What They Say:
“Super Sonico” debuted as Nitro+’s live mascot girl, and her world will be brought to life in the anime, “SoniAni – SUPER SONICO THE ANIMATION -“!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After two episodes, you know pretty well what kind of series Sonico will be. Not that you couldn’t tell from the get go as mascots are rarely given a chance to be anything other than super sweet and engaging as you don’t want to put something out there that would turn away fans. Even when Gamers did their bit with Dejiko years ago, they packaged her selfish and difficult personality inside an adorable package and littered her with other cute friends to help stem her issues a bit. With Sonico, she’s simply upbeat and involved in so many things in a positive way that it’s hard to imagine her being an offensive character in the traditional sense. The danger is that she walks into the realm of bland territory, but instead what we get is a character that is actually quite normal.
While she’s obviously overly attractive and capable of so many things, she’s presented in a fair normal way with simple but appealing outfits, a pleasant personality and someone that does right by her friends and hates to disappoint them. She’s essentially girl next door material with a few quirks (and headphones) to separate her a bit. What really helps though is that she’s not focused on a male character or pursuing a relationship for the sake of a relationship. We see her doing well with her college stuff here, looking for ways to try and do better at her job and coping with some of the problems that come with it, especially the whole swimsuit and appealing to male demographic aspect. But even while struggling with how some guys (such as certain producers or managers) could be difficult to work with, she’s more interested in doing her best work possible for her own satisfaction more than anything else.
Of course, going to Okinawa for the trip means we get a lot of lush and beautiful material in terms of visuals and animation, which is hugely appealing. It’s a simple montage piece overall, including some make-up and prep time that’s cute to watch, and it moves smoothly and quickly instead of being overdone which is pretty nice. The show takes an amusing twist though in that Sonico gets drawn into participating on a sentai show for one scene by getting her to guest star, which will definitely boost the ratings a bit. Though she doesn’t have to do the show, she does it to help out and it plays into the usual tropes that you’d expect with how she’s attacked, scared and saved by the sentai team. It is amusing to watch since it goes into a sexualized mode with a tentacle creature and that her manager ends up brushing past everyone since he can’t stand to see her treated this way. It’s overprotective to be sure, but it also clearly establishes their relationship.
In Summary:
Super Sonico The Animation handles the swimsuit and beach episode surprisingly well when you consider what kind of paths it could have gone done. There’s a lot of interesting factors that definitely go into a show like this with what they have to balance it against, but I’m finding myself enjoying this a lot more than I expected, even if it is mostly light and without anything to really chew on in terms of story. Following Sonico’s life and the challenges she faces may be a lot more relatable to people that you could initially imagine and seeing it play out is definitely fun, even if it is obviously very Japanese in certain regards. With some great looking animation and designs here with the visuals, it’s a surprisingly enjoyable episode that leaves me wanting more.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
