And so Asu no Yoichi! has ended some time ago. With all my episodics done for it, it is now high time to take a look back at what the series has given us over the winter anime season. If you missed the episodics, you can find them under the category for Asu no Yoichi! here.
There are going to be a few spoilers here and there, doubtless unavoidable if I want to talk about the series at length. Take note of course that this review expresses my personal opinion and that you are welcome to agree or disagree with it.
General Information
Title: Asu no Yoichi! (Tomorrow’s Yoichi!)
Production: AIC
Number of episodes: 12
Theme song performances: meg rock (OP), Misato Aki (ED)
Season in which it aired: Winter 2008 (early 2009)
Arbitrary overall score: 7/10
Summary
The story follows the life of a mountain-dwelling samurai, Karasuma Yoichi, who has lived in the mountains all his life, until one day his father decides to send him to town to make him stronger. His hosts are a family of 4 sisters, with the eldest being trained in the same martial arts style as he is. Hilarity ensues as Yoichi adapts to the city life and learns how to live with the sisters bit by bit, meeting others on the way and making more friends.
The series can be described as a harem comedy type, but is not typical of the stereotype attached to such a genre.
Seiyuu
For its type, the cast is already pretty strong, seeing the likes of well-known onee-chan voice Satou Rina as Ikaruga Ibuki, the main female protagonist, as well as famous newcomers (relatively) Tomatsu Haruka, Hanazawa Kana, and Makino Yui. The cast also sees some middle to veteran level support, in the form of Konishi Katsuyuki, Nabatame Hitomi and Tamura Yukari.
The delivery by the cast was pretty much superb on the side of the 4 sisters, but that is only to be expected, considering that all 4 have been relatively well-known in recent years (in the case of Yukarin, she already has lots of experience to back her up). Most of the side characters did their jobs well enough, so little remains to be said on the subject.
Plot & Character Development
As I understand from manga readers, the plot is slightly different from the manga in various places, adding in new stuff that may even have made the anime better. For its type, Asu no Yoichi! has been surprisingly entertaining. What we might have come to expect from a harem series may well be why we believe this anime series to be so entertaining despite its cliche plot, storyline, and character relationship developments – it simply presents things in a way that is light-hearted, heartwarming, and in a slightly different manner than the norm.
For one, the main character, Karasuma Yoichi himself, is not weak like most harem series. Rather, he is quite the swordsman, but, as can be expected, is weak against girls due to his upbringing and lack of contact with them. Still, his honorable nature and the way he expresses himself never ceases to bring laughter about, or to express a point he hopes to drive home as someone who is of moral integrity.
Another point is the relationship development that, though expected, leads us to anticipate perhaps the ending between two or more characters. Though the end of the series never brought an actual resolution to any of the complex relationships, the subtle hints between the characters and their relationships were more than enough to assist the series in its humor in terms of situations, and its anticipatory objectives (ie. would Yoichi actually end up with Ayame, for example).
The plot itself kind of surprised at the end, taking a slightly different turn from the norm. Perhaps that made the end so much harder to bear, with nothing resolved, but I would have to say that the ending was above average for such a series, though there were a few loopholes they could have cleared up, such as Torigaya’s continual shrinkage throughout the series. Anyway, if you came to this series expecting little, then you were certainly in for quite the pleasant surprise, I hope. I certainly was.
Animation
The animation was average. There was little to praise or nitpick, though the fight scenes could be better animated perhaps. However, the funny expressions along the way were the main points of the series, and certainly the animations of both the Washizu and Tsubasa Visions helped a lot in showing the humor that was almost always present in the series.
Music
Average music is average. There remains little to be said about the music other than that. I would get the OST, but I would hardly recommend it unless you actually watched the series and liked it. The OP and ED were within expectations of course, as to their quality. That made the ED harder to bear though – for meg rock, her previous work that I knew of was the ED for Joshikousei, “incl.”, which was very fitting for that series, but for Misato Aki, her previous work was less than a year ago, in what I consider to be one of the best ED songs of 2008, “sad rain” (Blassreiter ED1). meg rock’s song this time round was fine, but Misato Aki could have done better, I feel. Both songs were just so…average, so normal.
Characters
Once again, this series focuses a lot on the characters, and thus a section on them is necessary. I will be talking about how I felt about their development throughout the series, and what I thought of them.
Karasuma Yoichi
One could say that, throughout the series, Yoichi remained the most constant in terms of his character and his development. He never wavered from the path he thought right, that of the samurai’s, a path of honor and moral integrity. Of course, as he had never been in contact with girls before, his embarrassment and attraction to them was to be expected, especially when he went to school for the first time. Yet his way of speech and his demeanor does nothing to detract from the humor that he brings us, as well as the lessons he tries to bring across to both viewers and other characters in the anime itself, reminding us that despite his naivety regarding city life and relationships, Yoichi is still the most knowledgeable in the anime about the basic lessons of life that we should always keep in mind.
Not being a weak protagonist also helps a lot, both in his fights and in the presentation of the series. It is refreshing to see a male lead in a harem series that is actually stronger than almost anyone else in the same anime.
Ikaruga Ibuki
Ibuki is the oldest of the four sisters in the Ikaruga family, acting as the head of the Ikaruga family as their parents left them alone to travel around the world training several years back. Ibuki is the quintessential onee-san type in a harem series, strong, firm, motherly, and more. Yet she is also quick to temper and violence, and is, despite herself, easily jealous. Though she can hardly bring herself to admit it, it is clear that she likes Yoichi for his demeanor and different nature, though she always believes him to be a perverted person and thus punishes him for it, part of the many hilarious topics of the show.
In terms of the sex appeal, Ibuki caters to the oppai side, though hers are more on the huge rather than just the big. Ibuki runs the dojo and manages the family, whilst going to school at the same time, and is thus under quite a bit of pressure, though she never shows it.
It was quite interesting that her real self was left out of the picture towards the end, turning her back into a kid until the very end when she regained her memories. Like I mentioned above, this was one of the twists that made Asu no Yoichi! different from the norm. Her childish form was quite entertaining to see, a stark contrast to the usual Ibuki presented to the viewer throughout the series.
Ikaruga Ayame
The second sister, Ikaruga Ayame, who has an inferiority complex when always compared to her elder sister who seems to excel in everything. Despite her always trying her best, Ayame is always shunted to the side, and for this, in recent years, she has been hostile towards her sister and everybody else in general, even allowing her once high grades to slip.
Ayame caters to the tsundere side, as is obvious by the appearance of Yoichi in their lives, whom she declares a pervert time and again after a misfortune in their first encounter. Yet she obviously cares for him but is unable to show it properly, though she is often helped in this endeavor by her third sister, Chihaya.
Ayame is one of the cuter girls in the series, maybe it is because I am very much attracted to her dere side. She also has a problem with boob sizes, considering she has the smallest boobs out of the 4 sisters (including Kagome, the youngest). However the size is not that big a problem! At least her boobs are not hideously big. Ayame’s style is also more contemporary and well, her dressing style is something I like I guess.
Ikaruga Chihaya
The third sister and the brains of the family, Chihaya also goes through some rough times, having to work as a mangaka as well as go to school, and is thus discriminated at school for it at times. Chihaya is also always ready to tease Ayame and Yoichi, and holds no interest in Yoichi except as a possible character for her manga works. She also has a speech pattern that is out of the norm.
Obviously, Chihaya is in the meganekko category, and has the brains to back it up. An entire episode was dedicated to her, but otherwise her development is most evident only in her interactions with Kagome, with whom she is closest to in the family.
Ikaruga Kagome
Now most of you know that I am not fond of lolies in anime. But I must admit, Kagome is pretty cute as a loli. She has what I always thought to be moe, and she is a very nice and kind girl that brings out the youngest sister element in the series. Of course, her boobs are something else entirely, but whatever, that is just unnatural.
The loli fetish is apparent here, but otherwise, Kagome’s character was not developed in detail, not even for one episode, counting the half that she was stuck in the cave with the young boy who likes her.
Washizu Ryou & Torigaya Keita
Washizu is the delinquent that has a crush on Ibuki, while Torigaya is his sidekick and first friend. Washizu drives part of the humor by providing Washizu Visions, which can sometimes go to extremes. Yet he is also learning, throughout the series, the importance of friendship, and he becomes more mellow as compared to the past. His character was pretty well developed throughout the series, which shows much on his part, despite him being a minor character as compared to the others.
Torigaya’s gradual shrinkage was never explained, quite unfortunately. Yet he provided part of the humor, and some touching moments when Washizu had to save him. He was hardly touched however, in terms of development, serving as nothing better than a side character to the side character.
Tsubame Tsubasa & Takatsukasa Angela
2 more side characters that serve more as fanservice than actual characters with good background stories, Tsubasa of the Tsubasa Flowing Style and her servant, Angela, are really hot in the series for their loveliness more than anything else. Tsubasa however provides even more humor than Washizu – her Tsubasa Vision never fails to invoke a good laugh. Angela, as anyone who has followed my episodics well know, is my favorite girl out of the entire series, but is otherwise not truly developed as a character, though she starts having inklings of feelings for Yoichi after seeing his bare body at the beach.
Saginomiya Siblings
The Saginomiya’s serve as the villains in the show, yet at the end they are not truly villains, but more of being led astray by both money and a childhood promise that Ukyo believes Ibuki made to him. Sakon is given more character development at the end than Ukyo however, especially how she finally asks Yoichi to stop her brother, whom she too believes has gone down the wrong track. Though serving as villains, they play out their roles well enough that one can hardly bring oneself to blame either, at the end, for what Ukyo has done or why Sakon blindly follows her brother.
Overall, Asu no Yoichi! has certainly been more entertaining than what one would normally expect out of such a series. Further, it may not be on the level of a darn good series, but it certainly is more than worthy of something that you want to catch in your free time, to have a good laugh or simply to oogle at the choice of girls available in the show. You might want to consider picking this up if you want a short side series to watch.
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