Minami-ke
Title: Minami-ke (Season 1) Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life Rating: 7.5/10
Review: Let’s start off by saying this is technically going to be review one of three. The other two reviews will be released shortly after this one. I split the reviews because there were significant differences between the three seasons. The story is a basic slice of life following three sisters and the comedic situations they put themselves in. Well to be more accurate it really is the middle sister (Kana) that places the youngest (Chiaki) and eldest (Haruka) in comedic situations. At first Kana was the most irritating of the three because she was random, illogical, and overall dumbest of the lot. However, as the series progressed she soon became one my favorites. I began to realize that without her the show would have absolutely no purpose other than to watch two sisters do daily life things, which is creepy. The personalities of the three sisters were well done too. Of course they made them all different to create a mix, but they weren’t too far from people you would meet in your everyday life. What really made the show were the number of side characters. Most of the time I found myself laughing at the support characters’ antics. It got the point where I felt the sisters were simply the tie that brought all these characters together for the audience. Not sure if I consider that good or bad in terms of story, but in a purely comedic aspect it was good. The series also had touching moments from time to time. Despite the small quarrels the sisters get into, they always remember how irreplaceable they are to each other in the end [insert “D’awww” here]. Now that you have a pretty good understanding about what to expect in terms of story and comedy let’s move to art. The art style was pretty standard for any anime. It didn’t have kiddy expressions like water flowing eyes or sweat drops; instead the anime took a different approach and had dramatic changes in art style from anime to “realistic” to make those insignificant moments seem intense. Personally I like when they throw things like this into a comedy, but Miname-ke took it a bit too far. To be more precise, they did it too often. The first or second episode did these types of scenes at least three times. That’s quite a lot for a thirty minute episode. The soundtrack wasn’t bad either. The opening was upbeat just as expected for a comedy and the interval music was typical. Not a big plus, but no minus either.
Final statements: A pretty solid comedy that deserves a preferred watch. It got me chuckling and occasionally full on laughing. The enjoyment wasn’t something that made me want to watch every episode back-to-back, but it wasn’t a bad time killer at all. Please look forward to my next reviews on Minami-ke Okawari and Minami-ke Okaeri.