Tonagura!

Information of Anime

Kazuki Arisaka & Yuuji Kagura have been childhood friends when they use to live next door as neighbour before the Kagura family moved out.  Ten years later, they decided to move back & Kazuki is eager to see Yuuji again since she had a crush on him for the longest time.  Playing with her sister Hatsune Arisaka & Yuuji's sister Marie Kagura, Kazuki wants to relive those moments.  However, her image of Kazuki turns out wrong when he has turned into a pervert.  With their parents gone to South America, the two families need to get along with each other even though Kazuki does a lot of perverted stuff on Kazuki, which she doesn't like.  To make things worse, he attends the same class as her.

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.

Basically about the relationship between Kazuki & Yuuji.  Despite his perverted behaviour, Kazuki still loves him & doesn't want to admit or show it.  Yuuji on the other hand seems to be friends with her instead & doesn't develop a lot of feelings for her.  However, he does care for her.  Along the way, the relationship gets rocky with Kazuki's friends ruining things, Hatsune encouraging Yuuji's behaviour, & Maire shooting her brother when she chases him in a dirty act.  In the end, the two manage to work things out.  But when Nozomi Okochi comes in, the two quarrel again.  When Nozomi tells Yuuji to think about Kazuki, he gives up his perverted ways.

When Yuuji gives up his pervert behaviour, it makes Kazuki happy think that she has changed him back to his old self when he was a child.  However, it concerns the others as he starts to lose energy physically & mentally.  Thinking that she has reverted him back to his old self, Kazuki finally opens the letter that she couldn't give to Kazuki on the day he moved away.  To her surprise, she finally see & remember what she wrote.  The truth was that Kazuki was a pervert child back then & he hasn't really changed until now.  Once she realized what she has done, Hatsune tells Kazuki that Yuuji & Maire are moving again.

Yuuji & Maire are moving to New York under their father's orders due to his work.  During this time, Kazuki fails to tell Yuuji her feelings.  It's only until they reach the airport where Yuuji apologizes to Kazuki about his actions up to now that made her hate him.  However, Kazuki apologizes to him instead about her ways of forgetting who he was in the past & her being the only one that changed.  But, Yuuji tells her that she never changed as she is still selfish & hardheaded as before.  Just before Yuuji & Maire leave, Kazuki shouts out to him that he can be perverted as he wants.  This causes him to change his mind & decides to go against his father's orders in moving.  However, it turns out their parents as well as Kazuki's are stuck at some island & discovered some ruins there.  As a result, the moving is cancelled.  The story ends with everything going back the way it was.

My Personal Review

Tonagura! is a funny show with it's ecchi & perverted materials.  That is one of the reasons I went for this anime when I read the description of it.  However, I don't think it's a show that you would want to watch when you see it available for viewing.

Animation

The character designs aren't too good in my view.  The female faces look big & the eyes look huge.  Hatsune's face looks sleepy when she's not & Marie has droopy eyes as if she's sleepy too.  Yuuji is probably the best character designed in the show.  He does look like a pervert & really fits his image well.

The colours are bright with some dull shading.  It's almost comparable to an OVA as it really seems colourful.  It doesn't create any problems between the background & characters in terms of not fitting into place.  The dull backgrounds makes the show nice, but it's not really detailed.

In terms of the animation movement, the flow was quite nice & sudden at times.  It's got a lot of weird movements which is caused by Yuuji's perverted actions & punishment he gets.

Sound       

The sound effects aren't too bad.  They are pretty silly in a childish way.  They are pretty clear & on cue.  The studio could have used a better selection of sounds though.

The seiyuus here aren't bad.  They somewhat fit their characters.  At times, they are a bit annoying due to the tone & attitude, but that's what gives them character really.

The music is on the cute side in a ballad style.  It's soft & filled with life.  However, they aren't something you would want to hear again & again.

Story

Basically the relationship between Kazuki & Yuuji where Kazuki can't seem to be honest to herself about Yuuji.  Although Yuuji's perverted humour keeps the show entertaining, it can only do so much.  The story is a little dry as the relationship seems to be heading nowhere at the moment.  Although Yuuji does a lot of ecchi stuff to Kazuki, he does it with heart actually.  For example, the revealling swimsuits that he picks out for Kazuki in one episode are all green.  Green is Kazuki's favourite colour that she likes to wear.  Overall, Yuuji's perverted actions actually shows how much he cares for her.

The story get really interesting when Kazuki finally opens her old letter to Yuuji to recall what she wrote in it.  The timing of this story turning point comes at a good time when the show reaches its end.  Getting there was pretty much the use of fillers in some episodes.  But overall, the story wrapped up pretty well even though it was kind of cheesy with Kazuki accepting who Yuuji was at the end.

Overall Conclusion

Tonagura! is pretty much an average show.  It doesn't offer a lot of things different from other anime shows.  It's got the childhood & ecchi elements in it.  The jokes are funny & tend to get old faster because the amount of times you have seen it over & over again.  Personally, I don't recommend watching this very much.  This would be something you would near the middle to bottom of your list.

Tonagura! gets a seven out of ten in my books.  The show is packed with humour & moves very slow in terms of the relationship between Kazuki & Yuuji.  Although the ending was nice, it could have been a bit better in terms of the presentation.