[TV series] Abenobashi Maho Shoutengai

Type: TV series
Genre:Comedy

Plot synopsis
Sassi and Arumi are best friends that live in the same neighborhood. Arumi's father gets a better job and Arumi is going to move away. There is a lot of new construction going on and this is disrupting the flow of the energy in the shoutengai. Traumatic events happen that send both Arumi and Sassi into alternate versions of their world. Will they make it home? Will they be able to find out why there are all these versions with their family and friends?

Story (7/10)
The alternate versions are all puns on pop society. They are humerous at first but get repetitive twords the end of the series as every episode has the exact same premise. The quirks of each area are very funny and the story is entertaining. There are some plot twists that redeem the anime, but most of them come as an epiphany to the characters so far after the watcher has figured them out.

Characters (8/10)
At first all the characters seem very 2 dimentional, but they do get more rounded out as the series progresses. Some traits you find annoying and it turns the character to almost unlikable. There are some characters that I found never really redeemed themselves.

Art/animation (7/10)
Its mediocre animation. It seems like a run of the mill art work, nothing that really jumps out at you from the screen. The back drops are pretty generic, and the characters remind me of pre-existing ones. (Compare Munimuni to Naga in animation).

Voice acting, music (7/10)
Again nothing really jumped at me about the voice acting. It all just seemed to run together like any other anime I've seen. Didn't find anything unique about any thing.

Conclusion (7/10)
The anime was very middle of the road. Nothing really unique. I found the series very reptetitive and the twists are figured out well in advance of the characters. It is just a spoof of different pop culture facets. Its an anime I'd say I'd watch once, but thats about it. The humor is fun at first, but gets old quickly and the series wears out its novelty fast.

You can find the gallery for Abenobashi Maho Shoutengai here

Story (8/10): Seems a bit spastic at first, but it DOES have an actual plot. Somewhere in there.

Characters (7/10): Interesting characters....but sometimes seem like clones of past Gainex characters. Yeah, the character designs are very obviously Gainex (the main character looks sort of like Naota from FLCL, and the main girl looks like she could be the younger sister of one of the guys in Kare Kano...and we mustn't forget the main guy's sister who is a Rei Ayanami clone), but they are still well-drawn. Actually, after seeing the original character designs in the manga, I'd say it's an improvement....

Art/animation (8.5/10): The animation was very nice. I've seen some crap animation, but this was rather smooth and high quality.

Voice acting, music (8/10): I don't have too much of a problem with any of the voice acting in the sub. Very good casting, I think. But the dub hurts me deep inside... They are JAPANESE, NOT SOUTHERN AMERICANS... >_< I really have no idea why so many dubbers think it's a neat idea to turn all people from the Osaka area into people from the American deep south...

Conclusion (8/10): Hm... I went ahead and gave this an 8, because...well...it's just so fun! Even when it starts getting more serious. I rather enjoyed the parodies, and then the interesting way everything started to become connected. The backstories, the histories behind things... Very interesting.

Story: 8.5/10

At first, it just seems to be poking random fun at other animes and different facets of society, but just past the halfway line, the whoal thing gets blown open and u start to understand what the hell is going on...

Characters: 8/10

again, seems mediocre at first, but if you let it ride for a lil while, it turns out great. the odd thing about this show, is how most of the characters, altho being the same ppl, are completely different in each world... which sorta keeps them fresh without having any real character devellopement... not a cookie-cutter anime thats for sure.

Music: 8/10

not really a fan of the into/outro... but the BG music worked wonders in most, if not all, the situations that arise... which IS saying alot considering the variety that comes from the plot......

Voice Acting: 9/10

removed 1 point for being slow to start... just like everything else in this anime... but once they get their characters down, they really do a good job!

and i do agree about the whoal Osaka/Redneck thing... it just seems like too much of a contrast in accents... i mean... i dont really mind the Osakan accent... but Redneck = "teh piss me off"

case in point, the dub sucked.

Overall: 9/10

good anime, but its more like an investment... i probly would've lost interest REAL quick had i started watching it while it was just coming out... you really have to watch this show in 1 sitting to really appreciate it... so opinions can vary quite a bit for this 1...

As it is my favorite anime series, i must review it:

Characters 10/10 - in my opinion the character development is great, and is worthy of a ten, you get attached to the characters, as well as their emotions and overall appearence

Story 10/10 - the story in abenobashi shopping arcade is very simple: two children, Arami and Sashi are teleported to a different world, right after hearing that Arami is to leave the shopping arcade. They are teleported to a different world each time they complete something in the previous world, but every world has one thing in common; it's still the shopping arcade...

Audio 10/10 - The voice acting is great in the dub, however, the reason this deserves a 10 is because of the fact that most of the music is like a parody of other anime music, not to mention it has the exact music from evangelion's battle scenes

Art 10/10 - Hilarious, the art and animation in this series is some of the best in my opinion, there are plenty of structures from other animes (like Axis from Gundam).

Overall 10/10 - My favorite comedy series, this series had me laughing every minuite, some of my favorite parts were seeing parodies of gundam, transformers, Dragon wing (and most other rpgs), Love Hina, Evangelion, Ah My Goddess and most other anime you can think of. I loved the fact that not only did they parody gundam, they had Axis in the background, i didn't notice till the second time i saw the episode. Abenobashi Shopping Arcade deserves a 10, as the best comedy series.