J**R
Her Beautiful Captivating Smile!
My review will have minor spoilers related to the plot and a warning will be given in the beginning of a paragraph if I should delve into the story a bit. I'll start my review by telling you about my first experience seeing this Anime series for the very first time. I first got the chance to watch this series early in 2013 having no real clue what it was about, but being lucky enough to have seen the name written somewhere online in someones comment. From the first episode, I was beguiled by this Anime as it began to open up over the next few episodes. Character appearances change between normal and chibi mode which occur occasionally but not too often. Usually it's to show Sawako's innocence or cluelessness in a given situation. This can have a cute effect for the various scenes involved. In addition, the element of comedy to it also was a boon to it making it a good balance between the awkward nature of the characters and how some situations can end up being quite humorous as a result. I was charmed from episode one, but I'd say Episode 4 where we see that 'smile', is when I knew without a doubt, I couldn't stop watching, I was enchanted. Having seen a decent share of romance / shoujo series and films from His and Her Circumstances, Please Teacher, Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora (Looking Up At The Half-Moon), and The Place Promised In Our Early Days being some of my favorites, I've come to the conclusion that Kimi ni Todoke (From Me to You) is one of the best Shoujo / Romance anime I have ever seen.Q. What will I get if I order this series in standard edition? (Volume 1-3)A. A cheaper price if you're worried about the expense. The standard edition does not come with the art book or other perks of the premium edition. It's basically just the anime itself in a single wide case containing 4 discs in each volume. Volume 1 and 2 is the first season of Kimi ni Todoke, while volume 3 is season 2.Q. What's on the discs, is anything ommitted? (Entries are Episodes)A. Volume 1 Blu-ray: Disc 1: Entries 1-8, Disc 2: Entries 9-12Volume 1 DVD: Disc 1: Entries 1-6, Disc 2: Entries 7-12Volume 2 Blu-ray: Disc 1: Entries 13-15, 17-21, Disc 2: Entries 22-25Volume 2 DVD: Disc 1: Entries 13-15, 17-19, Disc 2: Entries 20-25Volume 3 Blu-ray: Disc 1: Entries 0-8, Disc 2: Entries 9-12Volume 3 DVD: Disc 1: Entries 0-6, Disc 2: Entries 7-12* The recap episode (Sixteenth Entry) in Volume 2 has been omitted.Clean openings and closings, some trailers on some of the discs, and 2 mini-episodes in Volume 3.Q. Wait a second, Blu-ray AND dvd combo pack?A. Yes, the series comes on both Blu-ray and dvd discs so you have two copies of the same anime within the same case.Q. Can I find this anywhere cheaper?A. Probably not since not many people know of this series currently and finding used copies might prove difficult. My recommendation would be to go half and half with a friend, cousin or family member, then decide amongst yourselves who keeps the Blu-ray, and who keeps the DVD discs.Q. Does this anime have an English dub?A. Unfortunately, no. Being a Shoujo / Romance series, most companies overlook it in favor of shounen and action anime which tends to dominate the North American market. We're lucky that NIS America released a localized version with the original Japanese dub, and pretty darn good english subtitles. The Japanese dub sounds good to listen to which is always a positive.Q. How is the visual quality?A. Excellent, very crisp and looks beautiful on both Blu-ray and dvd. Blu-ray being prefered of course.A brief synopsis: [barely minor spoilers]Sawako Kuronuma's one wish in life is to make friends. That's a difficult proposition when everyone who meets her cowers in terror, due to her resemblance to Sadako (after whom they nickname her) from the Japanese horror movie series The Ring. Shunned by her classmates, her life starts to change after she befriends her classmate, Shōta Kazehaya, a popular, easygoing and 100% refreshing guy who is nice with everyone, even with her.!!! [SPOILERS] !!!In-depth plot synopsis and opinions:Sawako Kuronuma meets Shōta Kazehaya on her way to school noticing his uniform is from the same school. She offers him help on which direction it is and instead of being shunned or having him run away from her like everyone else, instead he smiles at her and says "Thank you." This alone is the start of something deep within Sawako which is later shown from Shota's point of view in a later episode where we see the scene of episode 1 where Shota sees Sawako's candid and wonderful smile. His eyes open wider in this moment, becoming bewitched, captivated and curious about her. This scene is what really got me interested in the series as they began to interact with each other. Soon, Sawako is talking with some classmates and from there point of view, they've been friends since they started talking yet from Sawako's point of view, she thinks she isn't actually friends with them or anyone she regularly greets and speaks with in class.Eventually things begin to stir up with bullying and rumors which makes part of season 1 very exciting and Sawako's struggle during this time along with some misinterpretations that really shows some good character development in those around her. The bullying part ends in such a way that I didn't quite expect that left tears in my eyes for the power of the scene in the upstairs bathroom as a crowd gathers outside. Little by little, Sawako becomes more comfortable with her friends she's made and begins to think more and more about Kazehaya as well. New characters and a rival shows up, things get complicated, and then simple again. A lot of the series has it's bittersweet moments amognst it's many happy and sad moments. The feeling I get is a kind of slice of life mixed with the shoujo style. I'd love to talk about all the events in this anime but if I did, I'd probably spoil way too much and then people might not check this wonderful show for themselves. So I'll give my final thoughts in the conclusion section.!!! [END OF SPOILERS] !!!As stated in the Q&A section, this anime is dubbed in Japanese with English subtitles. There are no english voiceovers at allConclusion:This series exudes many emotions both happy, and sad and I have teared up during quite a few scenes throughout in both tears of joy and of sadness, smiled widely when things go well for Sawako, and laughed out loud during it's moments of comedy typically related to The Ring or moments they are frightened by Sawako, and how classmates react to her. As mentioned near the beginning of this review, this is the best shoujo romance anime I have ever seen so far and I'm not sure anything could ever top it. I give high regards and recommendations to anyone even slightly interested in this anime whether from my review or from other sources. The opening and closing for season 1 is beautiful and has very catchy songs. I found myself watching them more often than I was skipping them to get strait to the episode which is rare for me to do with anime in general. This is a great anime for anyone's collection and if you make the decision to pick it up for yourself, I hope you enjoy it just as much as I did if not more so!Notes: If you want an episode list with episode titles and synopsis' I'd suggest searching google as there are dedicated websites for that information, even wikipedia. If you have a question or suggestion to improve my review or if I missed something important / obvious, please feel free to comment and share your opinion. Thanks for reading my review, if you thought it was pretty informative, good, or useful in any way, please rate it up and always remember, "Live Anime, Breath Anime!"
R**H
A good set, but could be better.
I won't bother talking about the show itself, other than to say that it is good enough to justify this premium set, and I will preorder the remaining volumes as soon as possible, in spite of any shortcomings of this set.My first impression upon opening the package was just how large this set is. I'd been expecting something along the lines of Funimation's sets... Boy was I wrong! By itself, this box looks nice. However, it's so large that it won't fit on my DVD rack. For now, it'll just have to sit somewhere by itself. Eventually, if I get more boxes like this one (for example, the remaining volumes of Kimi ni Todoke, when they're released) they'll look great where ever I happen to put them; for now, this one stands out and looks really lonely (hmm... that may actually be very fitting for this show). The included art book is also much larger than I'd been anticipating.I think that about covers the "good" for this set. How about the "could be better"?Well, first of all, the set has some really strange design decisions. The size, while nice, does make it a little hard to incorporate in existing collections; this is forgivable though, as it allows for a much larger art book than a smaller set would have. Perhaps the strangest decision was in how the discs are arranged. The set comes with two slim packs, each of which holds two discs. This is similar to Funimation sets, but instead of including both blu-ray discs in one case and the DVDs in another, this set splits them up. One case holds the first half of the series, while the second case holds the latter half; in each case there is one blu-ray and one DVD. By default then, you'd have to pretty much pull everything out of the box to watch the all the episodes. This isn't too much of a problem, as I just swapped discs around so that the case that is exposed to the opening holds both blu-ray discs (my preferred format), and whenever I want to watch the show, I'll just need to slide everything out about one inch so I can get a grip on the slim pack. It is a little annoying, though, as this negates the slim pack labels. :(Finally, I must say that I am a little disappointed that this is only the first half of the first season, and that it was not dubbed. I don't mind subs (I watch a lot of subbed anime), however I would like to have the option for things that I've bought. And, no matter how good the subtitles may be on a DVD or bluray (in this case, I'd say they're about average), I can't think of any examples that are as good as styled fansubs.
Trustpilot
1 month ago
1 week ago
