Special A - Episode 1

Once you hold a grudge about something, it's difficult to escape from it - A point proven by Hikari Hanazono, the protagonist of this manga to anime adaptation. After losing to a boy called Kei Takishima at wrestling at the tender age of six, Hikari vows to beat him some day. Fast forward to many years later, and Hikari is still looking for her elusive victory over Kei, even going to the extreme of enrolling at a particular school so that she can continue to challenge him.

What follows is a really quite uninspiring opening episode of this anime, setting the scene for the many challenges between Hikari and Kei to come, while the latter begins to find himself having feelings for her. If that sounds rather clichéd, that's because this series is showing signs of being exactly that, and personally I found the entirety of this first episode rather irritating, from the supporting characters through to their circumstances as 'top guns' within their school. It's perhaps too early to write off the show entirely, but everything from the plot to the characters on show here seem so half-hearted, it's difficult to find much to mention at all - Probably the sole highlight is voice actor Jun Fukuyama suitably employing that recognisable voice of Lelouch from Code Geass as that of Kei Takishima.

I'm really not sure I'll be able to sit through any more episodes of Special A after my experiences here, it simply seems to offer nothing capable of grabbing my attention from the animation through to the attempts at humour on show.