Holy damn, what budget could the director spend here? Apparently not much (I’d say twenty bucks) because the animation quality of this train wreck oozed of hentai animation standards. Yes, you read correctly. Based on this first episode I call this yuri fanfest a complete and utter disaster and you can be sure that this will be the only time I will cover this.
Sakura Trick 01 is exactly that kind of episode and series I have come to hate in recent months. There is nothing which you could call quality entertainment. It’s not. There is nothing. Nada. It’s vaporware about some girls kissing every now and then. Oh yeah, and there are enough flying bubbles and sakura petals flying in the background to fill a stadium. That’s it. It aims for a small core audience with no brain and too much free time. The worst part is the other side of the anime industry because there we have the anime fandom which is totally in love with it. Because of yuri. Guys, what happened?
The animation quality is the worst I have seen in a long time. Seriously, in the first minutes alone we have almost no movement of the characters at all. Instead we get not one but two full body pans. In the very first.two.minutes. The rest of the episode is exactly the same with more static shots, no movements, massive body pans etc. It felt like 2003 again. Dude, how time flies, we are right back at the shitty time where quality doesn’t matter. The background “art” cannot be called that at all. Most of the time it’s 3D rendered environments with no creativity involved at all and the rest is filled with flat backgrounds full of bubbles, clouds and flowers or other shitty drawings.
Thanks to that any sense of flow is totally lost. The cuts felt arbitrary at best or random at worst where I too often got feeling that there is no connection between consecutive shots at all. Here’s a random example from minute 6:50 (if you like you can gladly start you video player and jump there):
Shot 0: The characters talk about linking arms and shit
Shot 1 (6:50): The blond chick looks at someone, not taking part in the conversation at all
Shot 2: A sitting girl says “Yuu-chan, was it?”
Shot 3: Another full body pan with flower background, where the blond girl introduces herself (hey, what about the arm linking conversation?)
Shot 4: Two chicks introduce themselves, too. The abstract background overlay makes it feel as if they’re standing on rooftop
Shot 5: Stars floating around leading to
Shot 6: Another girl enters and mentions that they are in the same class
Shot 7: Another full body pan with yet another introduction
Shot 8: Fancy, stupid intro animation of the girl
Shot 9: Rest of the girls suddenly stand for a cute (?) moeshit animation tidbit.
As you can see, there is no natural flow to it. It’s a series of cute(?) moments that are somehow connected and yet at the same time feel totally disconnected because there is no plot momentum that leads from one sequence or from one shot to the next. At one moment they talk about linking arms between girls and suddenly it’s introduction time with some stupid fancy animation thrown into the mix.
Sheesh…. seriously…. this series is a piece of crap and I advice anyone with self respect to stay far away from it. Everybody else can gladly jump onto the mediocre shitfest of a yuri bandwagon and spam the internets with “Yuri FTW”.
Are you mad?
Lesbians bullied you in the school or something?
It seems you totally missed the point of this post. It’s not the lesbians, it’s the crappy execution of the episode and the fact that seemingly many love anything as long as there’s some yuri in it.
Not really, I didn´t missed the point. I think that I hit just in the nail.
Well, nope, you didn’t. Again: It’s the crappy execution, not the yuri. I couldn’t care less about the yuri stuff. And perhaps that’s the reason why you don’t get it. I don’t care about it. So I don’t start to sing “Hallelujah” as soon as I see girls kissing each other – let alone in some limited animation. On the other hand, so many seem to care immensely about it (sidenote: Why?) so they’re praising this series simply for having some lesbian moments in it, seemingly ignoring the fact that it’s having some terrible pacing, bad animation quality and odd sequences with no flow whatsoever. Oh, and I could go on and add the fact that Sakura Trick is one long piece of hollow fanservice. It’s as if the creators where saying: “Oh who gives a §$%&. Those otakus will buy it anyways”. And the frustrating truth is that they’re probably correct.
You know what else is a piece of crap? Your blog.
In all seriousness, if I cared about good animation, I wouldn’t be watching anime at all. It’s ALL terrible.
You just sound platinum mad.
You know, I completely accept the fact that there are a lot series out there which don’t have the best animation quality. Did you ever watch Space Brothers? This is a perfect example of a series having some animation quality issues bu still is able to deliver great entertainment with great story arcs. Because of that I don’t care about the animation at all. Sakura Trick? Why should I forgive the animation department when the direction department didn’t care about anything?
Bad direction? You’re kidding, right? Amidst all the criticisms I could level at ST, the one thing it is quite good at is direction. You didn’t criticize anything except the one technical aspect that’s above average, and you’re surprised that people are calling your reviews shit?
So yeah, you really do come off as platinum mad.
It seems you didn’t read my review because I also mentioned the plot of the first episode. But, well, to make my point clear: Sakura Trick is basically about girls kissing. That’s the premise. The episode completely circled around those moments – which was twice or trice if I remember correctly. Oh yeah, and there was this one physics defying stunt they pulled. Was there something else? What does this series offer despite kissing? Why should I tune in? Because they’re acting embarrassed? Because they’re cute and fluffy? Oh yeah, you’re right: It’s because they’re kissing. In that case, how does Sakura Trick differ from being borderline softporn? Or did I miss something and the third and fourth episode introduced an epic arc or some drama? Of course, you can gladly watch it and ignore my review. But you have to accept that i call this series crap.
And yes, the direction was horrible.