First Impression – Mashiro-Iro Symphony

What is the color for girls? What is the color for boys?

I believe this show right here is the only Fall ’11 show on Meta that’s being done solo, so I hope you’ll come along with me for first impressions on this eroge-based anime. Though my initial interest is not the strongest, I’ll give Manglobe a fair shake and see if they can do something interesting with an eroge anime.

What is the color for girls? What is the color for boys? If they meet, what color is created? White. Pure white. Like a canvas.

Sakuno Uryuu is lost, so she calls her brother Shingo and he goes out to look for her. Sakuno is cute, so he’s worried. If she’s lost, he must search for her. He asks Sakuno to take a picture with her phone, so she takes a picture of herself near a Shiroyuijou Street sign. He correctly assumes that she went to Kagami Mall and got lost on her way back.

A creature is walking along the top of the wall, which Sakuno follows until Shingo calls back. She says she won’t move, and after that her phone battery dies out on her. As she chills into a side area of the street, it starts to rain. While she waits, a girl with an umbrella sees her. Sena Airi is also lost, and she lets Sakuno borrow her phone to talk to Sakuno. The search continues.

Sakuno is still looking and still on the phone with Airi. After he hangs up, the girls emerge from a bush and surprise him. The rain has gone away, everyone is safe, and the Uryuu siblings go home to wash up. The next morning, Sakuno reveals why she went to Kagami Mall – to get some fish and a couple of nice bentos for their first day at school.

D’aww

Kagami Academy suffers from pretty crappy management, and fortunately for them, Yuihime Girls Academy offers them a merging proposal to which Kagami accepts. Under it, select 1st and 2nd-year students are chosen to enroll in Yuihime Academy. The Uryuu siblings and also Shingo’s friend Hayata are going to be attending school at Yuihime.

Trampling the garden of maidens… good luck doing it against the girl army.

Arriving at the academy, the kids are welcomed by Angelina Nanatsu Sewell, a stray maid for the academy. After being in awe simply from Shingo saying “Tadaima”, they go to the auditorium for welcoming ceremonies.

Angelina – “WOW, so this is what boys look like! Me like very much!”

So fluffy and kawaii…

Machi-sensei is nervous because so many young boys are around, and later the principal and her daughter, Airi Sena burst into the room. Surprised to see the Uryuu siblings, Airi declares that she isn’t accepting of the merger and wants the school to stay an all-girls academy.

No Boys Allowed!

End Thoughts:

Please Mashiro, be more pretentious with that opening monologue. It might have some deep meaning to the concept of boys being mixed in with the girls academy, or whatever. It wants to be meaningful, but considering episode 1’s content, it probably should’ve held this off a week.

That first half sounds pretty boring if you just read it. It also might come off as a little boring if you watch it. However, there is something to be said for the fact that I wasn’t checking hockey scores from boredom or checking my Mplayer to see how far the episode had progressed. It’s a slow first half, but the mood was kept right throughout the whole scene. When it rained, the characters took notice of it but didn’t freak out like armageddon was happening. There wasn’t a silly scene where Shingo slipped and fell onto Airi’s chest (though the show highlighted her shapely figure). Its only real fault is a lack of character development, but besides that, the scene was calm, the character interactions over the phone were refreshingly different than per usual and not forcibly urgent, and there’s some good musical composition in the scene. The scene simply has a nice mood to it.

Then we get into the second half and things start to feel a little more typical in terms of eroge. Hayata the wingman, Angelina the silly, over-talkative maid, Miu playing with some weird pet an in open field while the group watches her, and Airi who is anti-merging even though her mom was the one that proposed it. Episode 2’s preview looks like it ventures into typical eroge territory, so after a slow, yet peaceful introduction to the Uryuu siblings, I’m interested in seeing if Mashiro can be a decent anime. I joked in our preview that Manglobe shouldn’t be doing this, but I did also say that if anybody can break an eroge anime away from what most of the genre is loathed for nowadays, Manglobe is a fine candidate to take on this task.

The show isn’t shockingly good visually, but it does look nice and it’s HQ when you compare it to Fall’s other eroge adaptation Maji de Watashi. And I mentioned the musical composition which is pretty good. Manglobe has a great track record of quality music, and they almost always pick good openings, like this one sung by Chouchou, who did the great OP theme for Kamisama no Memo-chou.

Episode 2 Preview:

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Produces the MetaVerse podcast. Also plays games and watches sports of all sorts. Is an actual Pirate King.
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8 Responses to “First Impression – Mashiro-Iro Symphony”

  1. Joojoobees says:

    They did do a pretty good job with the visuals, but this show almost had me bored to tears. Admittedly I have a low tolerance for the genre, but even the mighty Manglobe can’t keep me watching this.

    • Jrow says:

      I’m giving it the 3-episode rule, and I’m quite hopeful that I’ll be able to see this thru to the end.

  2. Metalsnakezero says:

    That Airi girl totally did a 180 from being so nice to drama.

  3. Dan-go says:

    What is this. i don’t even. One episode rule for me

  4. Moni Chan says:

    I found it wierd that they were looking for each other in the dark.

    the only thing that kept me though the episode was those cat like creatures. FUWA FUWA <3

  5. Foshizzel says:

    First episode! What the hellllll that blue haired sister was so derp but looked a bit like Mio from Nichijou! Just missing her wooden cubes and it’s perfect for her. I really wasn’t expecting much from this series after I watched Oretachi this seems like a calm version of that without the random pantsu shots.

    But two more episodes! If it doesn’t keep me wanting more probably going to drop! And what’s with these themes? All of these all girls schools merging with guys? LOLOL Fall seems to be filled of that well I can only count two shows this one and Maken-ki

  6. Toori-chan says:

    Boring vibes coming out of it like Hoshizora back in Spring. It’s staying as my side-anime to bore myself and kill time.

  7. […] “Please Mashiro, be more pretentious with that opening monologue. It might have some deep meaning to the concept of boys being mixed in with the girls academy, or whatever. It wants to be meaningful, but considering episode 1′s content, it probably should’ve held this off a week.” – Metanorn […]

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