So, I’ve fallen way behind on my posting. But let’s face it, I never really intended to make this a truly regular column. If I had to blame something, and let’s face it, blaming something besides myself is much more fun, I’d blame going to Anime Boston with site founder Arleigh. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? It kept me preoccupied for a time, and it’s a very convenient excuse. Hey Arleigh, where’s the rest of the Anime Boston AMVs?
Alright, now that the focus is taken off of me, I’ll come back to the last set I watched before I stopped actually posting, and that’s the final set of the anime Special A, or more informally known as S.A. This is based off a shojo manga, or manga made with girls in mind, by Maki Minami. It basically follows the exploits of Hikari Hanazono in her super rich and super privileged high school class consisting of the best of the best. Of course, Hikari comes from a very modest family, so naturally she is the hardest worker in the group because she knows what it’s like to not be born from a family that’s going to automatically give her an eight or nine figure inheritance.
And that in a large part is the problem I have with the show. It’s all about Rich People’s Problems. Yet another show showing us how rich people are just the same as us, they have all the problems us commoners have, just magnified because they’re rich! Yeah, sorry, not buying it. Frankly if I’m in line to inherit a couple hundred million dollars, then I don’t really care what sort of responsibilities I might have to deal with. Oh no, my parents want me to marry someone worth millions of dollars to make our family worth billions? Cry me a river.
That episode is just a taste of what they go through. Frankly, I don’t care about Rich People’s Problems. I don’t relate to it at all. Look, I don’t want my anime to be realistic. I want my heroes to kick ass an take names. I want them to struggle a bit, but come out winning in the end. I WANT SHINJI TO GET IN THE GODDAMN ROBOT!! Ahem. Sorry about that. Anyways, this show just did not resonate with me. Some of the side characters were quite interesting, such as the pairing of Megumi and Yahiro. Now that was interesting. Hikari and Kei? Couldn’t care less. It probably doesn’t help that Maki Minami doesn’t do a great job of drawing distinctive characters, and the anime reflects this. Yes, you can tell them apart, but they’re so similar that it can be hard at times. All in all, this comes across as a series drawn by someone who’s basically saying “wouldn’t it be awesome if you were a clueless normal girl who got to go to a super elite rich person school just because you were fairly smart, and the richest smartest boy in school fell in love with you?” Yes, yes it would, but that doesn’t make for a particularly compelling story, especially for people that just don’t get or care about rich people’s problems. I don’t care how much you want it to be true, rich people do not have the same troubles us thousandaires do, and nothing you do can convince me otherwise.
All in all, I say skip this series. The anime can be had for cheap, provided you don’t care about English dubs, and even if you want your dubs you can have it for half the price of the manga. The manga does expound a bit further upon the story than the anime (obviously) but the ending is completely obvious from the beginning, so there’s not much need to put yourself through it all. If you want to see a better story of Normal Girl in Rich Person School, then I totally recommend Ouran High School Host Club instead.
