AKA: Da Capo, D.C., D.C. ~Da Capo~

Genre: Romance / comedy / drama / harem / miscellaneous

Length: Television series, 26 episodes, 23 minutes each

Distributor: Currently unlicensed in North America

Content Rating: 10+ (slight fan service)

Related Series: Da Capo II, Da Capo III (Quasi-Sequels)

Also Recommended: Love Hina, Please Teacher!

Notes: This is yet another doinky anime based on a dating sim game.

Rating:

Da Capo

Synopsis

Asakura Junichi is a young boy who lives on the island of Hatsune, an island where the cherry blossoms are always in bloom (yeah...). His sister Nemu lives in the same house with him. One day a girl named Sakura comes to Hatsune. And then more arrive, all of them infatuated with Junichi. How will he handle this? Which girl will he choose? Will doinkies make it through this anime?

Review

Yawn ... this show is yet another doinky anime based on a dating sim, probably a hentai one. And this show is made even more so by its cramming of popular anime cliches into twenty-six episodes of mediocrity. Let's take a look, shall we?

First off, our male lead, Junichi, is a loser, just like every other harem anime protagonist out there. Like all harem anime protagonists, he has a deep, dark secret (oooh, the suspense ... not) ... Nemu, his "sister", isn't actually blood-related to him! And on top of that, he has some fuzzy feelings about her and she has some fuzzy ones for him. And to make him "unique" and "kewl", he has some special powers, which consist of making sweets with his hands (woooow, cooool-not) and seeing other people's dreams for no apparent reason.

Unsurprisingly a bunch of girls begin to show up and try to have Junichi fall in love with them. And these girls are all a bunch of cardboard cutouts. Sakura, the first girl, was close to the Asakuras but moved overseas, only to return later. Sakura is annoying, whiny, obnoxious, and manages to make a fool out of Junichi. Komedy!

Next are two sisters, Moe and Mako. Moe is just like Osaka from Azumanga Daioh: She's slow, spacey, and is completely obsessed with a certain thing (in this case, it's nabe, a hot-pot dish). But unlike Osaka, she is not likable in any way, and she constantly pops up to describe how nabe is made. Every time Moe enters, I want to flog her. Mako is just there so she could eat the nabe with Moe (frankly, I don't see how she puts up with it). This, of course, is supposed to be funny and comedic.

And then we have our Obligatory Maid (TM), Yoriko, who looks like a blend of the various persocoms from Chobits, only more artificial. Of course, so that she's unique and special, she can't do anything a maid normally does which only adds to the "comedy".

There are even more doinky girls, but doinkies will stop listing them only because it would take up a dozen pages to tell you how much I absolutely abhor them.

Now, on to the plot...As expected, Da Capo is an anime of the PWP (Plot? What Plot?) type. Each episode generally has one girl with our main guy who tries her best to charm him through something. But you just *know* that he will never choose any of those girls, instead choosing Nemu. The "story" just shows certain events in Junichi's life, like going to the mall, going to the cultural festival, going to the beach, etc. Heck, at least Love Hina had a reason for the protagonist's plight. But not Da Capo.

And to top it all off, the first seven episodes feature a doinky music video at the end with each seiyuu singing a doinky song. They could have devoted more time to the plot during those minutes taken up by music videos, but noooo. They had to put in those music videos, because gosh darn it music videos are cool. I cringed through each music video and wished the torture would end. For that matter, the OP and ED songs are pretty blah as well.

The art and animation are pretty average for this sort of title. The characters are better designed than the backgrounds are, in fact.

In short, Da Capo is proof that plopping together certain common anime cliches into one anime does not always mean it's good. There are several good titles out there that don't really have a plot (like Azumanga Daioh). Da Capo tries hard to be another good anime without a plot, but it fails miserably at it.

In music, "Da Capo" is an Italian term placed in a score that tells the musician to skip this part and jump to the end, which is used when you've already played that part and you want to end the piece. There isn't any guesswork involved in the implication of this title:

If you aren't a dating sim anime fan...just Da Capo this one.

It's not Popotan-level doinkiness. But it's still terrible. Add two stars if you absolutely adore this kind of anime. — Jennifer Berman

Recommended Audience: This is pretty much preteen stuff. There's some fan service, but it's not too much compared to other dating-sim anime. It would be fine for little kids, but they probably won't get it.