Anime: Photokano 4m4q6v

Harem anime offer a multitude of aspects for a viewer to enjoy when watching one. Viewers are offered what's essentially a line-up of different female characters (or males for the reverse genre) who tend to all follow a certain archetype that's become fairly common in most genres of moe-blob, and slice of life shows, and almost staple to visual novel adaptations. Given that the characters are interesting enough, with a sensible plot behind them, anyone can find at least one character who found themselves enjoying the time of day given to that one specific character, even though that, canonically, the main girl will be chosen in the end. But the overall experience can be enhanced when the show offers a good sense of humor, nice presentation, and interesting character designs. What happens when all of that is achieved, but it fails horribly? Photokano.

What is unfortunately considered the spiritual successor to the more successful game, and subsequently more successful anime, Amagami SS, Photokano attempts to take the same direction but with what is arguably a better studio, Madhouse. What this means is that this is almost guaranteed a visually appealing show, which it actually does accomplish. There are multiple scenes where the studio can show off its budget and skill of animation, and create a pseudo-3D scene when the characters themselves are just drawn in. Photokano also inherits the style and character designs from its earlier games, KimiKiss and Amagami. The characters themselves are vaguely original in design, and they don't try too hard to adhere strictly to their respective archetypes (i.e. the tsundere, the little sister, the childhood friend) by not actually shoving that fact in the viewers' face.

The overall theme of the show is that of a camera, where the main character obtains one and begins his journey of self-discovery through his newly acquired 'new look' at the world around him. This also gives the show a unique excuse to include ecchi scenes and panty shots left and right. A clever aspect to the show is the overall setup of the rest of the series. In the early episodes, most, if not all, of that 'flags' for the girls are setup n what can be considered subtle, and not out of place or awkward in writing. This gives somewhat of a justification for the following 'arcs' that the show presents itself in.

However, the problem with Photokano lies in its delivery, in that there is none. The character flags are set up in the near beginning, the setting with the Photography Club is created, and the main character isn't a terribly boring and generic person. But what comes to follow is essentially a string of one episode arcs, where each episode is dedicated to one girl. The camera motif is quickly rendered meaningless because the (very few) character dynamics have almost nothing to do with the theme of the camera itself. The secondary characters, who are the of the Photography Club fall flat after their introductions (which is unfortunate because one of them is voiced by Shiraishi Minoru) and are never developed. The final and most important flaw of the show lies in the girls. While the show can cleverly jump from arc to arc, there is absolutely no time for any characters to be developed. All that can be presented in the end is a character trait, like one's love for food, or the other's stoicism, and then immediately tries to force false character development in the span of 10-15 minutes.

Anything and everything that was set up by the beginning of the show, which was in all fairness actually not that bad, is completely stunted and abandoned. In its attempt to try and accomplish what Amagami SS did, which had roughly 40 episodes total when OVAs are included with each girl getting at least 3-4 episodes each, Photokano hurts itself by spreading itself too thin. Sadly, the only problem really was the length of the show.

Art & Animation: 9/10 - Madhouse sure knows how to show off when they can do a pseudo-3D space camera trick. Good colors, good backgrounds, nice shading when the detail is there.
Sound: 7/10 - While voice acting is nothing special in this show, the music tends to stand out for at least 2 or 3 tracks when things get serious in mood.
Story: 5/10 - It's a shame to say that time restrictions are whats holding back nearly everything about that show, even though that isn't saying much to begin with, but it's the truth and the story suffers for it.
Character: 3/10 - There are nice designs for the girls, and some of the secondary characters look pretty nice, but style only goes so far when the characters are literally paper thin and shallow.
Value: 2 - Nothing too meta or self-aware about the show, and no significant impact on the industry other than being an attempt at what Amagami was.
Enjoyment: 5 - Personally, I wanted to like the show. There was just no real chance to.

Photokano offers so much for the inexperienced male seeking girlfriends. This series offers plenty of top tips such as making sure to put yourself in a position to be blackmailed, always eating everything that people offer you, and always bringing along a SLR camera as apparently that is essential towards getting a first date. In all seriousness, Photokano is a sloppy work full of unrealistic characters and more fan service than the topic really merits. The series takes fan service to the next level by literally putting the camera in the hands of the protagonist with which to expose the finer features of the female figure. If you liked the story progression of Amagami (instant time rewind) but wanted more focus on fan service rather than character development this is the series for you. If you want to learn how to take good pictures, this is not the series for you. And if you want to learn how to get a date, please don't follow the protagonist and save yourself from getting slapped and/or arrested for stalking.

Animation:
The overall animation of the series is totally fine except that there are randomly (ittedly) distracting fan service shots practically every five frames; this is probably some sort of subliminal messaging and/or foreshadowing of things to come. The series is cast in a very nice, lush color palette with variable background quality; the series has some really nice, detailed CGI water effects but they look ridiculously out of place in an otherwise really cheaply-done background scene. As for characters, I will it that I found some of the characters a bit too similar. Most series have a limit of five or so heroines for a good reason, this show decides to go with eight in a total of thirteen episodes.

In of fan service, expect a lot of upskirts, beach scenes, and girls posing for the protagonist. The majority of the photography club are perverts and you'll see a lot of their "work" throughout the show. In of action, there's a lot of unrealistic camera panning. While 360 degree Matrix spins around a camera target look really cool, you can't actually do them in real life while looking through a viewfinder.

Sound:
The show opens with a very clinical, jazzy OP which may lull you into sleeping mode if you're not careful. The ED is a better tune that is sung by the VA cast. The actual singer will vary throughout the show based on the current route the story is on. The BGM is quite minimalistic overall though it does lazily wake up around each route's climax.

There is a pretty large VA cast due to the large number of heroines in the show. I still like Kanae Itou's role the most but it might partly be due to the fact that its the only two-episode long arc. The other VAs do a good job overall but really, one episode doesn't do anyone justice.

Story:
The premise of the story goes something like this: I met my dad's camera and I suddenly became attractive to all the girls around me. So our protagonist, a guy who can't find anything in particular that he likes, randomly inherits an SLR from his father. After looking nerdy with his camera for a few hours, he's scouted by the photography club. The photography club shares a room with the photo club. While the photo club takes pictures of pretty things (birds, nature, scenery), the photography club takes pictures of "pretty" things (cleavage, fine lines, and occasional forbidden gardens). There, he learns the "finer" arts of photography.

The first four episodes feel really slow, but the interactions there form the foundation for the rest of the series. From the fifth episode on, each heroine has her arc, which recycles the majority of the events in the first four episodes (deviations, if any, will be noted in the particular arc). Niimi's arc is first, and is the only one to last two episodes. All the other heroines' arcs last a single episode and end up with the heroine madly in love with the protagonist. The advantage of this approach is obviously that you can skip girls that don't seem interesting (as skipping an episode has no impact on the overall plotline).

While I give the show props for sticking with the camera focus, the overall execution just doesn't flow. Since so much is crammed into each individual episode, none of the character development feels organic; characters end up coming across as flat and unrealistic.

Character:
Good character development requires a good exposition and a good execution. In Photokano, the heroines are expected to go from "who are you" to "I wanna marry you" within essentially a twenty minute time frame. There are entire series where a single heroine doesn't make it that far (and in many cases for the better). The huge variety of heroines includes the childhood friend, the sporty girl, the perfect student president, the mysterious shy girl, the dancer girl, the perfect housewife girl, the weird photo club girl, and the not-surprisingly non-blood related sister. While many of the girls have one or two traits that help break them away from being labeled as "cookie-cutter", none of them have adequate exposition or air time in general.

Value:
While there were a few chuckles and a few dramatic scenes, the pacing of the show just felt totally off. Many episodes took me two sittings to get through, and there was just nothing to motivate moving on with the series. The characters were just not interesting enough to be engaging, and the overall premise just a bit too farfetched. Save yourself the feeling of being cheated and skip this one.