Gravitation

5 WORDS OR LESS REVIEW: Cute, funny and good enough.

Like your typical shonen-ai anime, Gravitation focuses more on boy-boy love and thus the other plot elements are forgotten. Other than being a shonen-ai anime, Gravitation was supposed to be an anime about making it big in the music industry. Sometimes, I think that aspect is overlooked. I think if the shonen-ai and music making aspects were balanced, Gravitation would have been better.

The cast, as expected, were full of gorgeous male characters. My favorites would be Hiro and Yuki – I like the mysterious, tall and handsome types. Shuichi was okay, he gets on my nerves ... sometimes, but he’s really cute when he’s chibi-fied. His choice of outfits is questionable though – his normal clothes are okay, but the banana suit and the school girl uniform was too much. Why can’t he be more like Ryuichi who’s cute all the time?

I’m always impressed when a female seiyuu is assigned to a male character. Takimoto Fujiko (Fujisaki Suguru) and Ai Orikasa (Seguchi Tohma) were good in portraying male characters, however I like Takimoto Fujiko more because when I first heard Seguchi Tohma’s voice, I knew his seiyuu was female right away. Ai Orikasa’s voice was too high pitched and mellow, which is unfitting for a male president of a record company. Of course, I can’t forget to note Tomokazu Seki, who was Shuichi’s seiyu. He’s my favorite no matter what roles he picks.

Visuals for gravitation were interesting. I like how they incorporated real images with the animation – it makes it look different. However, when it’s just pure animation, I have to say I’m not a fan. The drawings were inconsistent, and needed work. Yuki’s face changes almost every episode. Same goes for the coloring. There were times when there were stills and repeated scenes were used. That’s just being lazy for me. The visuals did get better towards the end.

As for the music, the OP reminded me a lot of Pet Shop Boys songs. I only heard a few of their songs (I wasn’t born yet when they first started), but when I first watched Gravitation I immediately thought of the Pet Shop Boys. I like the ED better, it’s quite catchy but I kinda wish a girl sang it. It is a shonen-ai anime after all. There’s also the insert songs, which were nice, but again – Pet Shop Boys.

It could have been better, not that I’m saying it’s bad – but it needed some improvement. For me, Gravitation’s strengths lies in its comedy, chibi-cuteness, Tomokazu Seki and of course, the shonen-ai.

If this was the one I bought waaaaayy back when it was first popular - I have a bit of a problem with it.

Overall, the animation was okay. IT WAS OKAY. I hated the fact that in some scenes, they used real footage with a filter over it. What's the point!? Also, it looks like the anime cels were stretched...since every character's eyes look stretched to their limit.

The Japanese dub was the cloak that hid the horrible truth of this anime adaptation. The English is a complete and utter waste of time, money and of a fan's time and money. My friends and I were ... Gravitation "fangirls" who bought the manga and when we saw that there was a anime, we freaked. I was the provider of this and we only watched the Japanese because we were purists and believe home languages of any film, TV series, etc. were to be watched first. We watched the English and I felt like I was deceived into something so sinister. Yuki's voice was okay but his actor read the script TERRIBLY. In fact, all of the English voiceover was so wrong that I never watched it again. It was that bad.

They forgot alot of things, aswell. So many little events that could make this so. much. better. They took the pinnacle events (Shuichi meeting Yuki, Yuki's "past", etc.) and animated those.

I gave this a 6 for a reason. I might go and watch the OVA to compare but I just...can't. XD It ruined alot for me, this TV version. I gave it a 4 'cause I like Gravitation. I'm not crazy about it but I like it. It just wasn't executed well.

To fans of shounen-ai/ yaoi anime, Gravitation was the anime that helped popularize the launch of later "boys love" TV anime titles that would pop up now and then like Junjou Romantica and Loveless. However beyond the latter and Antique Bakery, much of my exposure to "boys love" titles have consisted of subpar and angsty melodramas focused on "dominant" and "submissive" types of attractive male characters that made me not survive any further than the first few minutes of a show's first episode. Sadly, Gravitation follows this same mold to a great extent in its focus on Eiri and Shuiichi's developing relationship with each following ... the dominant and submissive roles respectively. Both characters got quite obnoxious with their personalities for me with Eiri's barely expressive demeanor and Shuuichi's energetic and intrusive behavior. The approach that the anime takes in their relationship developments is just as irritating where the plot keeps teeter-tottering their developments between going smoothly and strained on enough occasions throughout the show's run, which made me blow enough steam over why Shuuichi doesn't just jump ship from his angst-loaded lover having enough mood swings. To its credit, the series does at least provide decent fleshing-out of its prominent characters and provide some believable elements to the complications that arise when becoming a celebrity such as the paparazzi and handling the fast rise of fame acquired. However, these few positives elements aren't enough to outweigh my sheer annoyance of the main pairing of Gravitation as I could care less about neither their relationship nor characters because of how melodramatic they were. Unless you're a sap for any type of shounen-ai/ yaoi anime title, I wouldn't waste any time on Gravitation.

I've always wanted to write reviews on anime I watch, and here I am finally doing it. To make things clear, I didn't decide to start writing now and on this anime all of a sudden because I liked or disliked it. It just happened to be this one.
I remember searching through the internet to find an old-style shonen-ai or Yaoi anime because I aesthetically enjoy this format, which lots of people don't. A matter of taste truly.
You should not have high expectations of such anime. As expected the story is not great -maybe it is in the manga, I haven't read it and I'm ... not going to, so I don't know - but it's not complete nonsense either. At the very least it doesn't only revolve around two guys falling in love and their relationship. (The drama in the plot is more than what it should've been so it loses its effect. Or maybe it's just due to poor directing.)
What I enjoyed about this anime was the sense of comedy although it was a little bit too much sometimes. I liked the fact that some things -Not the story or main incidents- didn't make sense and were so out of blue. That's one of the reasons I like older anime.
the last thing I want to mention is that I enjoyed the music in this anime. not a fan of vocals but the OST was beautiful and enjoyable.
Overall, I think it stands a chance to give you a good time, only if you consider the cliches of the genre.

I remember this being one of the first anime that I watched when I was in high school and it was originally airing on TV, and being very fond of it at the time. I rewatched it again for the first time after over a decade and have much more mixed feeling about the show. Overall, I would say that while it was not bad, there are a lot of other anime set in the entertainment industry, as well as shounen ai, that are a lot better.

Story: I like the overall concept and setting for the storyline. What is not to like about characters ... with a dark, mysterious past and a new band trying to break into the music industry and make it big? It makes a fun backdrop to the romantic element of the story, however I would say that the execution of that storyline was only mediocre. Compared to a story like Skip Beat (the manga in particular), these elements are not nearly as fleshed out and developed.

Characters: Again, I liked the basic concept of the characters (their past, their motives, etc), but to be honest, I found both of the main characters to be REALLY annoying. Yuki is just a straight-up dick most of the time, and Suichi's whiny, childish, over-the-top personality was not endearing.

Sound: For an anime that is about the music industry, I was decidedly not impressed about the music in the show. Especially in the first half of the show, when they kept using the same song over and over again. Maybe it just wasnt my style, but either way I felt like the music often detracted from the experience of the anime.

Art: Mediocre. I wouldn't say that it was terrible, but I did not love the style of it. It seemed very dated, and more like an art style from the 90s than something from 2004/2005.

Enjoyment: Despite having many elements that I did not like, I did still enjoy watching the anime. It was light and fluffly, and the pacing was fast enough that it didn't lose my interest.

Overall: I wouldn't put this a the top of your "to watch" list, but if you are into this kind of show, then it might be worth watching if you have the time to kill.

GRAVITATION ANIME REVIEW
OVERALL: 5/10
PLOT: 4/10
This is the first Shounen Ai I've watched. Is my genre, right? I won't say it is a yaoi since it is really not. This story is too fast pace for me. Well, basically, it consist of 12 episodes. However, unlike other anime who successfully show how a relationship grows, this one failed to do so. In my opinion, that is. Apart from that, the twist of the story if kinda cliche since what is the number 1 or the main issue when it comes to this type of relatio ship? Yes, it is the gender. There are also other twist ... on the story such as sickness and the past which I think increase the curiousity or suspense of the series. There are some comedy on this, if I remembered correctly. But that is not enough to entertain or give a deeper impact on me, personally.
Don't misunderstand. It is not bad, it also is not that good. For me, it is fine.
CHARACTER: 5/10
The only character my attention goes to is the opponent vocalist. Still, it is only on the last two to three episodes where he got serious? The protagonist is kinda jolly person which always get affected by his surrounding, most of all is his partner. The partner looks great, honestly. But the bestfriend of the protagonist has much more charm and impact than the protagonist himself. In my opinion. No offense.
SONGS: 7/10
The songs of this series are good. But I still expected new songs along the way since it is a music genre anime. However, it failed my expectation. The series only focuses on one song only. The voices are fine, though.
ENJOYMENT: 5/10
50:50. I want to enjoy it since it is an anime. And I never drop any anime I've started to watch. It is also the first time I've watch such genre. So so. But it lacks on something. Lacks of enjoyment? Lacks on impact? I wanted more, expected more from the character. As I've said, the story is too fast pace that I failed to cope up on the feelings they're trying to portray. It feels kinda fake. Or rather vulnerable. So that must be why I did not really enjoyed it.