Nineteen 19

Information of Anime

Nineteen year old Kubota had a crush on Masana Fujisaka, an old high schoolmate & model.  He learns that she has broken up with her old boyfriend of five years.  From this, he sees an opportunity.

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.

Kobuta is surprised to see Masana at the club that he & his friends are at to search for girl.  When Kobuta protects her from a club from her friends dissing her old boyfriend named Kazuya, Masana starts to fall for him even though she tells her friends that she doesn't know him.  From that point, Masana & Kobuta start dating & having fun together.  She pushes the relationship pretty far as to sleeping together.  Although he knows that she is aware about how he felt for her, Kobuta gets nervous about the situation.

In one scene, Kobuta is invited to Masana's place to "continue where they left off" from their previous date.  To his surprise, Kazuya enters her place.  This is the second time that Kobuta has seen him.  Kobuta learns that Kazyua has been living with Masana for five years & is still taking his stuff out.  Although he defends Masana from Kazuya about how low & dirty she is, Kobuta breaks up with her as he doesn't want to be with someone that still has feelings for her old lover.

The story ends with Kobuta's friends comforting him & going out for some fun.  After the credit roll, the results of Masana's new photo shoot is shown.

My Personal Review

Nineteen 19 was something that I picked up after reading a brief description of what it's about.  About I knew it is old, I decided to pick it up due to the genre it is in.

Animation

Classic 90's character designs.  The female characters has round chins with oval type faces & large eyes while the guys have long rectangular sturdy faces with small eyes.  The clothing designs have more of that 80s touch instead but still fits the OVA's setting well.  Also, there are times where the designs for the still images are manga like.

The backgrounds don't have a lot of details.  They are quite blurry & not very well done.  A lot of rough edges & uneven parts like crooked lines or lines being thicker than others.

In terms of the animation movement, it's got a mixture of realistic & silly movements.  The flow is quite smooth for an old anime & most of it is on the realistic side.  The cycling is so smooth that you can hardly see where that reset point is.  But there is a lot of still animations during some of the music.  It makes it look like an animation MTV music video & there are some of them.

Sound

The sound effects have a mixture of comic & real.  The sounds are projected nicely, but the clarity isn't too good.  Not sure if it's the source of the video being old or what.

The seiyuus here are ok.  This is actually more of a personal preference as I'm not too fond with some of the 90s seiyuus.  The performance is good & the characters are portrayed nicely.

The music is mainly on the pop side.  There's a lot of music here as it makes the OVA more like a music video as I previously mentioned.  But it fits that pop 90s theme well.  There are some good ones if you are into some of the 90s pop.  Being rickrolled , I kind of go into some of the songs in this OVA

Story

For a one episode OVA from the 90s, it's pretty descent.  The story is based on a real life approach than some fantasy or unrealistic storyline.  It's something you can relate to.  Although it has a happy ending, the story felt like a sad one for me.  You fall in a love in a girl that isn't the same as before or she starts revealing her true self.

Although we do see changes in Kobuta's feelings for Masana, his overall character doesn't as he continues to look for girls with his friends.  Masana doesn't seem to change at all.  Although we don't actually see much of her such as her past, my impression of her is that she's actually the same person as she was from her high school years.

Overall Conclusion

Nineteen 19 is actually a nice little gem from the 90s.  Although it's short, the story is descent & realistic.  I personally recommend watching it if you are into old school anime with love drama.

Nineteen 19 gets an eight out of ten.  The story is pretty good despite the fact it's pretty short.  Reality stuff of how how you view someone may not be the same when you actually know them.  The somewhat downside is the amount of music the OVA has.  A very good chunk of it is like a music video or AMV/MAD of the series instead.

Last updated on April 29, 2008