Itsudatte My Santa! DVD Review
The Itsudatte My Santa! DVD review is up in the review section. Here’s a direct link.
I’ve always loved Akamatsu Ken’s manga. Love Hina was one of the first manga I read and to this day I regard it as a masterpiece and a milestone in the harem genre. I’ve since read Itsudatte My Santa! and A.I. Love You and found both to be decent. Today I follow the Negima! manga as it comes out in the U.S. and am quite enjoying it.
It is because I hold Akamatsu’s manga in such high favor that I find the anime adaptations of his titles to be so disappointing. The anime adaptation of Love Hina really turned my down and the Negima! series and follow-up OVAs felt really corny. I did find the Negima!? series to be an interesting experiment, but that is because it presented an alternative version which I couldn’t compare to the original manga material. How come the anime adaptations of Akamatsu Ken’s works tend to be such a letdown? Perhaps Akamatsu’s manga are too detailed for their own good? Or are his character reactions, which never cease to surprise me, unfit for animation? Maybe it’s the animation studios’ fault for not capturing that magical Akamatsu feel?
Either way if you’ve only seen the anime adaptations to Akamatsu’s manga and felt disappointed I urge you to pick up the manga and give them a second chance. Kodansha’s upcoming Love Hina omnibus releases seem like a good place to start.