Natsu no Arashi - Episode 1

Despite its appallingly bad, rushed ending, I was a big fan of the School Rumble anime, and it was for this reason that I found myself wanting to check out the adaptation of another Jin Kobayashi in the form of Natsu no Arashi, as the new anime season in Japan continues apace.

Natsu no Arashi introduces us to Hajime, our protagonist, and his friend Sayoko - A seemingly normal guy and girl who oversleep (well, Hajime does) and work in a local coffee shop. So far, so normal - Except that Sayoko (and indeed Kaja, another girl who works in the cafe) have some literally rather ethereal properties, not least the ability to travel through time. So, we have the hook for this series (and time travel is always a good one), so what does the first episode of Natsu no Arashi do with it?


An episode about strawberries, that's what. No, I'm not kidding. Now, mixing time travel with the mundane is no bad thing - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time managed to do so fantastically, but to be quite honest this opener to Natsu no Arashi is the exact opposite of that. It's animation style is pretty ugly to look at, its characters hardly leap out at you in neither design nor behaviour, and the stories which make up this first episode are incredibly tedious viewing. Indeed, the only kick I got out of the episode was the very brief visual nod to Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

So, with all of that in mind this series is already in serious danger of being dropped - I'm going to give it another episode or two as it would be unfair to drop any show on the basis of a single episode, but at this particular moment in time I can't see anything which may bring redemption to this show in my eyes. I can only hope that I'm proved wrong though.