Anime: Hatsukoi Limited. 294j2g

Story
Hatsukoi Limited covers a range of love stories with a fairly large cast of characters. Some love stories only last for an episode, some 2-3, and some grow gradually throughout the series. Each one is unique. The cast is mostly made up of middleschoolers, so you get fresh love from characters that are still exploring relationships and having first loves, as well as figuring out what love really is. You get to see a lot of mistakes and realizations in addition to things going right, yet it still manages to be sweet the whole time. While many story arcs are predictable they are still an entertaining watch. Hatsukoi Limited also has some of the most realistic renditions of relationships in anime. Some relationships are healthy, some clearly doomed to failure, and others involved unrequited love. All show in different ways what love is, at the same time realizing that there is not a single true form of love and that love and relationships vary depending on the persons involved. Unfortunately there are a couple arcs thrown in just for fan service, which bumps the score down a bit, but overall Hatsukoi Limited has great love stories.

Characters
Characters really make Hatsukoi Limited work. They are clearly started from stereotypes, but they quickly transcend their roots and become well rounded characters that feel like real people. Largely because they react well, like real people would react. Each character is also unique; with their own strengths and hangups to get over. With such a large cast of characters character development was dispersed among everyone well.

Animation
The character designs are simple but cute. A few of the girls look entirely too similar though, and for the first couple episodes it is easy to mix them up. The boys look more different overall, and a couple of them have downright funny character designs. There is a great deal of fan fodder in this. Lots of panty shots and focus on breasts and legs. As much as any ecchi can be, it is tastefully done. It’s easy to ignore for girls who aren’t interested in other girls, and probably pretty entertaining for those who like that sort of thing. Best of all, it’s done in natural movements but with unnatural camera angles, so it doesn’t take away time on the anime that could be used for characterization or story building. Backgrounds are nothing spectacular, nor are movements particularly fluid. So-so animation overall.

Sound
There’s a limit to how girly a young girl should sound. Several of the voice actresses really over do the cutesy girl voices. It’s a bit cringe worthy. The voice actors do what the animation does not, however, it makes all the girls easy to tell apart. The boys had voices that were slightly annoying in a couple cases but were alright overall. Unfortunately, none of the performances stood out as incredible portrayals of emotion. They didn’t really sound perfect for their specific character either, if the cast were switched around it wouldn’t really matter. Openings are light and cute, but not memorable. Background music is the same.

Value and Enjoyment
Hatsukoi Limited has some of the better seriously toned love stories around. They all have a certain freshness to them, too. Several take place in just an episode, so it would be easy to rewatch favorites. More than just the love stories, though, this takes the viewer back to a time and place in their past. That’s a big part of its charm, and it will continue in this function however many times it is watched. If you are still in middle school it still has value in the subtle humor and the love stories. I may buy this one, I’m not sure. I recommend it to people who like love stories and people who like realistic characters in love stories rather than just stereotypes.

Hatsukoi Limited is an interesting series depicting the first loves (Hatsukoi) of a group of middle school girls. It is essentially a relationship-based slice-of-life story. Though the thought of many girls typically correlates to a harem, this is definitely not so. Each of the girls has their own pick, and there are an equal numbers of ing male characters.

What makes Hatsukoi unique is the sheer number of relationships between the characters. If you don't like keeping track of who likes who and who did what to who, then stay away from this. This is a really hard series to judge as I feel that capping the series at 12 episodes made the story progression rushed, especially at the end.

Overal Hatsukoi was a fairly good watch, and the story is much improved from the author's previous work, Ichigo 100%.

Animation:
The animation quality is somewhat lackluster in my opinion. While I was very happy that this series had much less fan service than Ichigo, the overall design was a bit simplistic for a modern series. The color palette is a bit dull and backgrounds tend to be bland. The characters themselves are okay but nothing outstanding, probably because there were so many of them given the length of this series...

Sound:
The OP and ED are fair, though I have no idea why they show the characters in cosplay in the ed... The BGM is also fair but not very memorable. The VAs are good as usual, I liked Aki Toyosaki's performance as Koyoi, even though she hasn't had any major roles.

Music: 3/5, VA: 4/5

Story:
The series did a great job at developing the characters and establishing character relationships throughout the series. I had a lot of fun creating a graph of relationships just to keep track of what was happening in the show. There are a lot of ironic moments as well as some dramatic cliffhangers.

My only major complaint is the one that I already pointed out, though the series concluded well, I didn't really know that I was at the end of the series, or even that I had ed the climax, until I was well into the last episode.

There's a lot of room for future development now that the characters have been established. This is speculation but I think it might be that this first series was somewhat of a set-up for an even grander followup (such as Gundam 00 turned out to be). Whether there will be a second series (Hatsukoi UNlimited?) will be seen.

Character:
The sheer number of characters may be a bit overwhelming for such a short series. Though a lot of relationships are established between the characters, their appearance time is greatly varied. One character was the focus of one episode and then became a minor ing character. There are also a lot of additional ing characters that make only brief appearances in the series, which only makes the series even more cluttered. I really liked the development in this series but I they could have easily done just as well with fewer ing characters.

Value:
This series was an interesting watch, and the developments were fun to keep track of. Knowing what the climax is now, a second watch puts the previous events in a new light. I'm certain that if they extended it to a 18-24 ep series, it would have been much more well rounded. Sadly, it isn't so.

Once again, an anime forced me to write a review to share my thoughts with you guys.This time it is an animation work by J.C. Staff. Hatsukoi Limited is one of those love polygon romances, usually infamous for their rendundancy, weak story line and no in-depth character development. This one deals with the issue of first love.

Animation:
Hatsukoi Limited has a fitting animation style with funny SD faces and lots of blushing. The animators used a nice range of warm colors most of the times and it definitely feels like a summer love anime. Other than that, there are no further specifics of this title.
Characters move fluently (if they move at all) and there are no other big flaws I came across.
One of my bigger concerns is the background animation. Quite often, the background is just some bare grey wall and generally it seems like there is a lack of posters and other things, teenagers might have in there room. Another example would be the overuse of whitened-out backgrounds for the cityscape. There is a general lack of detail and the rest is just white or grey. A little more detail would have been good for this show. Of course this was intended by the director Yoshiki Yamakawa; probably to have more money for the character design or whatever.
The character design was really well done. The many girls in this show all have their significant looks, although most of them are of predictable personality. Furthermore, the design hosts the whole range of anime beauties: long-curly hair, short hair,ponytails etc.
The boys' designs are a mixed bag. You can split them into two factions: the not-so-good looking guys and the good looking guys (for the girls in this show, not me). The first group has some really interesting design for such a show. Especially the main character (if there's such a thing in this show) Kusada has interesting eyes and a funny "kappa" face.
Noteworthy runner-ups: Misao Zaitsu and Sogabe.
The good looking guys are your usual big-eyed anime characters. Still, the character design is above average even for the generic anime characters.
The OP/ED animations were basically the same animation style and quality as the show and I have to give the animators credit for not blowing the whole budget on the OP/ED when the rest of the show is not that detailed.
In summary, animation is a slightly above average but the interesting character design makes it a 7 for me.

Sound:[/b]
The seiyuu did a solid job. There are a few I thought were exceptional. Especially Shintaro Asanuma as Kusuda had an interesting voice and Shizuka Itou as Enomoto's voice was really fitting and more realistic since it wasn't pitched or anything.
The OP "Future Stream" by "Sphere" is a happy song, which I personally did not like but it's not dull or anything. I'm not a huge fan of J-Pop and that is the reason why a tune has to catch my attention right away. This song did not make it.
The ED "Hatsukoi Limited" by "Marble" is much more fitting as the OP and I personally would have switched the two songs.
The BGM is nothing special. Some guitar cords here, some piano there, that's it. Honestly, I had to rewatch the show to take notice of the BGM. Well, at least it doesn't get in the way and blends in perfectly. Altogether i would rate a good 7.

Story:[/b]
The story is your typical love polygon. It is a continuous storyline. Each character or couple-to-be gets one episode at least. Take into the 8 boys, 7 girls and the series length of twelve episodes and I won't have to tell you that the storyline is too compressed and basically not much in-depth character development takes place.
Well, the only exception would be Kusuda and Enomoto. They get a fair share of the show and they are probably the reason why I kept watching it. (I just need my tsundere fix!!). One point of criticism would be the waste of precious air time by spending a whole episode each on Yayoi and her brother complex, as well as Watase and the swimming club. This lost time could have been used to further develop the other relationships. Altogether, the story did satisfy me because of the tsundere-kappa relationship but they could have made it so much better.
It's not even a special story, so that is barely a 6 in my book.


Characters:[/b]
Hatsukoi Limited's characters are really likeable. Many different types of characters are shown but like I already mentioned: People might be dissappointed if their favorite character doesn't get any air time.
One thing I found interesting about this show is, that the characters are very cliché and predictable.That's what makes them so likeable in the first place. It is like buying the same brand you always buy in a supermarket. What surprised me is that they all try to change in order to be more appealing. They all try to cope with their first love and some hearts get broken.
Like always Kusuda and Enomoto change/evolve the most but I don't want to spoil the contents here.
To sum it up, it's an interesting attempt and probably one of the reasons why I'm so angry about the story part of this show. The characters are the best part of this show--> 8.

Value & Enjoyment:[/b]
What a strange show. I really enjoyed watching this show although there were a few episodes I won't ever watch again since they were a waste of precious lifetime. On the one side there are just too many mistakes the producers have made and this show could have been easily a 24 episodes series with detailed character development, etc.

On the other side this show is really enjoyable, funny and light fare and above all it left me with this nice, warm
and fuzzy feeling in my breast.
So let's hope this show get's another season to finish things of properly.

Consequently, if you're a sucker for love polygon shows, tsundere, comedic anime (e.g. love complex etc.) then I'm sure you will enjoy this show. If you need eye-candy, exploding Gundams and deus-ex-machina principle then you should stay away from this show.

Recommendations: - KimiKiss -pure rouge-
- Lovely Complex
- Itazura na Kiss


Are you in love right now?