In the long list of fansubs I’ve been exposing myself to lately, Green Green stands out as a remarkably unremarkable one. It has individual qualities that would make any other anime rather memorable. It has the reasonably stalwart male protagonist, a variety of unappealing male supporting cast (including the longhaired guy that thinks he’s God’s gift to the ladies, a truely pathetic compulsive masturbator, etc.), and a variety of female leads.

The execution is lacking something I just can’t indentify. I’ve read other reviews criticizing the animation quality, but for a television series it’s really rather good. The character designs, though a trifle heavy on the fanservice, are well-conceived. For each, the appearance matches the voiceacting which matches the general idiom of the character. The tough & cool girl looks appropriately iconoclastic without looking goofy, the Genki girl is appropriately bouncy, the Reserved girl is appropriately delicate, and so forth.

There is some intangible quality about how the characters come together with the premise of the first episode (quickly summarized: an all-boys school hosts a busload of students from an all-girls school in preparation for both schools eventually going co-ed). That intangible quality sucks the life out of an otherwise silly, fanservicey romp. After one episode, I’m giving this one a pessimistic C-. It has quite a ways to go to redeem itself for me.

File under “cute.” Sure, that’s what we do with everything by Ken Akamatsu, creator of such as Love Hina and Love Don’t Stop, makes a lot of cute work. Itsudatte My Santa is a mild departure in that this story, unlike many of the “harem manga” stories about the “lovable dolt” archetype, this story is concise, straightforward, and finite. That’s right, it has an ending, and ends when it makes sense for it to.

I found this particular manga with the aid of the fine folks at Manga-Jouhou, as translated by Akatsuki-Manga. You can purchase it if you like, the art is quite good.

It looks like Onegai Teacher has a sequel out. I saw it coming, care of anything-asian.net but wasn’t terribly excited about it. The original series was sweet but didn’t seem to lend itself well to a sequel (why make a sequel when the first series has a happy ending and no real loose ends to speak of?).

However the poorly-named “Onegai Twins” (they’re actually triplets, but let’s not get into that just now) is, like its parent series, quite well-done. Instead of continuing to follow the original plotline, we pick up at the same school, same time period, but with a new protagonist. He, contrary to recent anime convention, is actually a competent person with a strong personality and a modicum of composure. When faced with the unexpected appearance of his twin sister, he reacts as any reasonable person would: uncomfortably (but firmly). It is probably the firm personality of the main character that is setting this series aside for me so far.

In an age where the “harem anime” genre abounds (wherein the protagonist is invariably a lovable loser), it is nice to see somebody with a spine attached. Additionally, because we’re talking about siblings here, any fanservice is purely for the audience, and we need never ask questions like “Why doesn’t he just go for it, dammit?” Because that would be sick, that’s why. So far I highly recommend giving it a look.