gergelyh-15596

A heartwarming little piece-of-life story about cooking and family bonds certainly does not have to be overly exciting or dramatic to find an audience. The pacing is slow but this in itself would not be a problem either. Regretfully the makers of "Dad's Lunch Box" chose a very direct approach: all the dialogues are about the lunches. Between Father and Midori, Father and co-workers, Midori and boyfriend, Midori and female friends -- there is not a word about anything else but food, food, food! Consequently the characters are all cardboard, lacking all the depth and unable to evoke our sympathy or even curiosity. A real pity because both main characters look like decent actors, wasted on a lifeless and insubstantial script.

"Say I Love You" is a rather typical but really well-made shoujo manga, but the anime series does not do it justice at all. While the music is decent and the backgound arts are nice (the facial expressions and movements not so!) I felt that Mei's character was really badly presented here. She is supposed to be very shy but intelligent (she can give some good advice to grown-ups) and sometimes she can be surprisingly violent -- especially when her shyness is challenged. But in the anime she moves and talks so slowly as somebody with severe brain damage. And nothing remained from her prickly side, only the kick that starts he whole love story -- and that kick remains unmotivated and unbelievable this way. Well, that side of her is mostly drawn in the chibi style frames of the manga, so they fell victim when the makers of the anime decided not to use chibi characters at all! (Why oh why? Every anime fan likes the chibis!) Although there is much more than that in the manga, for the TV episodes they chose stories that all follow the same scheme: Mei gets confused for some reason (mostly because she tries to be less jealous than the normal level nature permits) and in the end is is the inncent Yamato who apologizes. The viewer can not help wondering why and for how long can he endure this... So the anime not only does not add anything to the comics, it will distort your image of the main characters if you watch this first! And some very interesting supporting characters are entirely left out. (E.g. Yamato's older brother.) One last warning: this anime seems to be hard to find here on IMDB, so some reviewers found the live action movie instead. From the 3 reviews currently readable there, two are actually written about this TV series. See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3088084 !