Tsuchimi Rin is a high school student who attends National Verbena Academy. He spends his time with childhood friend Fuyo Kaeda and Shigure Asa. One day, two beautiful girls from the world of gods and devils transfer to his class and another artificial life form moves in with him. All 5 girls love Rin. Now he has to decide who will be the one he spends the rest of his life with.
The manga is illustrated by Shiroi Kusaka.
Written by Satoshi2oll.
Story & Characters
It's not very often you come across a show that isn't quite sure exactly what it is. Is it a drama? An ecchi
comedy? Romance? I found myself asking that question as I watched Shuffle! For starters a short plot summary. Follow
the life of Rin Tsuchimi as he is courted by many females who all think he is the greatest thing to walk to the earth.
You have the sisterly type, the tomboy, the shy one and the overly cutesy one. This group is the one that is seen in
almost every anime of its type (gotta have one character to appeal to every fanboy out there right?) The only catch is
that the shy and cutesy ones are the daughters of the lords of the demon and god world. If Rin chooses either one of
them, he gets powers from either side. So how does the plot progress... that's the hard part to describe. It
defintely acts like a run of the mill harem anime most of the time. You have the obligatory beach episode, the date
that goes wrong and all the flashbacks of childhood that shows why these girls are obssessed with this one guy. Makes
me wish I would have helped more girls out when I was young and made promises to them. It is for the most part a comedy
about Rin and his interaction with his female counterparts, but it does attempt to interject some seriousness into the
mix. In fact I found it rather annoying that it jumped around so much between comedy and drama. You would have a
streak of 6 or 7 episodes of humor followed by 3 of a dramatic nature. Usually in a show of this type, the drama is all
lumped in towards the end so as to give the anime a degree of substance. This on the other hand just couldn't make
up its mind what it wanted to be. I can say the ending episodes were rather unexpected as to how they progressed. Rin
makes his decision on his woman in the early 20's of the episodes. So what does that leave the other 4 episodes,
unneeded drama even if it was hard to predict. If I were grading this as a harem anime, it would like score high in
that genre. But overall it was a fairly shallow plot with attempts at depth that were just mildy entertaining.
Rating: 6
Art
The art in Shuffle! is very well done. The character designs and polish is right on par with it's bishoujo game
counterpart by the same name. One thing that caught me off as quite the surprise is the detail on the main male
character. Typically in this type of show the male character is made to be shrimpy and weak so as to make the
stereotypical anime fan feel more at home. I'm sure that may sound closedminded but looking at anime history this
is typically the case. On the other hand, this show paid a good amount of attention to the male lead. They gave him
distictive characteristics and actually built him to be a normal looking guy. Of course the primary attention was paid
to the females of the show, as to be expected. All of the characters look fantastic and unique in their own way. Also
of note, this show does focus a lot on ecchi humor, so the animation is used to portray that. There will be the breast
jiggle, naked breasts and the panty shot... all of course animated to detail. Thankfully not overly done but still if
ecchi humor isn't your thing it may prove too much.
Rating: 9
Sound
Music in Shuffle! was average. The opening song was a nice intro to the show, although I didn't find it too much
to my taste. But the beat and rhythm to the song was indicitive of the character introduction animation that a lot of
animes use. The closing song was also the usual slow wrap up type song. I found it to be just an average song as well.
The BGM was your standard comedic, quirky fare. There were no stand outs nor where there any shortcomings, only an
efficent and effective soundtrack.
The voice acting in the show is fitting. Each character was represented quite nicely by their seiyuus, but I'm
thinking that doing these particular kinds of shows is becoming quite a bit easier to do due to their frequency. I will
not deduct any points for that fact, just merely an observational comment. The best voice acting award goes to Miki
Itoh (that's two reviews in a row for her) for her job on Asa Shigure. Her character out of all, had the most
versitile personality. She could be a tomboy at times, a flirt, sweet and serious; all of which were pulled of
perfectly. Showing a wide range of emotions and character traits is a sign of a good voice actor.
Rating: 7
Presentation
After finishing this show I'm still finding myself wondering exactly what to consider Shuffle! On the whole is was
fairly entertaining but I think that the design of the series was faulty. I believe it should have focused on what made
the show entertaining, comedy. Too much of the time though it wanted to become very serious. Through the first half of
the series it was the regular old one guy, lots of girls anime. Watching them all go crazy over him and watch him just
blush. It did use a lot of the same tools that animes of this lot use for entertainment, but it was still enjoyable to
watch. It's just that I felt that redundancy really kicked in when the serious parts of the show came around.
There was always some character trait or past that haunted someone and you get to follow Rin as he tries to remedy the
situation. The majority of the time was just seeing him battle with his own inner demons and make a decision as to how
he wanted to fix it.
The show did have many redeming qualities. Fantastic animation, worthwhile voice acting and some very comedic moments.
It's just a lot of things went wrong for this show that keeps it from attaining that 'great' quality.
Mildly entertaining and recommended to those who are big fans of cute girls, ecchi comedy and love triangles.
Rating: 6
Final Verdict
6.6667 (above average)
Reviewed by shoujoboy, Feb 16, 2006