Nanatsuiro Drops

Information of Anime

Masaharu Tsuwabuki is a normal high school student that doesn't socialize with others much.  He gets forced into joining the gardening club by a teacher Natsume Kisaragi when he asks him for help.  The club consist of only Sumomo Akihime & Nadeshiko Yaeno.  Later than day, Masaharu bumps into a dog-eared person.  They both drop their drinks & Masaharu picks up the wrong one.  Drinking it, he turns into a stuffed sheep doll.  Kisaragi tells Masaharu the way to change him back to normal is to collect seven stardrops by finding the chosen girl who happens to be Sumomo.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Sumomo names the stuffed animal Masaharu Yuki-chan.  Together, they go out collecting the stardrops that appears only at night & near places with water.  Both are learning the ways of the task with Kisaragi teaching them both their mission.  However, Sumomo doesn't know that Yuki-chan is Tsuwabuki.  Also, Tsuwabuki changes to Yuki-chan only at night with certain conditions met which is dependant on the moon shape.

Later in the show, a new character appears that is collecting stardrops as well.  Her name is Nona Yuuki & she transferred from another school.  Kisaragi tells Yuki-chan & Sumomo that the collecting of the stardrops is like a contest between their school & another's.  Nona came from the other school.  Annoyed with Sumomo's ability in collecting the stardrops, Nona tells her to train & helps her along the way before making a competition between the two of them.  But it turns out that Sumomo's mother Karin use to be an excellent Purima & was very well known.  Aside from this battle, we see a small triangle love relationship between Sumomo, Kisaragi, & Nona as the first two misunderstand each other.  But the relationship with end with Sumomo & Kisaragi being together.

After becoming a couple, both Sumomo & Tsuwabuki start to build confidence in themselves; particularly Sumomo.  She starts to learn new difficult spells & doesn't back down much.  She also manages to catch harder stardrops with ease.  However, the seventh & last stardrop collected will change Tsuwabuki back to a human.  But, he would lose the chance when he tells Sumomo the truth during her duel with Yuuki.  The truth revealled turns Tsuwabuki into a lifeless doll forever. 

But Tsuwabuki would come back to life when Sumomo learns & attempts a very difficult recipe.  With Yuuki's help, she manages to bring him back.  However, the recipe is set to slow time down & reverse it.  Because of this, Tsuwabuki's memories are missed up.  Once the seventh star drop is collected & made into a medicine for him to return back to a human, he will forget everything from the past half year.  This is where he first becomes Yuki-chan.  Despite this, he & Sumomo do it or else he would have been a doll permanently.  Before he loses his memories, he tells Sumomo that he will love her again.

The show ends with Tsuwabuki looking for his lost memories as Sumomo waits for him.  By retracing his past steps & seeing some items that wasn't disposed of by him & Sumomo, he remembers he fell in love with Sumomo & goes after her.  Although he doesn't know when he started loving her, he tells her that he'll love her once again.

My Personal Review

Nanastuiro Drops is a cute series, but is something that I'm not excited about.  I only picked this up because I had nothing else to watch.  It's a highly popular in Japan though.

Animation

The character designs are quite nice.  However, the faces are a bit plain at times.  Face similarities is the reason.  For the males, it's fine but still a bit plain.  For the clothing, it's pretty unique.  I like Sumomo's uniform that she wears to collect the stardrops.  Yuki-chan's design is like a stuffed doll indeed & I don't really like it much.  It's cute though, but I guess my dislike for it is due to personal taste.  But I think a better way to describe it is that I'm neutral on the design than hate really.

The backgrounds are okay.  Not a lot of details, but it's got a soft feel in them.

The colours are on the dull side.  Even with the bright & bold parts, it's still dull.  But, it's kind of a good thing really.  Although it made the show look old, it's doesn't look like a kid's cartoon.

In terms of the animation movement, it's a mixture.  Sometimes the movements are realistic & sometimes the movements are not normal.  But they are quite smooth with some choppy frames found.  Mainly the running parts.

Sound

The sound effects are on the silly & realistic side.  Some of them are quite cute & funny.  They fit the show well & give it some life.

The seiyuus here are average.  I don't like Sumomo's voice very much & her character isn't what I like though.  Too much whining & crying.  But it fits the character's personality though. 

The music is mainly the pop & ballad side.  Quite cute.  None of them are memorable though.  They escape from my head pretty easily.

Story

Aside from collecting stardrops to get Tsuwabuki back to normal, it's got some slight character development.  Improving Sumomo's ability in collecting stardrops (which I think is progressing a bit faster) & the relationship between her & Tsuwabuki as he knows what's Sumomo is thinking about him when he's Yuki-chan.  Whether it's from stardrop hunting, school, or personal life, Tsuwabuki shows his support for her as he's very close to her most of the times.  That development would lead to a love relationship between the two.

The love story has a lot of ups & downs in terms of the hardship of Tsuwabuki staying quiet about him being Yuki-chan.  As the story progressed, it created some nice elements of a relationship.  The promises that they made, the strength & bond between the two, etc.  It created some nice emotional scenes as well such as Tsuwabuki become a lifeless doll for a while.

The ending wasn't too bad.  It did feel a bit rushed.  But with 12 episodes, it's hard to do something to expand this.  Plus, it can feel like a drag when you think about it.  For me, I've pretty much seen enough of Sumomo crying & being weak.

Overall Conclusion

Nanatsurio Drops is a fair nice show if you are into cute things.  The story seems nicely build & the characters have some development; particularly the main two characters.  However, I don't like Sumomo's character much as she's too much of a crybaby.  But I'll be honest in saying that she is cute.  She does improve on this later on though.

Nanatsurio gets a seven out of ten.  The story is nice & goes at a descent pace for a 12 episode show.  The character Sumomo is a bit awkward to me as she cries a lot & is very helpless at the start.  But the show does get better later on & the love story between Sumomo & Tsuwabuki gets interesting to watch with emotions.

Last updated on February 5, 2008