Sansha Sanyou

If you're looking for a lighthearted moe slice of life, Sansha Sanyou is totally worth a try! This anime is focused on Yoko, a rich girl that suddenly became poor after his father's business went bankrupt, now she lives alone and goes to a normal school, but her way to be after all that years makes her have a hard time making friends. Thankfully, she meets Odagiri Futaba, an active girl that eats a lot, and Teru Hayama, a girl that looks really calm but is actually pretty scary when she wants, and soon after they become friends. This is Sansha Sanyou, a calm and funny slice oflife anime based on their daily lives. The animation, as expected from Doga Kobo, is simply fantastic, all the characters and backgrounds are great, with some specific points being just eye candy of how smooth they feel. For the sound, both OP and ED songs are really good and you want to hear them over and over, like in most SoL anime, the background music during the episodes is nothing special but do a good job in helping set the tone of the moment. I have to say than outside of Yoko, Futaba, and Sonobe Shino (a maid that worked in Yoko's house back when she was rich), I don't like much the rest of the characters, or their comedy gag are not that funny. Overall, Sansha Sanyou is a relaxing SoL comedy that will be perfect for anyone that looks for that type of anime, if you do, make sure to give it a try!

Moe, the current theme of anime. For many years now, the flow of anime has been consistently following the 'cute girl' trend and creating a vast amount of shows involving cute-looking high school girls and just following their daily lives. It has become to the point that expecting at least a few of these kinds of shows every new season is routine and that the market has become so saturated with these kinds of shows that it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between one show from another. So here, we have Sansha Sanyou, Three Leaves, Three Colors, and Three times thereasons why this show doesn't do anything but fall into that category of being forgettable. Story: Nisikawa Youko is a rich girl who has fallen from grace. Due to her father's company going down under, she is no longer the princess that she once was and now lives in a small apartment while her father goes out and tries to find work. At her new school for normal kids and living in poverty by eating breadcrusts, she meets two girls, Odagiri Futaba and Hayama Teru who start their high school adventures together. Sansha Sanyou is the furthest thing from being original in terms of base storyline. The story has these three girls live out their high school lives doing some pretty standard things. Have a meal, work a part-time job, have fun, go to the beach, etc, etc. There's nothing really outlandish in terms of what these characters do and as much as the show tries to make them seem interesting, doesn't really come through in the way of intrigue. The main things that the story focuses on are based around the three girls and their individual characteristics: Adjusting to a 'commoner's' life, consuming food, and cats, lots of cats. The majority of the comedy for the series comes in the form of character interactions and retorts, pertaining to the various characters that are involved with the current scene at hand. Most of them are forms of situational comedy that are pulled off moderately well, while the rest are more surprise-related pertaining to some of the more wackier members of the side cast that I'll get into later. There's nothing terrible about the way the show delivers comedy, but there's nothing about it that seems either special or unique. All in all, Sansha Sanyou is what I would describe as your generic moe show. It's not the best, but it's also not the worst. It's an average piece of animation that more or less recycled the same gags without adding anything new to each new episode before wrapping everything up with a neat little bow to show that everything is just nice and dandy. Overview: +/- Rather generic plotline/setting - Nothing particularly interesting stands out Characters: As Sansha Sanyou is a moe show, the main basis for its draw are its characters. As the heart and soul of this show, the characters basically embody one trait and one trait alone and stay that way pretty much throughout the whole series. First is Nishikawa Youko, our Oujo-sama fallen from grace. Youko could be described as our main character for this series mostly due to the fact that she gets involved with the majority of the situations that the show puts us in. As a previous rich girl, Youko's characteristics involve not fully understanding things in the 'commoner's' world as well as surviving off of a diet of bread crusts and mayo. The one thing that makes her character have more worth than anyone else in the series is because of the fact that she does grow as the series goes along. She becomes more independent and less high and mighty despite still being quite ignorant about certain situations, but hey, it's still character growth and it still means something. Then there's Odagiri Futaba, the literal 'walking black hole' as the series calls her. Futaba is the 'genki girl' of the series and constantly has room in her stomach for more food. And more food. And more food. Etc, etc. Most of Futaba's on-goings and gags are quite simple, mostly revolving around the idea of her just stuffing her face hole and around a restaurant the she frequents which always seems to have a new food challenge everyday. (Interesting business strategy) Also, she's always seen eating these 2 x 1 x 1 foot bread rectangular prisms. They're like as big as her head. Really though, that's all Futaba as a character actually has. Her personality and everything that she stands for as a character is pretty much stagnant throughout the whole run of the series. If you take away her eating aspect, there's nothing else that she really has in terms of character traits. And finally, we have Hayama Teru, the calm and collected girl who hides a darker, more sharp-tongued version of herself away from the public eye, or anyone she doesn't want to see it. (Hell, she named her cat "Beelzebub") Hayama is by far the most complex character in this series, which isn't actually saying much, but it's still something. Given her two faces, we're seen with Hayama being the more 'competent' or understanding character of the bunch by consistently having something to say in any given situation and being able to accurately read what is going on and try to tip any argument in her favor. Her traits involve her being obsessed with cats and consistently having arguments with Nishiyama Serina, one of the more prominent side characters of the series and the main victim to most of Teru's poisonous words. Side characters in this series are more common than most. Most prominently are Youko's ex-butler, Yamaji (who is more of a stalker than anything else) and her ex-maid, Sonobe, the single expression maid who vibrates when she's happy. In addition, there's Nishiyama and her sidekick Kondou who always seem to be in the exact same place as our protagonists are located, Teru's sister who can't cook for the life of her, and the twins who are basically worthless cause they only dip in and out of the series as needed. Overall, the characters are very static in terms of complexity. They're all simple characters that have nothing to them if you take away their one character trait. As such, they don't really have much to them and they feel more tropey than anything else. Overview: + Youko character growth - Everyone is basically a trope - One-note characters Art: Sansha Sanyou has the same kind of colorful and clean polish that Doga Kobo has been using on all of their projects in the past few years. As such, the art is bright with a polished shine to both the characters and the backgrounds in addition to character designs that bear a very clear moe-defined artstyle with Doga Kobo's signature large and slightly detailed round eyes for each one of their characters. The animation is more or less standard fare, especially for moe shows, so there's not really anything unique about its artstyle. For comedic stylings, the show also boasts quite a number of your usual and typical anime comedy aspects. You have exaggerated faces, the purple smoke to signify that something is dangerous for human consumption, and your usual cute girl tropes to fill in the gaps. These all pertain to the show's comedic themes of rich now poor, food, and cats, so there's not really all that much to go off of. Overview: + Standard fare animation +/- Generic and standard comedic stylings Sound: The soundtrack for Sansha Sanyou is...really not all that special. They're pretty forgettable tracks that don't really have much to offer. They're your standard 'cute girl' songs and don't have that unique thing to them that makes them memorable. Personal Enjoyment: I went into Sansha Sanyou knowing that it was probably going to be just another generic show that doesn't have much to offer in the way of story, characters, and pretty much everything else. What I didn't expect was just how long the episodes were going to be, or rather, how they felt. Every episode felt a lot longer than they actually were and I think that's a testament as to how uninspiring or lazy this show actually felt. Nothing really stood out as amazing or unique, and I honestly felt bored watching this half the time. Most of it just felt kinda hollow and bland and just so uninspiring. Did I like this show? I didn't love this show, but I also didn't hate it. The show doesn't have many positive qualities about it simply because the things it has to offer have all been done before many a time. As such, the overall feel of the show is mostly just generic and tired rather than anything actually good or bad. What didn't I like about this show? Nothing really. I don't hate the show for being what it is, but it's just not the most enjoyable experience knowing that you're just going into another show and just watching the same things over and over again. Would I recommend this show? If you want a generic moe show, then Sansha Sanyou has got your back. The show doesn't have many things original about it that I can even mention due to the lack of overall creativity and what happens in the show. But hey, it's not the worst thing that you can watch.

As a Slice-Of-Life anime, you should know that this series would almost have no plot to it. Sansha Sanyou mainly focuses on the school life of three girls, so expect that you'd be watching an anime that heavily depends on the characters' personalities. In that matter, I'd say that I enjoyed it very much! The characters have absolutely different personalities which makes all of them interesting, and I love the way how the characters were exhibited throughout the series. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues with the art. I like MOE as much as most people do. No issues with the sound and music either (in fact, I enjoyed listening toboth the opening and the ending songs). Also: Points for the Ojou-san (not so Ojou-san) character! (I love mature and prideful princess characters. lol) Overall rating: 8 out of 10

This season, I had only planned to watch Sailor Moon Crystal and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. But a couple of other shows, this one, Shounen Maid, and a few others, caught my attention, and I wound up trying them out. I'm glad to say, they all turned out good, Sansha Sanyou being one such show. Let's face it, the slice-of-life genre nowadays mostly consists of creators trying to make girls come off as unrealistically cute and moe as possible, complete with squeaky voices, ridiculous storylines, pandering, etc. Granted, not all shows are like this, but otakus have become the primary consumers in Japan when itcomes to anime, so from a business perspective, usually businesses go for what they know the audience will consume, whether they put out poor quality products or not. Sansha Sanyou definitely isn't a masterpiece, as nothing will ever be, but thankfully, despite its cliche premise, it manages to be better than most moe slice-of-life shows. Like most moe shows, there isn't really much of a plotline here. All it's really about is three girls from different backgrounds becoming friends right off the bat simply by running into each other: Yoko Nishikawa, the former rich girl whose father's business became bankrupt and is now poor as dirt (and oddly enough, she adjusts to it pretty well), Teru Hayama, the class representative and cat lover who seems nice but supposedly hides some evil dark side, and Futaba Odagiri, the obligatory cheerful and gluttonous girl who does nothing but eat disporportionate amounts of food. Through random shenanigans, inside or outside of school, they somehow manage to become friends. Joining their circle are Shino Sonobe, Yoko's former maid; Yamaji, Yoko's very overprotective former butler, and sometimes random strangers inside and outside of school, such as the local mean girl Serina and her sidekick Asako. Hijinks ensue. Okay, I need to get this elephant out of the room right now: Yoko's character design looks EXACTLY the same as that of Sumire Hikami from Aikatsu season three! Same shade of purple hair, same hair length, same eye color, same polite personality, same upper class background, even all the way down to the same voice actresses for the Japanese versions! The only differences are their chest sizes and that Yoko is more haughty and Sumire is more timid! I know Sansha Sanyou's manga came out YEARS before Aikatsu did, but come on, you can't not notice the blatant mirror images the character designs create! It's almost like the creators of Aikatsu completely ripped off Yoko's design to make Sumire, and the fact that the Sansha Sanyou anime came out THIRTEEN YEARS after its manga was created, and a couple years after Aikatsu, doesn't excuse the similarities either, so that has to say something! Alright, back to the important stuff. The animation is, for the most part, quite good. It's really smooth a lot of the time, especially when it comes to fluid movement, and when characters move, they move. The character designs are a bit more down to earth this time around, and aren't ridiculously exaggerated, from the more restrained hair colors to more naturalistic hair styles and realistic anatomical proportions, which is very refreshing. There is one problem with the animation, though: it's too bright! It's like someone turned the brightness almost up to its highest setting, and I'm pretty sure that amount of brightness can hurt someone's eyes. I personally had no problem with it, and eventually got used to it, but I can imagine others not being able to adjust well to it. The music...isn't much to write home about. The opening and ending themes are far too squeaky and fast paced, but the background music is pretty nice, and set the mood and atmosphere well, though it still isn't particularly memorable. Sorry, but there isn't much to say about it. The characters...this is a hard one. For the most part, they're arguably a mixed bag. They're not complex or anything like that, but they're decent enough, with some not so well-off exceptions. Teru and oddly enough, the local mean girl, Serina, happen to be the best characters. The rest of them are pretty funny, albeit still bland and not full of much flavor, but decent enough, and they're definitely not bad. However, there are three exceptions: Futaba and those annoying blue haired twins. Futaba is just a non-entity as a main character. Her only character traits are that she's cheerful and loves eating. That's it. There's nothing else to her. Literally ALL she does is act cheerful and eat disproportionate amounts of food in every single episode and doesn't contribute to anything at all, exacerbated by her extremely irritating voice. Seriously, her voice actress sounds like she's trying WAY too hard to sound cute but comes off as grating and shrill instead. Megumi Han can pull it off, but Futaba's seiyuu just can't. But even worse are those blue haired twins who just hate Futaba simply for the fact that she wins all those all-you-can-eat contests and don't have any other personality or character than that. I think the show could have benefitted had those twins been cut out of the story, because not only are they completely useless and annoying, they don't add anything to either the other characters or the story itself. So...Futaba and the Tsuji twins: worst characters. The rest of them are...decent. The story itself is very episodic in nature and there's nothing to really get invested in. It's just the three girls going through school and life and having fun and being friends. But I can definitely give it this: the situations most of the time aren't NEARLY as boring or ridiculous as those of...I don't know, Kiniro Mosaic. At least the girls act like regular human beings most of the time (sans Futaba and the blue haired twins) and aren't completely made up of pandering moe traits! Plus, the comedy was actually surprisingly good. I have to admit, the jokes about the token sorta-loli maid Shino, who is actually in her thirties but stopped growing, were actually pretty funny and handled very tastefully. I do find the final episode to be...really odd. What was the point of it? Everything in it just seemed to be thrown in there without much thought or substance whatsoever. Oh well. It's better than other final episodes I've seen (Kimi to Boku and Uta no Prince-sama season one, anyone?). So...yeah, not the best slice of life moe anime out there, but it definitely stands out from the bad ones. If you can get past the bright animation style and some useless characters, it's a pretty good little time killer.

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