You can see the effects of X on every member of that family. (X being some issue that the family or a family member has to deal with.) The genre includes comedy and drama. I definately feel that it leans much more toward drama than comedy. It has a serious tone throughout most of the series. The comedic portions of it are usually somewhat suttle (but some of them are just hilarious in any case.) The episodic issues are introduced and pretty much resolved at the end of the episode, if not, the next episode. It almost seems like you can watch random espisodes and not miss too much or get too lost after watching the first few in order. Meanwhile, mainline issue keeps resurfacing throughout the series, but I never felt that it ever gets resolved. So, I'm kinda irked about that. It seems to me that they put much more emphasis on the episodic issues rather than the mainline one. Because the episodic issues didn't feel like filler episodes at all. So, overall, i felt the storyline(s) was(were) done very well. The framework it uses is different from what I'm used to, but still enjoyable. (Geez, I blab too much....)

Character:
This was also interesting... Kuzu is very cute. =P Alright, now for the rest... Overall, I felt that all the characters were done very well. Each has a distinct personality, their own struggles, and you can see growth in them as well. All the chracters seem to be very intelligent most of the time (which is ia huge plus in my opinion because I'm sick of characters who do stupid things all the time in school/comedy/romance animes.) However, some of the characters don't seem too believable or realistic. For example, I felt Kuzu was extremely mature for her age. Another quam that I have is that there were times when I think to myself about one of the characters, "Hey, that's a pretty swell thing he just did." And then in a later episode on I'm thinking, "YOU IDIOT!!! WHY'D YOU DO THAT??!?!" So, it's like, maturing, maturing, maturing, BACKSLIDING, maturing, maturing, etc. But there are a lot of characters that were made to be pretty believable, and I found myself sympathizing with a bunch of them. So, overall, character design/development was pretty good.

Value + Enjoyment (I'm lumping these together, I have difficulty distinguishing one from the other):
Overall, I think it is a good series. There's a lot of heart-warming feelings and other emotions that I got out of watching it. Character and storyline was good. Another thing I really liked about this series is that it isn't a series that's all about how Kippie and Kokoro get together. It isn't all about Kippie taking care of Yuzuyu. It seems to be more focused on what it means to be family. (Which is really cool in my opinion.) And lastly, it's very addictive. (I watched 19 episodes yesterday, and finished the series today.) I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to anyone who's actually faced these issues personally... (it might be a little too personal...) It's a series that I'd watch again with someone who hasn't seen it already.

Cheap, but a heartwarming all-ages series.

Aishiteruze Baby looks at first sight as a childish series for very little kids. I don't think they're completely unsuited for this series, but I believe this series is more for all-ages.
Not only is Aishiteruze Baby heartwarming because of the characters, but it is also very realistic and makes use of the most realistic subjects when it comes to kindergarten kids.

The animation is perhaps one of the biggest problems of this series because it almost emits the word cheap in bright neonletters. The characters sometimes look like they never learned to move and that causes them to make weird, hesitating moves at times.
Together with the sometimes odd and unfitting voices for the animation, the series has everything it takes to make it a complete failure. Fortunately enough, it doesn't become a failure.
A good example would be Yuzuyu. Yuzuyu has a somewhat raw voice for a kid that age. That is completely different from the normal highpitched voices they reserve for the usual kids and schoolgirls around. While at first one goes completely nuts by saying this voice is completely not befitting such a cute character, one realizes soon enough that the voice might not fit the regular anime, but is rather realistic instead. If you listen to the kids in the neighbourhood of that age, you'll realize the voices are quite similar.
Same goes for the voices of most other characters, in particular Kokoro. She also doesn't have a regular voice as heard often in anime, but rather has a voice of a normal girl who has a bit of a deeper voice which is realistic. Two thumbs up for the voiceactors who actually manage to make the show realistic in terms of voices.
The only major drawback is that the voiceactors don't really manage to cry realistically. But that's a little pay for having chosen voiceactors who actually fit their roles.

The story is quite simple; most of the stories have the sole purpose of influencing Kippei's attitude towards Yuzuyu.
While it's probably hard for many people out there to imagine such a similar situation, I can tell you that the story and both Kippei as Yuzuyu are very realistic, since I have found myself once in a quite similar situation, where I had to take care of my niece for over 2 years. So yeah, I speak of experience ;)

The usually single episode-stories often are simple and cover just one part of the concerns a kindergarten kid has. And what exactly keeps such a kid concerned? Stuff like 'What kind of lunch do I get tomorrow', 'Why do I need new clothes' and 'Why can't I get that thing from the store' are a few examples of what a kid would think about and although that sounds very boring, it's not like that. Instead, Kippei's way of handling things is quite interesting to see and there are plenty of examples where things are just so heartwarming that it's hard to say that this is just a kids' anime; instead, I would rather classify it as an all-age anime. That is, if you like realism and don't expect a mecha anime, this series is quite what one would want to see.

Kippei and Yuzuyu really steal the show, but other than that there are also very nice roles for people like Kokoro and a few others. All of them fit perfectly in the series, perhaps except for the rest of the family of Kippei. Especially his brother seems to be added solely to fill up the house a bit.
Yuzuyu has a very realistic character (she even got a nomination for a Best Female Character Award 2004) and for a kid which can hardly understand complicated issues, that's one hell of an award. Kippei also does a very good job. It's very interesting to see his development through the series, with his own way of dealing with things. I could explain more about this, but I believe it would only spoil the fun more.

Since this series has very few story development, it is very easy to rewatch this series. Together with the easy-to-watch attitude and the slow pace, this isn't something you just watch and never rewatch again.

I personally enjoyed this series a whole lot. I recognized myself in it and that's a good thing when it comes to series which are based on realism. But most of all I enjoyed this series because it's so damn cute when you see a girl that small try her very best and still looks realistic enough to be a real kid.

Brief introduction to Aishiteruze Baby: Kippei is a high school student, and quite a flirtatious one at that, sometimes getting in trouble due to this getting in the way of his schoolwork (which he seems to do absolutely none.) When he isn't flirting or eating during class, he's almost definitely to be found sleeping (yeah, this dude sleeps through at least 70% of his schooltime. Thumbs uppies to that!) However, his family soon puts him to the task of taking care of a five-year-old girl, a cousin of his, named Yuzuyu. So, he's obviously expected to act responsibly, as he virtually becomes Yuzuyu's guardian (yeah, with full responsibilities :O!)

The story here is quite superb. It has much to do with Kippei and Yuzuyu's relationship and the troubles they go through in adjusting to their new situation. Then there is Kippei's relationship with Kokoro, which I shall mention later. Within this series' depths can be found quite a lot of drama, romance, and comedy. The character development is one of the main elements that are involved in the development of the story.

These characters are awesome. Kippei is really an awesome guy. Besides sleeping through most of school, he really does his best (which is quite a lot) to be a 'good' parent for Yuzuyu. Sure, he may mess up here and there, but he does what he can. Plus, he doesn't stand for people being rude and whatnot, such as other kids' parents and stuff. :O Really, he's genuine and is nice and cool and stuff. ;p

Yuzuyu is cool, too. She acts what seems to be realistically, given that she is a five-year-old girl...—however, she isn't annoying :O! :} Yeah, her situation is really crappy for her (her mom ditched her), so there's quite a bit of emotions involved in this whole thing. Her relationship with Kippei is really quite interesting and neat to watch.

Kokoro, another significant character, is also heavily involved in this story, as her rather complex relationship with Kippei develops. (I do not want to spoil any of this... so that's all I'll say. :O) Overall, the characters come off as rather realistic, which adds to the story's development and, of course, the characters' development.

The voice acting is all fitting and nicely-done. I found myself turning the volume down some in a few parts when Yuzuyu was crying, but it didn't really get too bothersome—and all of the rest of the acting is high quality.

The music is quite awesome, when you can hear it. The ending theme song is excellent and perfectly fitting to the series... though I don't remember what the opening song sounds like, currently. The background music is mostly piano instrumentals, all of which are awesome when noticed. Earlier on, it seems like there isn't much music, but as things get more dramatic and whatnot, I started noticing the pianos becoming more and more prevalent, thus making them quite effective.

The animation is... well, it seems like it gets better and better as the series goes on. The animation is what I would call 'realistic,' what with the facial expressions, backgrounds and coloring. The animation at first appears to not be so great, but it is continuously refined as the series progresses, the faces becoming more clear and crisp. Any inconsistencies or anything else one might call 'flaws' can be easily disregarded with such interesting characters and a well-developed plot.

I would consider re-watching this some day, though not for a while (mostly due to having plenty of other stuff I would like to watch in the coming months.) Still, it's worth re-watching some day. If I ever have kids, I'll probably think back on this series fondly and probably watch it again with whoever I had the kid with.

So really, if any of this interests you, I highly recommend seeing this series, as it is truly well-done and definitely an interesting, neat, and emotional experience. Well, if you're even considering watching it, given a basic understanding of its overall 'theme,' you will probably love it as much as I do.