Shichisei no Subaru

It was the day that he'd just finished Anohana. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he clenched his Asuna body pillow in anguish. "What a beautiful story." That was the thought in his mind. It had reminded him of what life was truly about. It made him want to reach for the stars, achieve the dreams he'd once given up on. He looked at his Asuna pillow, and his eyes began to sparkle. He took out a notebook, and began to let his thoughts pour out onto the paper. "A story of love." "A story of letting go of the past.""A story of friendship." He wanted to write a meaningful story, and in the end, he accomplished that goal. The greatest crossover story of all. 'Anohana Art Online'. - Honestly, should this review exist? I could just say it's an Anohana/Sword Art Online ripoff. It's literally Sword Art with an attempt at a dramatic, heavy storyline. Notice how I said 'attempt' and not 'there is.' Because in the end, there is no melancholy. There is no emotion in this show. Of all the anime I've ever watched, I've never seen such a lifeless, copy and paste show like this. But here I am, reviewing this husk. So let's get to it. Story: 3/10 The concept of a more melancholic VRMMORPG story isn't bad idea. In fact, what upset me the most is that this could've been good. But if it was good, I wouldn't be bashing on it like I am. If I could describe this the best way I possibly can, it's a badly written fanfiction. It's a total mess, there's no weight to anything, and the characters are absolutely laughable. But sadly, I've seen anime far worse than this, so I can't exactly call it the worst. It had potential, but stabbed it several times and said, 'To hell with this, who needs a good plotline?' Art: 7/10 I feel bad that my favorite anime studio of all time, Lerche, is working on this (Although this is for sure not their best work so far). Because the animation and art in this show is good. Yeah, it's good. When it comes to art and animation, Lerche practically nails it every time, even in their older works. I will say though, the character designs are pretty bland, but good ol' Lerche made them super appealing to look at. Even though this anime pretty much sucks, good on you Lerche for making beautiful art and animation. Sound: 6/10 I don't have much to say here, just an average soundtrack overall. I will say though, I really like the OP. ED is average. Character: 2/10 The characters in this show are hilarious! They're absolutely lifeless, they're cookie cutouts of archetypes, aren't interesting at all, and most of all.. I DON'T CARE ABOUT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Did the staff really think writing the characters so lifeless was okay? Did they actually even think of putting effort into them. Just thinking of how void these guys are makes me want to read the original light novel just to see how bad they are in the original source material. Let's see, we've got: - Brown haired Kirito - Menma and Sachi's love child - angsty glasses man - red haired asuna - random chick that dont get enough screentime - Laughing Coffin but it's a circus act and so much more! They're just so bland, it's bad. Enjoyment: 3/10 The animation made it bearable, and it had so much potential, but it just threw it all away. Don't bother with it.

The story of Shichisei no Subaru was actually pretty decent until the anime ended and nothing really escalated story wise. You wish as the viewer that something would be solved but no nothing gets answered and the only thinkg this anime becomes is a far lesser...and I mean like Rock Bottom lesser version on Anohana...the Asahi we Lost that day. The Art and Animation was average at best. Which is a surprise because Lerche usually does really good work. I guess they heavily focused on a better anime in Asobe Asobase this season. The sound and Music was nothing special. Character wise I gave it a 5 andthats generous because less then half of the Main characters were actually enjoyable. (Satsuki, Clive, and Elicia) Taanori was growing on my because he did not stay fixated on Asahi but yeah he came up just short for me liking him. I would have enjoyed this anime a lot more if it had a solid or acceptable ending. It was okay watching it though. Overall I wouldn't waste my time with this anime unless you were watching it week to week.

Please note that I am writing this review as someone who hasn't read the light novel. This is purely coming from my experience as an anime-only watcher. BE WARNED! THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF THE SERIES AHEAD! Shichisei no Subaru caught my attention first and foremost for one thing-- being an anime about an MMORPG and having a character who died in game and, as a result, also passed away in real life. My first thought was of my favourite anime, .hack, but I wasn't expecting a clone of it or anything. It's hard to come up with something original in this day andage. SnS managed to put an interesting twist on this now commonly used plot-device with the motives of the antagonist group-- to use the powers from the online games Union and RE:Union in the real world. Unfortunately, this isn't brought up until about mid-season and we go through too much drama to get to that point. This brings me to my first score, the story, which I give a 5/10. There was an original enough spin on the stuck in an MMORPG to get me to finish the series and also hope for a localization of the light novels so I can see how things end. The bad part of things is the romantic drama. There isn't a love triangle in this anime-- it's much worse. There's five different characters and a lot of unrequited love and jealousy and it drags on and on. I'm not sure if this is true to the original LNs or if it was just to prolong the story enough to go through 12 episodes without making an original ending since the novels are still ongoing. There were too many fights and misunderstandings between the group of friends until they were all brought back together on the FINAL EPISODE. Yikes. Next is the art. I rated it a 7/10 because it was decent. I think they kept up the production values and I don't remember any parts where I was brought out of the anime because the art had taken a sudden turn for the worse. The character designs are rather simple and generic, but they're nice on the eyes and they easy to tell apart. I gave the sound a 6/10. It was nothing remarkable nor was it horrible. I don't recall anything sounding off. There's clashing of swords, casting of magic, etc. and it all sounded how I would expect it to sound. Rating the characters in this anime was hard for me. I know that this isn't an original, but an adaption from a light novel, so I'm just grading from how the characters were presented here with a 7/10. Haruto, the main character, seems to be your generic self-insert character with next to no personality. The main girl, Asahi, was your typical happy-go-lucky young girl and didn't leave much of an impression on me. All of the characters seem to come from very common tropes. The only reason I'm not giving this anime a lower score is because of Takanori. He started off as a cold jerk who was constantly fighting with Haruto over Asahi because he also loved her. This was very irritating because it took up the majority of the time in the anime, but by the end his personality changed. He went from only thinking about his own feelings to being able to consider those of not only Asahi, but his other friends as well and became a better person for it. Enjoyment for this series I gave a 6/10. There was enough action between the drama to keep me watching the series to the end. I think if things had been a little different, I would have enjoyed it a bit more. Overall I think this anime is settling at a "fair" here on MAL with a 6/10. I don't think that this is something I'd go back to watch again, but if there was a second season I'd be more than willing to give it a shot. There were a lot of things left unexplained since things stopped, perhaps having caught up with the light novels, but I feel like this could be the start of something very interesting if it is written right.

Video games are part of our society’s norm. I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy video games today. One of the most popular genres is MMORPG where socialization is part of gameplay. As an unwritten rule, many people play MMORPGs to connect with others. Here, we have this show called Shichisei no Subaru (Seven Senses of the Re’Union) that unites in-game characters together in a fantasy world. You probably heard this many times before but shows like this are not going to disappear any time soon. It’s a popular concept with great potential. But unfortunately, Shichisei no Subaru breaks that potential andlimits itself to mediocrity. Noritake Taro’s novels expands for over 6 volumes at the time of this writing but the anime consists of only 12 episodes. Red flags should already be raised as you would expect certain material to be omitted. It’s an issue found in many light novel adaptations but that’s the least of this show’s problems. By reading the premise, there’s some questions to keep in mind. It also takes place in a futuristic setting (year 2036) and the popular MMORPG “Union” is at the heart of this show’s story. Fast forward to 2040 and we have a new game called “Re’Union” launched that adapts similar mechanics to Union. We also meet a group of players including protagonist Haruto Amou who tries to move on from the past. Oh but the past comes back to haunt him when he realizes that his childhood friend, Asahi returned after her supposed death. What could possibly go wrong? Anyone who’s familiar with anime like AnoHana may find this anime similar at its base context. We have a girl coming back from her assumed death and reunites with the protagonist. What does set apart is how Asahi exists in both in real world and in-game. In essence, the show attempts a blur between fiction and reality as both worlds’ stories connects with each other. My impression of the first episode made me realize how the creators wanted me to feel something for the characters. When we first meet Haruto, he seems just like a regular guy who actually seems a bit indifferent about his life. Until he meets Asahi again, his behavior hardly felt noticeable. After reuniting with Asahi, we can see how much he begins to doubt himself and wish he could’ve saved her back then. Did it make me feel sympathetic about him? The short answer is no and the long answer is why should I. We don’t really know much about their past in the beginning and although the show attempts to bring out characterization, it doesn’t come with good writing. This could have really been written by anyone who played a fantasy video game and Haruto’s character is blend as it can get. His actions are often motivated by his insecurity and it’s hard to get attached to him. Later in the series, he does seem to regain more of his confidence back but his development is still lackluster. The guild Haruto used to be in is known as “Subaru” and has quite a reputation by name alone. Satsuki Usui is a mage of this guild and is one of the very few people who still maintains contact with Haruto. However, it’s pretty easy to notice that she fills this show’s role as the childhood crush. She is hopeless in love with Haruto but the latter seems to never notice her feelings. Childhood romance in a series like this is hardly surprising but because of its nature, I can’t say it works for the show’s story either way. That’s because Asahi is always on Haruto’s mind so tough luck to our mage girl. Throughout the rest of the show, we also meet other members who were members of the guild including Takanori Mikado, Clive Vivaldi, and Nozomi Kusaka. It’s pretty obvious at the same time that the show adds more romance angles between these characters. At some point, it made me wonder what this show’s true intentions are. It felt more like a teenage soap opera than a fantasy drama. To my displeasure, every episode focused more on character relationships rather than plot development. There’s far too much emphasis on relationships at the expense of crafting a creative MMORPG story. In reality, I felt very disappointed by this series’ inability to capitalize on its MMORPG concepts as well. Socialization between the characters are often repeated dialogues that you’ll hear over and over again. The only bright side is the occasional battles that shows the testament of these guild members. Even then, these battles are hardly memorable to recall despite the stakes. Sci-fi fantasy game genres being adapted into the anime medium takes guts if you want to see a creative world. Studio Lerche probably knew this but the world fiction of this show is average at best. By technical quality alone, it looks mildly creative with the fantasy elements like the basic-looking towns and landscapes. Weapons, armor, and spellcraft is pretty typical of what you’d expect from an MMORPG game. Even the bestiary in this series are hardly inspiring. They look half-assed with minimal effort without unique traits. Character expressions in the show often looks forced with the same faces. Only Satsuki occasionally shines from the main cast but that’s mainly because of her personality. Oh and we can’t forget about Asahi. Because of her childish nature, there’s questionable fan service that will pop up at times. On the other hand, I am satisfied with the real life character designs of its cast. They look like real people and their age fits within the category of gamers. Similarly, their voices matches with their characters that is convincing to the ears. You can even hear their expressions of feelings in their voice tone that connects with their dialogues. It’s too bad really. Shichsei no Subaru turned out to just be another one of those shows where people will forget to talk in the future. The main cast couldn’t hold a candle to impress anyone with their mediocre personalities. The story felt like it’s a copy-paste of any fantasy shows you can find on the web. Hell, even some similar light novels I’ve read had more personality than what this show had to offer. What a waste.

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