REC

Information of Anime

Fumihiko Matsumaru, a unsuccessful salary man working for a snack company, was stood up by a girl he liked at his workplace. As he tried to throw his movie tickets away, a girl appeared & started to "speak" on behalf of the tickets.  He finds out that she's working on her dream on being a seiyuu (voice actor).  After the movie & dinner, he walks her home & finds out that they live in the same neighbourhood.  Hours after taking her home, he discovers that her apartment got on fire & invites her to his place since she had nowhere to go.  Now the girl, Aka Onda, & Fumihiko are living together under the same roof with a strange relationship bond between them.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  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.

Aside from the fact that they are living together, little did Fumihiko & Aka know that they would be working together on his food snack project.  It was when Fumihiko's company was doing an audition for a voice for their mascot & Aka got selected.  However, their relationship & secret about living under the same roof is kept in secret between their companies since it may cause problems.  With this, Fumihiko has a tough time being with Aka & develop a relationship with her even though he's happy that she's fulfilling her dream.  As time moves on, both of them spend less time together due to work.  Aka is getting more seiyuu jobs & Fumihiko is working hard on continuing his project.  The relationship between the two gets rocky at times when Fumihiko tries to make moves on Aka & she ends up rejecting him a lot.  The breaking point occurs at the climax.

As Aka is getting more successful with her work, Fumihiko starts to suffer as his works are getting reject one after another.  Frustrated, he takes his stress on Aka by commenting her how success she has become.  This concerns Aka & the two temporary break up as Aka leaves his home.  It was only until the two of them end up meeting at a restaurant with their co-workers.  After hearing each other's problems & feelings, they finally develop into a couple.  The show ends with the two of them living in the same apartment once again.

My Personal Review

REC is a fairly short series as it ends at nine episodes, which is unusual.  The show is different from some of the anime series out there at the moment.  The show is heavily based on drama than comedy.  So if you are looking for something to laugh hard on, this isn't it.  If you want realistic drama & with light comedy, you should give this series a shot.

Animation

The character designs are pretty unique.  The designs of the male & female characters look very different from one another due to the sizes of their eye.  The females have large to medium eye sizes, while the males have that "dot" in their eyes.  However, the designs are pretty appealling, despite how simple they look.  Aka does look cute in the show.

The animation movements are quite fluid & natural.  There are the occasional strange & out of this world actions, but that's usually occurs when Fumihiko gets some sort of punishment.  Overall, the flow is very smooth.

For colour designs & background, they are very simple.  You hardly see any special patterns or designs on the backgrounds.  Also, they are quite dull in colour.  The colour balance between the characters & the background blend nicely even though the characters are in dull colours as well.

Sound

The sound effect are ok & the volume is just right.  The sounds were more on the cute side than realistic since the show does involve Aka trying to be a seiyuu. 

The seiyuus here aren't too bad.  For Aka, I did have some problems with her voice time to time.  When she goes into seiyuu mode, her voice doesn't seem to change much.  However, it does sound older & deeper than her normal voice.  It just doesn't seem right at times.

Not much music here.  Most of the time it's cute stuff due to the Ha snack commercials, promotions, etc.  When there are actual background music in the show, it's mainly quiet ballad types.  However, you won't notice the music much since you would be more focus on the screen.

Story

The story is quite touching & more down to Earth than a lot of anime shows out there.  Although you won't be able to imagine getting jobs like that, they are both low end paying jobs when you look at them deeply.  However, the theme of letting a female stranger living in your apartment is something that most people will not do.  But it does have it's twist, even though you see these themes more in J-Dramas.  Also, the show makes a lot of references to Audrey Hepburn's works.  Even the titles of the episodes are from his works & the theme of the episodes are related to them.  Having knowledge about Hepburn's works aren't needed really.

The story focuses the hardships for the two characters in terms of work, time, & their secret relationship.  It is quite interesting to see how the couples would work things our between them during their hardships.  Although there was a lot of times where I thought the characters are just acting like jerks & selfish, it really draws you in.  However, a lot of these situations are quite weak & there was a number of times where I lost interest for the show as I watched them.  I had the feeling of watching them & hoping it would be over soon.  Little did I know that the show would actually end short with nine episodes, which is almost unheard of in an anime TV show.

The ending was fitting as the two characters manage to solve their differences & understood each other's hardships.  I was happy with it, but I started wanting some more of the show when it suddenly ended at nine episodes.  However, I felt it would go in circles if the show went for 12 episodes instead.  I guess the writers knew when to stop the show.

Overall Conclusion

REC is a nice anime show.  It's quite realistic & a breather from other wacky anime shows out during it's release season.  However, the show isn't for everyone.  It's more of a J-Drama show than anime with it's heavy drama theme.  It is boring at times, but the pace is steady.  If you are looking for something with heavy drama or want to move out of the weird & out of this world anime shows, give this show a try.

REC gets a grade of 7.5/10.  It's pretty well written as a J-Drama show, but it's not strong.  The theme is used a lot outside of anime shows, so don't expect something new here.  It's really different from other anime shows today, but it doesn't draw a good attention in to keep it interesting.  Overall, you would say it's just a typical anime show with nothing new even though it's positioned away from other shows.

Last updated on January 14, 2008