Director: Kamei Kanta (Usagi
Drop, Oreshura)
Writer: Kurata Hideyuki (OreImo,
Samurai Flamenco)
Main Cast:
Ono Yuuki as Yama Juugo
Tanabe Rui as Ryuugajou Nanana
Character Design:
KawakamiTetsuya (Shigofumi)
Music: Hoashi Keigo (Tasogare Otome x
Amnesia)
There was a time when the noitaminA block was a bastion of anime that didn't specifically cater to the larger anime fan audience. Just look at the other show this season, Ping Pong, as an example of the kind of anime that was the norm. This season, Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin is the other show in noitaminA. While it is much more palatable for anime fans used to high school silliness and girls beating up on guys, it does have a great opening scene; an Indiana Jones-like romp through a cave trying to capture some buried treasure. Sadly, after that opening scene whets the appetite, the show delivers a completely different, and less interesting dish.
What is served in Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin is a lot of time is spent with characters I could not care less about. Yama Juugo is a high school student living on his own for the first time on an island designed for students. He moves into a low-rent room in an apartment complex, where he finds a ghost girl named Nanana living there. And yes, the drunken late-twenties female landlord knew about this ghost girl, and made him pay a year's rent up front. That ain't shady at all, and if Juugo wasn't making it blatantly obvious that he thinks with his dick by ogling her boobs, he might have seen that the deal was too good to be true. Of course, Nanana isn't any more interesting or sympathetic. She's perfectly happy to go along with this arrangement, complete with watching TV all day, playing internet games all night, and forcing Juugo to buy her pudding. Yes, she was murdered in her room, and so she can't ever leave it, and that's very sad. But, maybe the person who stabbed her in the back was sick of her overbearing and obnoxious personality. Too bad that didn't work to permanently get rid of her.
 |
| She's a detective. You can tell by her deerstalker hat. |
After a couple episodes of this crap, there is a glimmer of hope with an actual adventure scene. I won't go into too much detail, but it's a cleverly constructed "entrance exam" for the local high school's adventure club. They're looking for items in "Nanana's Collection", a set of artifacts that will give those who find them special powers. This is what the show should have been about, without all of Nanana and Juugo's bullshit. There is even a possible main character, a female genius detective who solves the first adventure's puzzle fairly quickly by taking in everything in the room. Unfortunately, she also has an overbearing personality, as seen with how she treats her maid, calling they're not a boy, they're a "trap" when they are revealed to be someone in a maid uniform with a dick. My issue isn't the joke itself, because if her maid had been the one to make it and owning their own gender status, it would have worked. Instead, it comes off as a lot of things come off in this show, crass and stupid.
I have never dropped a noitaminA show that ran a full cour until today. Despite the interesting adventure subplot, the majority of Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin is spent with characters I don't like. I expect anything to do with searching for the Collection and the life-and-death puzzles involved with that will fall to the wayside. The plot will most likely devolve into Juugo wanting to find Nanana's killer, which would be fine if he just wants her the fuck out of his apartment. But, that won't be the case, he'll get some feelings for her and it will be the same old anime romantic stuff. However, I won't be watching any of this unfold because I'm failing the show.
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