Anime: Acchi Kocchi 5i4513

Love's Labour's Lost:
Acchi Kocchi

You just keep on repeating
All those empty "I love you's"
Until you say you deserve better
I'm gonna lay right into you
The White Stripes – You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)

Make no mistake about it. Acchi Kocchi (AK) is bad. You can be forgiven if you don't see it at first. It is not the insidious hate of Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka or the brain-melting stupidity of Trouble Chocolate or the infernal plagiarism that haunts To-Love-Ru. In fact AK appears out of place in a list of really bad shows. It's just a cute little romance show, incapable of producing that rage-filled hate, the kind of rage that would put Achilles to shame, that is generated by those other shows. But peek behind the cutesy facade and you will find nothing but echoes and tedium. AK is a wan, pale shadow, whose 'badness' comes not from errors or bad writing, but from its own ephemeral, empty nature.

AK is a slice-of-life title, which is to say it is, like Seinfeld, about nothing. Having no over-arching plot, these slice-of-life titles need to be character driven to succeed. Drama, action, and conflict all must derive from the characters. But in AK, all the characters are one-dimensional archetypes of basic character traits. They are static, unchanging, invariant, the Platonic ideal of their given attribute. However good for philosophy, Platonic ideals don't make good characters. Devoid of humanity, these characters repeat the same jokes and actions throughout the series, as the plot makes efforts to disguise this deception by constantly throwing up new settings and events. Regardless, everything remains mechanical and predictable.

Because its characters are incapable of generating conflict, AK relies on external forces to do this. Over the course of a year, in show time, we manage to hit every major holiday and event, as if this was a High School Greatest Hits montage. This is not to say that these events should not be shown, but relying on them is a weakness. The best slice-of-life happens not on holidays, but in the moments in between, where real life exists. Consider other successful shows in this genre, like Lucky Star and its discourses on dessert eating or Minami-ke and its conversations 'round a kotatsu. Because the characters are strong, these shows can have normal events be entertaining and fun. But AK's lack of personable characters means that it can not proceed in this way, so it tries to fill each episode with as much external action as possible. A good example is the sporting events, of which there are several. These competitions serve the story by creating conflict and action without having to rely on the characters in any way, shape or form. But here is the problem: Every event should do one of four things, even in a slice-of-life: Explore a character, develop a character, advance the plot, or serve the core purpose. Spending half the episode on a game of kick-the-can, for example, in no way explores nor develops any characters, and there is no plot to advance in a slice-of-life. What about the core purpose? The core purpose of story is the reason for which, deep down inside, the author wrote it. In AK's case, it is to show a cute, shy couple do shyly cute, romantic things. There might be one or two of these moments throughout this game, but a rate of one per every six minutes is pretty bad. The episodes are at best incompetent and at worst useless filler, but with so much action going on, they hope you won't notice.

But there are plenty of shows with these plot and characters problems. What makes AK so bad? Animation. The artwork of AK is both cheap and lazy, and while cheapness can be forgiven to a point, laziness can not. How lazy is it? The characters, already in chibi form, often devolve into blobs or head-only shots. The eyes, which are the most detailed part of the character design, are simply not even drawn a quarter of the time. Colours are generally single-toned, and shading is non-existent. Backgrounds are drab, uninspired pastel creations, simple and under detailed. And even these background are often too much—a lot of time is spent with abstractions, an even cheaper way to do things. The little eyecatches between scenes aren't bad, but they are little more than amusing diversions. Character designs are simple and generic, and the only thing remotely interesting about them is Tsumiki's two-toned hair, which was really cool, back in 2005 (besides, nothing can top Saitohimea's hair anyway). Character animations are basic and the whole thing just feels cheap. Excluding kids' shows and three minute shorts, AK probably has the worst animation of 2012.

Sound might be AK's strongest point, but that's not saying much. The OP is a jumbled, discordant mess, which switches musical styles and melodies seemingly at random. The ED is slightly better, as an utterly forgettable, sleepy J-pop tune. Voice acting is average, but there is little to be done with such personality devoid characters.

So it comes down to this. How bad is AK? In the technical categories, AK gets below average grades for plot and bad for art and character. Sound rates slight above average, mostly out of pity. And in the personal categories, value and entertainment, there is no hope to be had. I fell asleep during a couple episodes, never a good sign, and the inability of the show to do anything or accomplish its core purpose doomed it. The idea of AK is a good one, but it never coalesced beyond a vague, half-hearted concept. In the end, AK failed to be entertaining, failed to tell a good slice-of-life story, and failed to in its core purpose, and these failures are manifest in every aspect of it. AK may not have that shining moment of awfulness, but it is covered in a consistent, low-grade awfulness that blankets the show like the smog in Beijing. Its combined universal poorness is what depresses its grades so low.

Grade Summary:
Plot: 4 (C-)
Art: 3 (D+)
Sound: 6 (C+)
Character: 2 (D)
Entertainment: 4 (C-)
Value: 4 (C-)

Final Verdict: Avoid at all costs.

Acchi Kocchi is a relatively light (and very slow) series about the daily life of a group of friends. This character-based comedy offers minimal plot, focusing rather on interesting life snapshots in a similar fashion to Nichijou. I wouldn't say this is exactly a Lucky Star as, while the characters are supposed to be moe, over half of the comedic elements focus around the cat-girl Tsumiki and her unrequited love for Io. It's a decent show to watch when overly bored but as the series is literally all over the place, don't expect to actually end up anywhere.

Animation:
I'm not a big fan of the overly-cartoonish drawing style but this does not necessarily a doom a series (as proven by Nichijou). The characters themselves remind me of those from other series for some reason. For instance, Hime reminds me of Haruna from Kore wa Zombie Desuka (think ED) and Sakaki reminds me of Souma from Working!. Similarities aside, the girls in this series have some serious hanaji issues whenever thinking of Io. Overall, I just can't see the characters as high school students as their drawing style makes them look more like elementary students.

There are some odd action scenes though nothing in comparison to the overly dramatized scenes in Nichijou. For me, the most standout characteristic for this series is the scene transition frames, which are both simplistic yet thoughtful.

Sound:
The OP sounds like an overly tuned-down version of the Nichijou songs, which just makes it both melodically weird and generally not very good. The ED is a better melody with Tsumiki's voice giving it a cute overtone. There are also some nice piano/instrumental pieces in the BGM though overall the sound effects are more distinct.

Tsumiki's VA is perfect for her personality, though the others were all average. I really wished Io had more of a personality.

Story:
This is a character-driven show so the only real "plot" train is the age of time. The show takes plice in an ordinary town with ordinary people (who are drawn without faces). You get lots of typical scenes including school festivals, Christmas cake selling, and Valentines day. As with other pure slice-of-life shows, don't expect much tension or excitement from the overall story. However, unlike other slice of life shows, this one fails to distinguish itself in any way other than being "ordinary". Humor-wise, there were a few chuckles but nothing all that memorable.

Character:
This is a mixed bag as well. If you're okay with watching a bunch of distinct characters interact, then this might be good. If you're looking for a series with character development and relationship tensions, this is not for you.

You have Io, a rather quiet and understated (though talented) lead; Tsumiki, a tsundere girl who grows cat elements (probably figuratively) when thinking of Io; and a bunch of other friends, who constantly make fun of the fact that Tsumiki can't confess her feelings and that Io never catches on to Tsumiki's indirect approaches. While the Tsumiki/Io relationship is cute, it never really takes off.

Thus I really question the seinin tag as many of the antics and personalities feel like they're more appropriate for younger audiences; I was outright bored with the antics of Hime and Mayoi. While some of the interactions were fun, most of them just seemed overly childish.

Value:
I picked up this series on the belief that the slight distance between Io/Tsumiki would make for some interesting tension. Alas there was virtually none. This is a mellow show with a mellow mood, and now a mellow review rating. Perhaps this is what a slice of life is actually supposed to be like, but without any actual movement plot-wise or character-wise, and without any memorable comedic moments, I just can't see the value in this unless you just want to see moe characters. Nichijou uses a similar comic-book style but has many more interesting and comedic moments.