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Anime First Impressions

Tonagura! (Tona-Gura!) – Anime First Impressions

In my Summer 2006 anime preview, I predicted that Tonagura! would consist of pure win. The character designs looked good, and I decided it would be ecchi fun for the whole family! Well, maybe not the whole family…

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In my Summer 2006 anime preview, I predicted that Tonagura! would consist of pure win. The character designs looked good, and I decided it would be ecchi fun for the whole family! Well, maybe not the whole family…

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Arisaka Kazuki is awaiting the return of her childhood friend, Kagura Yuji. She remembers him from ten years ago as a cool kid, and thinks that when he returns he’ll be a prince charming. In reality, he’s a total perv!

That’s about it plot-wise. Yuji accidentally enters Kazuki’s room while she’s changing. In your usual anime, Yuji would give the “oh noes, it was an accident” response, He’d get hit, and Kazuki would be like, “Yuji no baka!” Instead of apologizing, though, Yuji just goes for it!

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Silly Kazuki, your punches can not harm Yuji! Don’t you know who he is!? It actually takes a few paintball rounds to take Yuji down. Kazuki becomes totally emo after learning that her once cute pal has become the echhiest man alive.

She locks herself in her room and remembers the good times with the un-tainted Yuji. Eventually, Yuji tricks wins back her heart by showing that he remembers how they first met on that very same veranda. He might be a perv, but he’s still her childhood friend!

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The great thing about Tonagura is that it goes opposite to the typical childhood friends getting back together anime genre. Yes, there’s enough of those that I think it’s a genre… Take Ai Yori Aoshi, make Kaoru a mega perv, and more or less you have Tonagura. And it actually turns out to be interesting!

I’m guessing that Yuji will become less and less ecchi and more respectable as the anime progresses. Either that, or Kazuki will become more ecchi (I think that’s the hentai version of this anime, actually). Either way, it’ll be nice to see how the characters progress (assuming that they do).

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I said in my preview that I thought the character designs were great. The characters don’t look quite as good as the stills on the website, but they’re still good. The character designs kind of remind me of Mahoraba, which is still one of my favorite anime. There’s also a few characters that haven’t been introduced yet, so I’ll have to wait for those.

The animation quality is good considering it’s a romantic comedy. Oh, and did anyone else notice the blatant ripoff homage of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu in the opening credits?

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The OP is sung by a bunch of the seiyuu. It’s okay, once you consider that. It’s just kinda boring for my tastes. The ED is also sung by two of the seiyuu. It’s also kind of yawn inducing. I dunno why they couldn’t have just gotten some actual singers to do at least one of the songs…

Download the OP: “DRAMATIC☆GIRLY” by Akemi Kanda, Sayaka Ohara, Erino Hazuki, Misaki Sekiyama & Ayumi Tsuji
Download the ED: “Aitai Kimochi Kara~Placid Time~” by Akemi Kanda and Sayaka Ohara

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Tonagura! is a nice break from your typical romantic drama anime. Rather than have a guy with no backbone, Yuji is a total perv! This is also one of the few anime I’ve seen this season that has actual fanservice in it. It’ll be interesting to see how the characters will progress as the anime does. I’m digging the character designs, too. For now, I’m designating Tonagura! as one of the better anime of the season.

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11 replies on “Tonagura! (Tona-Gura!) – Anime First Impressions”

its not a suzumiya haruhi rip off cause
that scene has been played in at least 10 other anime openings. cant think of any from the top of my head but i’ve definitely seen it somewhere else before Haruhi even aired

I enjoy the OP and ED very much. It’s nice to heard light-hearted songs once in a while. However, many seiyuu can sing well nowdays so I won’t be surprise that they can do OP and ED theme songs.

As for the the ‘Suzumiya Haruhi Rip Off’… I don’t think of it as a rip off from the series too.

Right now, there isn’t any fansub groups planning to sub this series, but in a few days I would expected one or two might.

Ehh.. I noticed the similarity between Haruhi and Tonagura, but people seem to be too overcritical with things concerning Haruhi.

Anyway, just dropping a line since I was wondering what happened to the subs. :p Nice blog.

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