Animisery – A Blog About Living Miserably with Anime (Among Other Things)

sweet and bubbly yet empty calories

It isn’t really fair to just watch three episodes of an anime then operate under the notions that you’ve seen enough to warrant any sort of comprehensive review yet here we are. I mostly want to just vent out my frustrations over Honey Lemon Soda’s anime adaptation because if some anime truly aren’t anything more than a long haul technique to sell product then Honey Lemon Soda will surely thrive at that by being so mediocre that viewers will feel compelled to read the source material.

The basic premise boiled down to just bones, only bones, and nothing but the bones is fairly run of the mill concerning shoujo school romance: shy quiet girl meets feisty outspoken boy and love blooms. Or will it? Honey Lemon Soda attempts to bring some extra bubbles to the very flat formula (SODA REFERENCES HAHA I AM ANIME BLOG SHAKESPEARE) by making Uka Ishimori (or Stony as her bullies call her in the Crunchyroll subs) a victim of minor bullying and giving her love interest Kai Miura the quality of being an absolutely unpredictably stoic madman who uses lemon soda as his weapon of choice. There’s a supporting cast but, as of episode three, I can heartily assure you that they hardly had any time to show me why they’ll even be remotely relevant. Honey Lemon Soda doesn’t feel like it might evolve into Horimiya situation where the side plots might overtake the main plot in holding my interest due in part to how the side characters just haven’t done anything weighty but act as a Greek chorus to announce what the characters are doing. This may be just a consequence of only being three episodes deep but it could also just be that they’re flat and uninspiring. Who is to say except people who actually watch this show to the end? I don’t know if I’ll be one at any rate.

See, the issue is that Honey Lemon Soda is seemingly pitiful when it comes to animation and art direction in my eyes. Honey Lemon Soda is a based off a shoujo manga and, while I’ve dabbled only so much, I’ve always found shoujo manga to almost usually have the stylistic capabilities to enunciate characters light and airy feelings with sheer visual power at times. You can read some chapters of Nana and fully grasp the feelings of objective lovelorn from our protagonists or you can pick up a volume of Kimi Ni Todoke and revel in the free spirited breeze of young love because the artists know who to tell a story and convey to you, and almost manipulate you, with visual flair. I lay all that out for you because Honey Lemon Soda’s anime adaptation is almost devoid of any choices that would show that those at the helm of the anime ship comprehend that.

It’s almost apples and oranges to compare anime and manga since one relies on operational moving parts while the other is essentially pictures that you have to stare at and visualize the changes as you go along. Honey Lemon Soda’s anime adaptation does not have to be strictly beholden to the choices of the manga yet it would benefit Honey Lemon Soda as anime so much if it felt like any effort was actually being manifested in the frames on my TV. After having consumed the episodes available to me, I actually took to the streets read the manga available for Honey Lemon Soda and the US and I was actually a little perturbed by how much the anime actually made me feel as if I was watching a film I’d seen before through multiple layers of frosted glass. I could recognize the shapes and the imagery yet everything felt lost as the glass between us morphed the shapes into an unrecognizable form. The manga, while not immaculate by any definition of the word, inscribed a feeling a levity and joy on the page; the anime, by comparison, felt like a just a copy with the soul removed forcibly.

That’s a lot of ways to say just how uninspiring J.C. Staf adaptation is as a visual spectacle. It’s hollow and devoid of anything but seemingly what needs to work for an adaptation. That isn’t to say that it’s even bad but it just feels so far removed from something that could be quantified as “good”. It could be said that the choices are made out of workmanship: the product has to be out there so we work on it just enough and sent it out into the world. The colors feel flat at times like J.C. Staff has a strict color guide and, by god, they weren’t going to divert from that at any cost. All the characters ended up feeling stoic because of this lack of extra effort on display which is a shame due in part to how emotional these high schoolers are supposed to be by then nature of the story. Our main character Ishimori strives to change herself and is so strung along by her emotions that she seemingly chooses her school due in part to love interest Kai’s interference. These are characters beholden to intense emotions yet it almost feels farcical on screen due in part to everything on screen.

The issue though is that I want to watch more of this show. I want to see the story animated and brought to my TV screen because I think it has the capacity to be something that warm the cockles of my heart. It’s just a downer that the judgmental asshat in me can’t get over some of these animation choices and seemingly lack of direction. Honey Lemon Soda has a very derivative plot, I can’t argue that, but there’s nothing wrong with just a plain Coke sometimes. You don’t need cherry or any other assorted artificial flavor (like honey perhaps!?!? I am referencing the title hehehehehe) to change the crisp and proven flavor of a proven classic and Honey Lemon Soda’s story seemingly wants to replicate that mantra. That said, at three episodes, we’re looking at a story done before by better hands that J.C. Staff doesn’t plan to do well so why even bother? I’ll probably hop over and stay hopped over to the manga.

I declare again that three episode is not a wholly reasonable metric to judge this show with finality so keep that in mind. Maybe the story improves with such veracity that it will completely over take any disappointments with the direction I’ve had so far? I don’t know. These are just impressions really.

If you’ve enjoyed (or didn’t enjoy) the first three episodes of Honey Lemon Soda then let me know! What seasonals are you checking out? Comment all that below because I would love getting to talk to you! If you want to hear more of my anime takes then you can check out my podcast, the Anime Brothers podcast, wherever you get your shows! Thank you for reading and have a great day!