Is this why the One Piece anime has turned so crummy?
Lovely Complex is based on Aya Nakahara’s shojo manga of the same name. It’s directed by Toei mainstay Konosuke Uda, erstwhile One Piece director (TV, the pretty neat Movie 4 and the slightly less neat Movie 7) who cut his teeth on various Sailor Moon projects and the 90s GeGeGe no Kitaro series. And it’s animation director is Hideaki Maniwa, who has performed similar roles on Eureka Seven, Kindaichi and, yes, One Piece.
The direction is noticably similar to that of many of One Piece’s comedy pieces, with what seems a concerted effort to emulate the success of shows like Honey and Clover. Though it’s aimed at a younger audience. There’s nothing really dazzling, indeed some of the OP and most of the promotional art bare little resemblance to the more frantic, pose to pose, loose style of the show itself.
So the animation is merely Toei standard work, so why do I like it? Well it has almost-Daichi levels of energy to it. Like Nabeshin recently showed with Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, it’s perfectly possible to create an enjoyable comedy on a low budget. It has another One Piece alum, Akemi Okamura (voice of Nami, which is pretty much the exact same voice she uses here.), turning in a great lead performance. I don’t think I’d enjoy it quite so much without that performance being there. And it’s romantic comedy story of a short rambunctious boy and tall rambunctious girl falling in love promises to be really charming from this first episode. Of course this being a romantic comedy, it goes without saying that they don’t have a clue they are a match in this first episode.
Worth a look if you like romantic comedies or the One Piece anime or both. You might as well watch it to remind yourself how so much better One Piece was looking before it changed timeslots.