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AKA: N/A
Genre: 'Dramatic' romance with yaoi setting and alleged comedy (see notes)
Length: OAV series, 2 episodes, 26 minutes each
Distributor: Currently unlicensed in North America
Content Rating: R (adult themes, pedophilia, intensity)
Related Series: N/A
Also Recommended: No idea just yet.
Notes: According to the sources I've found, this show is also supposed to be a comedy, though I fail to see any comedy outside of full derision of the show (which is extremely easy to do).
Rating:

Papa and Heart - Kiss in the Dark

Synopsis

Munakata Mira is a normal student at a high-end school (judging by the way he talks about it, it must be the Harvard of Japan). On his first day, he wakes up Kyousuke, his "father" (also his lover) and, because of personal reasons, is held up. After the fiasco, he gets away with being late thanks to an upperclassman. While his father (who happens to be a very popular Hollywood actor) is his primary lover, one of his lifelong friends also loves Mira. Mira is, in due time, revealed to be related to another big actress, while Kyousuke is only his uncle, but that doesn't stop Mira from loving his now uncle.

Shoot me now.


Review

I first heard about this series from a friend of mine. While I am a bit hesitant to turn on a male-on-male show, I decided to give it an evaulation ... and it almost came to the point of me bailing out during episode one. This is a real embarrassment.

To start things off, I'll rip the plot to shreds. This show has one of the most (if not the most) hyper-rushed plot of all time. It goes at a pace so fast, you'd think you were in the middle of a tornado. All that is really established is that Mira is apparently the hottest guy in town to quite a few people, me not being one of those people and that the drama is out of control. It's a train wreck. Apparently, the whole point of this show is to show as much steamy love between Mira and Kyousuke and his lifelong friend as possible and build up a backstory so loose that touching it with talcum powder will make the structure crumble.

Next up on the list are the characters, and boy do we have some winners. Mira is the person who, in a massive landslide victory, overthrows Shinji Ikari of Evangelion as being the biggest wimp of all time. There are very few scenes where he does not show off angst (letting fly with the "I hate you dad" while his father is in the room, leading up to a triple whammy with the annoying angst, pedophilia, and a rather intimate scene -- and this isn't one of those fake-outs like in BPS, this is the real McCoy, but then again, this is a yaoi anime, so I shouldn't have been surprised). Kyousuke, aside from being a loving uncle, is also a glamour king with his smooth, butter on bread type charm with ladies (why I used that phrase escapes me). The lifelong friend (name long since forgotten) cares the same way all other friends do ... that is, until he TOO gets into Mira. This is not shaping up to be family fun, I can tell you that. The only other noteworthy person is the upperclassman, who is also related to our angsty protagonist.

Musically, this one drops a bomb. The ending theme (the only song I bother to remember) is horrible. No real vocal talent is present in this ensemble, named It's. There is fun to be had with THAT name. You know it's sad when I tune out the ending song and overlap the credits with a much less fitting song, just because they lack talent.

Some of the real talent in this show, however, comes with the voices. Our friend Mira is voiced over Midorikawa Hikaru (Hiro in Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, Leon Magnus in Tales of Destiny, and Marth in Super Smash Bros. Melee, to name a few of his roles). Oddly, Mira vaguely resembles Magnus, but is the polar opposite when it comes to behavior. The noticeable part of all seiyuu voicing the main characters is that they seen their fair share of work on video games (the Tales series being on the casting list of four of the seiyuu). For the most part, the game roles were popular ones. While I am glad that there is talent here, this anime doesn't back it up well enough.

The only other talented portion is the artwork, which is rather brilliant. A tranquil group of frames perfect for a love story (well, love stories except this one). The environments are very nice and almost give you the feeling that the screen is a window. The animation, however, etches burn marks into the good art with rather underachieved work in the flow of the anime, thus turning it into a substance leaking out of the tube. Not too brilliant I must say.

In closing, I want to say that this anime doesn't pilot the intimate scenes far enough to show the true vision, so it is more of a deviant than a full-blooded yaoi. That doesn't save this anime from being bad fan fare.

Salvages a second star for good vocal talent and nice artwork. Take one star away if these don't matter to you. Likewise, add a star if these are the only things that matter to you.Jake L Godek

Recommended Audience: Definently mature audiences. Suggestive themes ahoy, pedophilia, and soul-robbing moods make this entry rather unsuited for the young audiences. Thus, that makes them the lucky ones.



Version(s) Viewed: digital source
Review Status: Full (2/2)
Papa and Heart - Kiss in the Dark © 2005 TNK / Sol Blade / Three Fat Samurai
 
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