Ginban Kaleidoscope

For every anime where a plucky amateur becomes the star of the competition, for every anime where love and peace makes the hero or heroine new friends, and for every anime where dreams come true, there is Ginban Kaleidoscope; a bittersweet tale about reaching for your dreams and finding that winning isn't everything. The strongest aspect of Ginban is easily story. Though the premise is hokey, the execution is flawless and handled exceptionally. Most tales of this nature often fail by lending themselves to comedy. Ironically, Ginban does that, but the jokes are just pointed enough that they sell. Not every joke, such as the runninggag of Mika thinking Tazusa is yelling at her when she's yelling at Pete, hits the mark, but the dialogue between Tazusa and Pete is full of zingers and visual gags that nearly always hit the mark. Still, while the comedy is suprisingly good, Ginban does a praise-worthy job at handling the gravitas of a romance between a living person and a dead one. By the end of the series, it's very clear Tazusa's feelings for Pete. The resolution of which is purely bittersweet but well-crafted. Likewise, so is the resolution to Tazusa's Olympic dreams which demonstrate how much Tazusa really won. The characterization of Tazusa is also amazing. Her development, attitude, and the whole of her parts when all is said and done is not only the antithesis of the stereotypical Junichi Sato heroine, but it highlights her individuality, her brazen independence, and her determination as something that can be admired as well. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the cast, but Ginban is so scattered and minimalistic with how it handles the supporting cast that it's better if you just focus on Tazusa and Pete, solely because this series very rarely focusing on anyone else. Unfortunately, the technical aspects are hardly of praise. The art is sub-par and many of the performances are filled with reused animation. Even in the big performance, it's mostly just a rehash of an earlier performance with nothing that signifies how grand the performance is actually supposed to be. To further the point, I'm pretty sure you could have a drinking game for every time they use the animation where Tazusa falls on her butt. The sound aspect is better, but not because of the BGM (which is rather bland) or the songs (which are also rather bland), but the performances, especially by lead Ayako Kawasumi in a role very uncharacteristic of her other performances. She completely sells Tazusa's entire attitude better than probably anyone else could. Hiroyuki Yoshino as Pete also does a capital job of filling the role of Pete. The Engrish was a bit hard to bear, but he was great when he stuck to Japanese. In short, Ginban was a very pleasant experience. It's technical aspects may not be up to par, but the storyline and how the character of Tazusa is handled and performaned are praise-worthy for their brash originality. Overall, I give Ginban Kaleidoscope an 8 out of 10.

The Story isn't really much interesting, because I didn't even know that she should win the Turino Cup olympics, It kinda revolve around the 100 Days till later in the story, I give it 8/10 The Art is pretty much, well it's very good, but then...In some episodes, Tazusa's Arms are longer than it should be before! So I'll give it 7/10 The Sound, is actually, OUTSTANDING! The opening and the ending theme song is really what gave Ginban Kaleidoscope, its name. The opening song is Focused on the Ginban (literally meaning: Figure Skating) part, we see in the opening theme: 'Dual', Tazusa and Pete Skating, whilein the ending theme: 'Energy' we just see a Kaleidoscope well, make Ginban Kaledioscope Complete, xD so 10/10 The Characters was alright, though some of the character wasn't really focused at all, Some of Tazusa's Competitors was just focused later on the story, because the Anime pretty much focused on Tazusa and Pete. So 8/10 The Enjoyment is, I really don't know what to put it in here, I enjoyed the Anime very very much, which makes me mad if I just missed one episode, xD so I'll give it 9/10 Overall, I'll give it a...9/10 ^^;

For a sports anime, it wasn’t that bad. I’m not really a fan of sports-themed anime, but Ginban Kaleidoscope had another aspect to it that I liked. Comedy. Comedy is probably Ginban Kaleidoscope strongest asset. Every episode had something you can laugh about. Some gags were repetitive, such as Tazusa’s inability to restrain herself from talking to Pete in public. It’s either people think she’s crazy (cause she looks like she’s talking to herself) or when she says something mean to Pete, people around her think that they’re talking to them and in turn they get hurt (Specially Tazusa’s coach and her friend Mika). Tazusa’stomato binges are also something to laugh about. The characters were OK. Pete was likable, but I’m not sure about Tazusa. She is a bit high-maintenance. I don’t get where all her pride comes from because almost everyone hates her. The two characters were OK, but like most characters in typical romantic comedy shojo anime, they don’t have a lot of depth. The voice acting was so-so. I guess I have to note the engrish. It was a good effort, especially for Dominique Miller’s seiyuu, Maya Okamoto. Smug and cocky sounded like Smag and Cacky. The surprising is, the extra voices had better English pronunciation/accents. Animation was sub par. The drawing wavers almost every episode and it’s very noticeable. Takashima’s face changes every time he makes an appearance. There’s nothing special with the colors either and the colors are inconsistent as well. I actually like the music. Both themes were very poppy, catchy and contemporary. Definitely fit for a shojo anime fanatic’s taste. I like the inserts and BGM too. Most of them were inspired by classic music. In fact, most of them ARE classic music. It’s not bad, but it’s not that good either. I like the story, but I wish the other aspects were better too. I’m still glad I watched it – it’s still worth it after all.

*Goddamn it. It has been a year since I watched this anime for the first time, and I still can't get over it... So I had to watch it all over again to re-live such a beautiful story that didn't let me sleep the night I finished it, and even now, I still I can't get over it...!! This is one of those animes that make you wish you were a multi-millionaire so you could sponsor animes you really love! I wish a could sponsor this one for a second season... :( *Put shortly: watch the first episode, and you will instantly fall in-love with thisanime. I guarantee it! Just be warned: it doesn't matter who you are, what gender you are, this anime will make you cry a lot and you will have a hard time falling asleep that night, and you will wish you were a multi-millionaire so you could sponsor it for a 2nd season. Ask anyone who's watched this anime... they will all tell you they cried a lot...... I warned you, OK? IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Are you wondering why Ginban Kaleidoscope has only a cumulative rating of 7.63/10.0 ? Well, it is because the anime ONLY ONLY covers the first 2 of the 9 total volumes of the story-line!!! Everyone rates this anime 8 or lower because the anime is not the complete story, so these people do NOT know what happens later in the manga! (I do know what happens! so that's why I rated it high.) (Thought I'd share this important information/facts before starting the review.) My Review is short: Ginban Kaleidoscope was such a beautiful story. I totally fell in-love with it. Everything, the comedy, the main two protagonists' relationship, the story-line, the drawing style, everything, and especially the relationship between the two main protagonists! This was a beautiful story that just hooked me in in the 1st episode, and will also hook Y-O-U in, right from the very first episode! The story was very enjoyable and each episode just made me go to the next within seconds because it really catches your attention amazingly fast! It is impossible not to love the two main characters. They're the perfect couple! The story was very very unique, very interesting, and most important of all, very ENJOYABLE. CONCLUSION: Ginban Kaleidoscope is such a beautiful story that is worth re-watching all over again a few months after you finish watching it the first time. This story is a MUST-WATCH and you will definitely enjoy it! I totally recommend it to EVERYONE reading this review!!! Just remember though, the story continues in the novel/manga so that is why people rate it no higher than 8/10, because the anime has an incomplete story-line. This anime is only for those of you that like romance/love animes! :P I strongly suggest you download the episdoes and not watch them online since the video quality online is low... I have a fast internet connection so it took me less than a minute to download each episode. I recommend you download the first 2 episodes of this anime, and watch them, and then decide, am I already in-love with this series? or not? Here's the link: http://www.muffindomain.com/index.php Sources: http://lightnovel.org/2007/12/26/review-ginban-kaleidoscope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginban_Kaleidoscope *Thank you for reading my short review.