Sugar*Soldier is unique from other anime. I wouldn't say that it's unique in a good way; it's not something that other anime should strive to be. You see, what makes this anime unique despite the average storyline is that each episode is rather short. Now, short anime are unique enough, but this one is unique even from those ones. This anime is a mere 1 minute and 20 seconds per episode. As a result of this, there's no opening and no ending, though the last 4 seconds is able to advertise the manga series, which brings me to another point. This isn't an anime series.It's an advertisement for the manga series in the form of teaser trailers.
As an anime, this series falls short of even being average. This is because this is a romance series, and there are only 3 minutes and 40 seconds to get to know and care about the characters. If we were to judge it by the standards set for normal anime, it would fail miserably. But I'm going to do that anyway because I have no idea how to judge this as a series of teaser trailers. And who judges a series of teaser trailers anyway? That sounds incredibly pointless to me. Regardless, this is a series of teaser trailers for the manga of the same name. If you're interested in romance and want to get an idea of what the series is like, I recommend you give the trailers a shot. I'm not personally into romance, so take this with a grain of salt, but I consider it to be overwhelmingly subpar, shallow and lacking in any flare. If you liked it, you would say it was 'cute'. I didn't like it, and I just found it kind of irritating how subpar everything is. I go into more detail below about what exactly it is I found subpar about it, but really, you don't need to read this review. If you're a fan of the romance genre, watch the trailers. If not, give it a miss. Simple as that. But because just saying this is a really lazy attempt at trying to get out of writing a review, I will actually write a review below. Read it if you like. I personally think that my review is way more entertaining than the show--at least it has more substance.
[The story is rather mediocre, failing to stand out from other anime in any way. You could even go so far as to call it bad. Really, it's quite a simple story that can be described in a single sentence: "Our main character lives in the shadow of her sister, but finds someone who likes her for who she is." Well, that's roughly it, anyway. So, yeah, not anything groundbreaking and not anything we haven't seen before. It's character driven, so the plot isn't too good. The execution compared to any other anime that's tried to do the same thing falls flat simply because of the lack of time. Seeing as how the anime is rather character-driven, we aren't given enough time to know these characters, let alone care about them. It's rather poor, really. Score: 3.5
The art and animation are one of the highlights of this anime. Though this anime likes its still frames…a lot, it's still a lot better than the rest of the anime. When it wants to animate something, it does it fairly well, though there isn't much of it. A good example of the animation in this series is the soccer ball in episode 1, though there are a few scenes where the animation looks a bit off. The art isn't too bad, but the unimportant characters don't even have eyes. The production values are probably quite low for this series anyway, so I didn't expect high-quality art and animation. They aren't too special, but they aren't an eyesore, either. The best animation is found in the first episode, and after that, it stays at a fairly consistent pace. Though, there is a noticeable failed lip-sync in episode 2. It's a little worse than average because of the sometimes strange animation and all of the goddamn still frames. Score: 4.5
Now, the sound is right up there with art, as the voice actors are great, there's nothing wrong with them. The problem is that the same track is played throughout all 3 episodes. Not much of a distinction, huh? Despite the fact that the soundtrack is composed of one track, the voice actors manage to do a good job and the sound effects fit pretty well, though there are times when it doesn't fit, like the pen sound effect in episode 3. Overall, it's rather mediocre, no thanks to the lack of a soundtrack. Score: 5
The characters, ironically enough, are the worst part about this character-driven anime. The characters don't have much personality to them, but there are subtle hints of depth. Though, these hints (more like singular) are extremely subtle, and you might think that I'm making this up. Anyway, the characters can be defined with one quirk, and not straying away from the quirk that they're defined by. Take Illya, for example. He's 'cool', and that's about it. The lack of running time doesn't help, so I'm being a bit lenient on this series and taking into account the potential and the subtle hint of depth. Score: 2.5
I didn't enjoy this anime much at all. It's not the kind of story I like, so that doesn't help it. It's executed fairly well, despite its short running time, and it works as an advertisement. That does help my enjoyment a bit, but it remains fairly low. Score: 3
If you're looking for any kind of depth or an interesting story, look elsewhere. The anime ends before practically any developments happen. Overall: 3.7]
