Anime: Sumomo mo Momo mo: Chijou Saikyou no Yome

The Strongest Bride on Earth? Seems like an interesting premise, at least. Could be amusing. So I watched it.[br][br]Bleh.[br][br]Sumomomo Momomo is passable. Barely. Uninspired design, tired story, and irritatingly bad characters - but it's got a few moments that lift it from a terrible series to just barely average. I'd even give it another pity point if the name wasn't so completely retarded. Seriously - who came up with that name?[br][br]Summary: Martial arts clans in Japan are on the brink of war. The two strongest clans from each faction agree to marry their children in the interests of peace. One child is informed. The other is not. Wacky hijinks ensue! [br][br]No, it really doesn't get much more complex than that.[br][br]Animation: Not too shabby. Most character designs are nice, except, sadly, for the two main characters. Momoko is pure loli and pretty much designed to be a pedophile's wet dream. This is not attractive to those of us with nice, normal fetishes. Koushi, on the other hand, is so amazingly bland in design, they could have carbon copied him out of pretty much any hackjob of a series and no one would be able to tell. The supporting cast are all much better in design and visuals, and hell, even the cast of bad dudes, dudettes, and villains are all better designed. [br][br]Artwork, visuals, and combat are mostly average until you hit the end of the series, at which point they turn pretty nice. The CGI of the zodiac-themed attacks was pretty lame all the way through, though. In general though, the artwork ranged all across the board, but more good than bad. [br][br]Sound: Meh. Momoko's voice was pretty terrible, except, again, near the end when she's actually not being retarded. The other voice actors were pretty good. The first OP was actually pretty snappy, but the second was terrible and both EDs were meh. [br][br]Story+Character: Ok, what the hell. The story is terribly uninspired, the characters are nearly universally lame, but I want to know how they actually managed to pull that ending off. This series starts off fairly amusing, turns more and more lame and pathetic with all the gags and episodes and formulas, then in the last three episodes actually becomes pretty decent and compelling. While I realize the entire nature of the show would have been different, it would have been nice to see the same sort of style and attention paid to the series as a whole. [br][br]While Koushi is a bit amusing at times, Momoko is a disgustingly stupid character much of the time. I don't mind a little cluelessness, but characters that are irredeemably stupid just infuriate me. She is the penultimate lolitard and I was amazingly sick of her by the end of the series. Thankfully, all of the other side characters are amusing and fun - Iroha and Hanzo's byplay, Sanae's costume and embarrassment, Saizou the huge delinquent, the cast of various assassins, the entire Koganei family - all of them were more tolerable to watch. [br][br]Unfortunately, the story is just so weak as to be intolerable. One of the martial arts factions wants to assassinate Koushi - why? No explanation, apparently they actually want a war, I guess? Insatiable ecchi and interesting situations? Sure, why not. Big chunks of the series in the middle are practically filler. And by the time you get to the end, you're tired of it, and then they actually take enough time through the last three episodes to create a fairly good ending that isn't rushed, crushed, or completely retarded. I was very confused and conflicted by this as I thought it was the law for a terrible anime to have an equally terrible ending. [br][br]Value+Enjoyment: Well, it's not worth watching once, let alone multiple times, to be honest. I didn't really enjoy it all that much either, except for the beginning few episodes and the last three. There are 22 episodes and a couple of bonus episodes from the DVDs that I couldn't bring myself to watch - the episodic humor is the worst part of the series by far. What little plot there was, was all that was worth watching. [br][br]Summary: Are you really desperate for something mindless and moderately amusing? This might fit the bill, but really - there's a lot better out there. [br]

Sumomo mo Momo mo

~ Version 1.0.1

-- 6 Votes, still unrated *Lol* --

Seriously, I don't know what the name means. If anyone can tell me, I'd love it. After that, SMMM (as I will be referring to it here on in), was a rather enjoyable series.

-- If you read my review, please give it some thoughts and a vote. And please, please, please, I ask that you, as the voter, not give this review a lesser rating because you disagree with one or two points in my writing. This might not be the best review in the world, but please be fair. --

Animation -- 7+1 == 8

When I started the series' first episode, I thought that I was going to be blinded by the drawing style and character designs. When I finished the first episode, though, I found that SMMM's artwork had grown on me... rather fast, actually.

The quality of SMMM's animation was horribly inconsistent. There were some episodes that I thought to be fairly well done, and then others where I desired much more from the people who made it. The drawings were only detailed to a mediocre level, and the only part of it with anything higher would be how everyone's eyes were drawn to shine. Whenever they were drawn into battles, the fighters were stuck with sub-par movements and were lacking in fluidity of movement. Background characters were only moving some of the time, that I recall, and at others times were still.

There are, of course, factors that offer redemption to this category of SMMM, as there are for any other series. In SMMM's case, this quality would be the addition of three-dimentional beasties and animals to the background during battle sequences. These animals added to the background of the fighters by showing what family each fighter is from. Surprisingly, while the series itself was given a somewhat lesser quality of art, these 3D renditions were quite well done in comparison, and why I decided to add an extra point above.

The opening and ending themes were very, very strange, to say the least. The second opening theme gave heavy foreshadowing to SMMM's future and ending, and left me with something exciting to look forward to. The four opening and ending sequences, as with most openings and endings in other anime such as Death Note and Pokemon, were drawn out and built up to a higher standard than the actual show. Not a bad thing, but just something that should be pointed out.

Sound -- 8

Oh. My. Goodness. With animation looking as average as it did, I expected similar of the work provided for audio. Sadly, I was sorely dissapointed. Or is it lucky that I was disappointed?

The seiyuu for this series did a surprisingly good job, each of them able to bring out the characters behind the drawings slapped onto a film strip and broadcast onto our own televisions and computers. One that irked me, however, was Kuzuryuu Momoko's choice for a seiyuu. It was fairly interesting, listening to a loli-chan type of girl speaking with a voice quite a bit too deep to fit. It proved to be a good match, despite the depth of her voice, and this proved true for all the characters and all their seiyuu.

The two opening songs, "Saikyou Keikaku" and "Setsujou, Hyakka Hyouran", both by Mosaic.wav, started and ended with an upbeat tempo as if to pump viewers up for the show. The lyrics, however, weren't so invigorating: the songs were, just based on observation, made specifically for SMMM. I caught on mostly and primarily because the two opening songs were about Momoko and Koushi concieving a child, though in a less direct manner than "Koushi, let me have your kids!!!"

The ending songs... oh my, oh me. According to the SMMM article found in Wikipedia, there are three outro songs, but I only remember two: "No Rock No Life" by HoneyBee; and "Mousou Break" by AiAi and Yozora Orihime. The first, No Rock No Life, I rather enjoyed. It had nothing on outro songs from anime such as Shakugan no Shana, but HoneyBee did good work here and the producers for SMMM did just as well using this as an outro. Everything about this song worked for me: from the beginning that I found, at first, to be somewhat strange, to the beats the song used, it was perfect. Too bad I can't say the same thing about the second song, Mousou Break. I'll be honest and say that I don't know what the song was about, even in the slightest, but just based on how the ending theme went with the animation, I didn't feel it the same way I did No Rock No Life.

Story -- 7

~ Summary: SMMM is based around the life of Inuzuka Koushi, the assassins who want to kill him, the girls who want to... be with him, and his personal lack of any abilities that could help him whatsoever.

Now that that's out of the way, let's break SMMM down into what it is: the "actual story that's being told" area; a martial arts "kick your butt with 3d Dragons" portion; and the "ecchi comedy" section.

For the first portion, centered around what the core of SMMM was, I have to say that it was far from being the best. It was very much like Dragonball in the sense that, as the series progressed, Momoko and co.'s opponents grew stronger, and the super-animal-ninja did so in the same fashion. For the most part, if I start watching a series, I have to see it through to the end. This is a part of me that won't be changing any time soon, and I'm glad it didn't, because this flaw in the series was changed (somewhat): the series' last villains were totally capable of destroying Momoko and co.... there was hardly any competition there. Still, the flaw reappeared for the sake of good triumphing over evil in the end, granted that good had a hell of a hard time doing so (a good thing, mind you).

A quick note: I don't know anything on how much a storyline such as this has been used for anime, but it seems somewhat generic when compared to American media such as Heroes' "Save the cheerleader, save the world", The Matrix and how Morpheus' crew worked to the death for Neo's sake, and the upcoming series Chuck, where one "nerd" is showered with attempts on his life and defended by someone I can only describe as "some girl." I suppose that's how most things are nowadays though...

On the second section, the one centered around the martial arts elements of the series... this was just above mediocrity, at best, up until the last fights. The basis of our story, a war between two portions of Japan, has been used plenty and by better anime, no less. The unique part to the martial arts, if anything, would be that during fights, giant animals centered around the fighter's clan would appear and duke it out in the same general fashion as the fighters themselves: while the fighter is winning, his (or her) beast is on the high ground, and the same applies vice versa. The last fights of SMMM were, for me, fairly impressive, but that would only hold true until the last fight with Momoko and Koushi going against a super-powered megafoe. If it hadn't been for the following, the series would have ended far better than it had begun: Defeat seems inevitable for the duo, but a giant Deus Ex Machina is thrown in, almost turning the tide of the battle. Any details more than that could go into spoiler territory, and I wouldn't want to turn any potential viewers away.

Finally, we're on the last section: ECCHI CONTENT!! By far, this would have to be my favorite part of the series, and I hold it far above any other content one could find in Sumomo mo Momo mo. But why is this? Why would the most insensibly random part of the series be my favorite? It was done brilliantly, that's why. There are a variety of character types to be found in SMMM, design speaking, and, unless I'm hallucinating, every one of these types got to shine in ecchi glory, if even for a second. There were, of course, times that the ecchi seemed out of place, but in the end (and almost everywhere along the way), the fanservice factor can be seen by some to be a redeeming factor for this part of the series, though it holds no direct relation to the actual story.

Character -- 7

We start the series with Inuzuka Koushi, a completely worthless main character with an ability to attract more trouble than a beached whale. Up next would be Kuzuryuu Momoko, a very narrow-minded protagonist with enough power to make lions cringe packed into a lolicon body. This duo, once again, serves as the series' main characters, and their one-sided romance is what starts the series. They don't serve as the best characters to lead a series with, but thanks to the hijinks ensuing because of it, Koushi and Momoko ended up doing better as Lead Characters than I thought.

By far, the most unique character in this series would have to be Nakajima Sanae: she is the well-endowed and normal friend that our protagonist, Koushi, holds dear to his heart. She wants him, but can't have him, and so fights for his sake knowing that nothing can come of it outside of normal interaction on top of fighting to keep ecchi remotely justifiable in SMMM. To be honest, however, saying that Sanae is unique is like pointing to caramel popcorn and saying it's a whole new thing. She was great, even voiced by my favorite Hirano Aya, but even she was barely "above average" in the 7 or 8 out of 10 range.

The supporting cast, consisting of Iroha, Tenka, and Hanzou, round out the list of "good guys". With the way the series started, I somewhat doubted the fun that the supporting characters would draw out of the series, but I was very much proven wrong. Summarizing the many factors that make this trio unique would never do their queerness justice, and so such a thing will be kept from this review. As normal characters, I was impressed by this trio. As supporting characters for Koushi and Momoko, however, they were beyond anything I expected. Much of their development ties into the last fights of the series, but there are discoveries made about them along the way. As much as I would NOT like to say it, it is my personal opinion that these three were all better supporting characters than Sanae, and, if they were classified as such, better main characters than Koushi and Momoko.

The villains of SMMM were very strange, to keep from typing too much. To type more however, I could say that the recurring villains were just a bunch of bullies. It's true. They really were just bullies. The bullies' leader, Saigo, is developed on a completely different level than his subordinates (luckily!!). He had so much potential to be a great character in SMMM, but was left on the side for a great part of the series. The Koganei family, SMMM's primary villains, seemed very stereotypical in their actions: a "hotty" with a vengeance; the "calm and cool" character with a very angry alter ego; and the "color-copy big boss" last fighter. These three were all villains, and even appeared in the same episode, but the vengeful "hotty" seemed far more developed than the others, and her history is, in fact, interesting in a tragic way.


Value and Enjoyment -- 8/8

Well, what's left to be written? I was in fair love with Sumomo mo Momo mo when it came out, though nowadays I find that I'm the only fan of the series, even amongst those who would choose to associate with me. It might take a special type of person to enjoy this series, shallow as it might appear to be, and an even more "special" one to rewatch it. I am, likely, one of the few to truly enjoy the series.

As a series ridden with moments that made me laugh and others that made me stare frozen with interest, Sumomo mo Momo mo stands as one of the series I've watched more than once. I don't think the fact that "this is not a series for everyone" can be emphasized enough, though. I'm going to be keeping this series around as one of those to watch on rainy days when the internet doesn't seem to want to work, but then again, I have such series as Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu and Kanon (2006) for that.

I started watching this with Megami Anime's releases, and switched later to Lu Perry's work. At about the time I started Lu Perry's, my younger brother began watching with me, and was hooked on the series. This is big, because for someone who hates anime in general to enjoy such an off series as this would have to mean that Sumomo mo Momo mo is worth giving a chance, no?