W - Wish

I'm a big fan of Final Approach, and became curious about W-Wish, which ran alongside it. My initial impression was that this would be an extremely vapid high school romance, maybe not worth the time it would take to watch it--even though the episodes are only 12 minutes or so long. Indeed, 12 minutes might be the most I could handle at a time! Not much comedy... predictable drama... a school festival, a trip to the beach (been there, done that)... Inexplicable memory loss (these are dime-a-dozen in anime)... Sibling affection bordering on incest... In short, it would be easy to give up early on. The show did have some atmosphere, i.e, was slightly educational about life in Japan, and was mildly amusing. It was around episode 8 that, much to my surprise, W-Wish suddenly got serious--and weird--and interesting. I certainly wasn't expecting a supernatural twist to this slice-of-life show! As it turns out, an artifact which Junna's archaeologist parents once excavated posseses mystical powers which explain his memory loss. It doesn't make complete sense, but things are turned upside down in a rather radical manner, most unlike the milquetoast series this had seemed to be early on. I did feel somewhat excited and intrigued as time ran out in the final episode. The solution Junna reasons out works almost too well (which is kind of anticlimactic), but still there was a pleasing ending; and the title winds up making some sense, too!

I can't recommend buying or renting W-Wish, but don't underestimate the value of a Watch rating. When a person has a plentiful supply of anime waiting to be viewed (as I do), time becomes more valuable than money, and a show worth the time it takes to watch it has significant value. After all, I did spend some of my time watching this series, when I could just as well have spent it on shows I'd bought or rented. I think I got my time's worth!

My favorite line: "If being able to name every medieval torture device off the top of my head is being interested, then yes (I am)" --Tomo