Shukufuku no Campanella

Title: Shukufuku no Campanella Genre: Comedy, Fantasy Rating: 3.5/10

Summary: The story takes place in a trading city Ert’Aria. Leicester Maycraft is an item engineer belonging to an adventurer guild “Oasis”. One night, he is at a party with his friends to see a meteor stream on the rooftop of a chapel. One meteor grazes them and hits the steeple of the chapel. There he finds a secret room and a sleeping girl. The girl wakes up and says “You must be my father!”. The encounter with the mysterious girl brings an unexpected adventure to Leicester.

Review: Oh Shukufuku, I was spot on when it came to judging you. In fact, probably one of the only anime where you can safely say, “Judge a book by its cover.” As I said in my first look this probably wasn’t going to be anything special. Actually it worse than nothing special, leaning toward unwatchable. Although it didn’t get my infuriated like some anime cough True Tears cough, it didn’t give me any enjoyment either. The anime had no redeeming features. Everything that can be considered good has already been done before, and good in an average way. For example, the art style wasn’t bad and pleasing to the eyes (if you like bright colors) but it wasn’t anything different from most other anime. The soundtrack as well may be considered good for some, but others not so much… like most other anime. So combining these average to below average traits with the negatives of story, characters, and action nothing much can be said about this anime. Shukufuku no Campanella’s action was as good as a turn based video game. It is easy to tell who is attacking and who is defending, but really boring down times for the other characters. The action did improve toward the end when the new villains appeared, however, this didn’t make up for past faults. Just as the action improved at the end of the anime, so did the story. Also just as the action, the story improvement didn’t make up for past faults. I would say nine of the twelve episodes were filler. On top of that the cliché love and friendship will conquer all was laid on a bit thick. I’m all for companionship, but sometimes believing in your friends shouldn’t be the absolute answer and blatantly spelled out for you. Some completely unexplained events lead to a number of plot holes, from strange emanating light to teleporting artifacts, that could have helped the anime out. I found it funny that the events which needed explanation were left untouched, and the obvious needed extra attention. Finally, the characters were just depressing. And I don’t mean in the boo-hoo way, more a feeling of pity toward the voice actresses. The constant need to say “ne” and “desu” to sound cute at the end of every sentence must have driven them nuts.  If it didn’t, well then they are better people than I… or corrupted. One of the two. Originally I could see this anime being played right after school, or early Saturday mornings for kids. But the random ecchi moments made me think otherwise. I do give credit that the guy wasn’t a typical freaked out nerd in a blissful situation, his apathetic attitude wasn’t much better. Probably the only two characters that were likable were the villains. The twin sisters weren’t bad for comedic relief but they didn’t really relieve you from anything. This no drama, slow action, jumpy story, poor character anime really had nothing going for it.

Final statements: After such a long rant I would surprised if you thought this was anything but an avoid watch. There was literally nothing worth checking in this anime, not even as a time burner.