During the early years of The Otaku’s Study, back when it was first known simply as Sam’s Anime Study, I tried to cover the anime series that most other blogs didn’t seem to be actively picking up. While it may be too costly to pick up some of the titles (I almost cried upon seeing how much the Manabi Straight Blu-ray box set cost), I would eventually like to pick up some of the classic series I wrote synopsis and commentary on back in the early days of this site and give them a full review. Fortunately given its low price point, I have been able to finally test the waters for this review series by picking up the complete 13-episode TV series of Moetan (もえたん) as part of an EMOTION the BEST DVD-BOX set.
The Moetan series had been active many years before its eventual anime adaptation in Japan as a series of Japanese-English learning artbooks. While I don’t actually have any of them on hand, the English presented in them is purportedly completely out-there and not what you would generally expect to find in an educational textbook. The artwork on the other hand is rather good from what I have seen.
Moetan follows a high-school student by the name of Ink Nijihara (Who like other female leads has the appearance of a child), who harbours a crush towards a guy named Nao however finds herself unable to approach him. Things begin to change when she runs into a talking Duck by the name of Ah-kun who for reasons yet to be explored had fled from the Magical World. Granting her the ability to ‘Magical Change’ into the magical girl ‘Pastel Ink’, she uses this alternate (Albeit unmistakeably similar) persona to go into Nao’s house each night and serve as his English teacher. All the while she is fighting fellow magical girl Sumi Kuroi for Nao’s affection and the occasional threat of Alice Shiratori who has a link with Ah-kun’s past.
There isn’t much to the storyline, and while they do attempt to sum everything up in the end, the entire series in general comes down to a number of individual episodes attempting to deliver fanservice and the occasional not-so-commonly-used English sentence. It is quite quirky and there are a few laughable moments, but most of the episodes end up being an unremarkable experience that draws upon many clichés that are really only worth watching if you are into the whole loli fanservice thing. If they had toned down the blatant attempts at delivering fanservice and played upon their strengths as a quirky anime series, it might have made for an average watch at the very least. Unfortunately, the occasional piece of humour amongst the everything else wasn’t enough to warrant this as an enjoyable title.
To the credit of animation studio Actas who have had much experience in the anime industry, the visual quality of each episode was pretty good – matching the bright and colourful visuals you would expect to see in any light-hearted show surrounding magical girls. The visuals were complemented by an average musical backing but fairly enjoyable opening and ending themes. The opening theme Mahō Shōjo Magical-tan! by Yukari Tamura, Haruka Tomatsu and Kaori Nazuka was a fun opening featuring unique animation, while the core ending theme Ship! by Nomiko also delivered an softer albeit still enjoyable track with three different variants on the animation.
These small perks in production quality provide an experience that delivers dangerously cute characters mixed with fanservice, and if you are after this in particular than you will quite likely enjoy Moetan (the Anime). For those after a decent storyline however, Moetan doesn’t make for much of an appealing watch.
