Welcome to my review of the anime series "Tokimeki Memorial: Only Love".



The anime is based off of Tokimeki Memorial Online, an MMORPG that was spawned out of the long running Tokimeki Memorial dating sims. Wow... that it is a little complex.

This series concerns a new transfer student, Aoba Riku, into an eccentric school filled with wild and wacky characters, and more particularly his interactions with three girls who fall in love with him: Mina, Sayuri Amamiya and Mina Yayoi.

GRAPHICS

The animation isn't brilliant. It is spiffingly average. The animation is mostly smooth, though it can be a little jarring at times and once or twice you can see that there were very few key-frames in it. It is also worth noting that the continuity of day-time seems to be at the beck and call of the director shifting from day to night to sunset at will. However the animators have managed to pull it off. It isn't bad but don't expect a Kyoto Animation quality anime.

CHARACTERS

Tokimeki Memorial suffers from a common ailment: stock characters and stereotypes. Almost all the characters in this series fall into one stereotype or another be it the helpful newcomer who doesn't want to hurt anyone or the delinquent who is really a nice caring guy at heart or even the narcissistic track-team captain who looks like he came straight out of revolutionary girl Utena (though that was probably on purpose). There is one exception, in the form of Hyoko, a baby chicken. Do not underestimate this character who says what needs to be said at the right time. Hyoko provides a well needed flair to the series. This is not to say that you will not grow to like the characters, they might fall into stereotypes but the seiyuus are good at giving each of them emotion and can convey feeling quite well. Which brings be to another topic: This series has employed mostly unknown seiyuu, introducing fresh voiceacting talent to the anime. The one exception is Yayoi Mina's seiyuu who is more experienced than the others (even lending her voice to the volcaloid project), perhaps it is ironic that she plays a younger character.

Also note that the main male lead, Aoba Riku's seiyuu is quite experienced. However I will not be talking about him as he looks like the Kyon out of Hahiru.... *shiver*

I do feel that they didn't expand enough upon certain characters such as the homeroom teacher or crazy science teacher... even the bread-sales lady (who, even though she isn't a unique character will have you laughing more than once). The side characters do all have personalities, and some are quite funny, they are even expanded upon, if only a little. This does give the cast quite a good feeling. It is not like School Rumble where every character has a complete story, but it does give the feeling that there are more than 3 people in the classes.

Overall the characters are nothing special, but they still can make you empathise with them and their ever complex emotional states.

AUDIO

This is another average zone! The sounds used in the series are well... average. There are a few problems here and there e.g. the sound of walking on flooring when walking on grass etc. It is not something that you will really notice or care about if you do not pay alot of attention to it.

The music used in the series is used over and over again, and falls into the "stock" category of piano, violins and cheery xylophones. That doesn't mean that it is bad, just that by half-way through the series you will be able to hum along subconsciously with the background music.

The opening and ending music which was sung by the seiyuus are like most Jpop music. Catchy... very catchy. As a matter of fact I am listening to them now on loop. Which is gonna go my head in soon because there are only 3 songs on this playlist...

Oncemore this is not to say that they are bad, just that they are not overly special. Nice to listen to, but not quite Ode to Joy.

STORY

Tokimeki Memorial: Only Love doesn't have a revolutionary story. You can probably see what is going to happen a mile off. However it does throw a few surprises out here and there than will knock your confidence of prediction off a little. There was even one surprise early on that changed what I would have predicted to be the course of the plot. There is quite a bit of insanity here and there but I must say that it does fit in quite well with the series. The ending does make me think back to 5CMPS (*breaks down in sobs*) but it doesn't have the emotional gravity. At 25 episodes it does take a while to get there, and at times the plot can seem to move very slowly. I once or twice found myself shouting at the characters in my head to just say what was in their heads. This does highlight a partial flaw in the script: the interpersonal relationships seem to be developed through encounters with 2 + 1. E.g. the main character and a girl then another girl turns up and it descends into chaos from there. Personally I would have preferred more conversation between the characters to ground the situations for their feelings rather than it just being left up to the interpretations of the viewers to guess why they fell for the person they fell for.

Yet, just because the story is like the characters and the music (stock) doesn't mean that it is necessarily bad. It just isn't another Haruhi (Season ONE!).

CONCLUSION

Tokimeki Memorial: Only Love is spectacularly average. And boy do I love it. It is like one of these martial arts films. You sit down, turn on the tv, turn off your mind and watch it blankly. And it feels good. The series knows what it does and does it well. It doesn't need to be awesome in animation, plot or characterisation. Sure it isn't as deep as Evangelion or Welcome to the NHK, it's plot isn't as complex as Higurashi's the characters aren't Natsume Soseki or Yukio Mishima, but they don't have to be.

The series won't blow your socks off, rather it is a comfortable old pair of slippers, well broken in, that sit in front of the fire awaiting you to jump into them after whatever adventures you have been on.

Overall, this series isn't awesome, but it isn't bad. If you need something to pass the time between your Nodame Cantabile and your Eden of the East then I would recommend this.

7/10 ducks. High score, mostly because of the seiyuus and the fact it made me laugh