Lemon Angel YJ-ban

Synopsis:

Characters:

• Ogawa, Medaka (Main) - Voice Actors: Yajima, Akiko

Staff:

• Amino, Tetsurou (Director, Script, Storyboard)
• Chiba, Kouichi (Sound Director)
• Aoi, Kiyotoshi (Key Animation)
• Hamamori, Toshihiro (Key Animation)
• Higashi, Junichi (Art Director)
• Kase, Yuuki (Color Setting)
• Kondou, Yuuji (Character Design, Animation Director)
• Okui, Atsushi (Director of Photography)
• Yoshida, Naotaka (Planning)

Reviews:

• User Kamezuki (Score: 5/10):
  “Lemon Angel: YJ-ban” is a 2-episode OVA based on the manga “Lemon Angel,” and both are part of the mixed media project of the same name, which also includes a few anime series unrelated to this. While all of these stem from “Cream Lemon,” which is an adult title, none of them are X-rated, but they do contain a fair amount of ecchi scenes. “YJ-ban” should probably be tagged as an ecchi title, like its manga counterpart. Anyway, these two episodes with self-contained stories present the reckless youth-infused shenanigans of high schooler Medaka, her friends Rie and Satomi, and her boyfriend, Keisuke. The first episode revolvesaround the gang preparing for their school’s festival, with Keisuke playing in a rock band and Rie filming a “documentary” as everyone prepares for it. Naturally, things don’t go as planned, partially due to interpersonal conflict, and partially because of a typhoon.nnDespite the second episode being called “Medaka’s Time Capsule,” no mention of a time capsule is made until there’s about 3 minutes left in the episode, after which the time capsule subplot is quickly shoved in with a nonsensical fanservice joke. This episode is largely about Medaka, her sister, Keisuke, and some cafe owner guy they’re acquainted with going on a road trip to pick up Rie from a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, because she had second thoughts while trying to hitchhike to her crush’s place in Hokkaido. This is interspersed with semi-philosophical talk about how they’re all doing different things during their summer vacation and may go their separate ways in the future, and how having free time is a luxury. Meanwhile, Rie has to fend off a creepy guy who’s trying to get too friendly with her as she waits for them. They later all go pick up Satomi, who’s been studying for university exams in cram school, and continue their road trip, after which they decide to make a time capsule to commemorate it.nnThe plots of both episodes are by and large easy to follow, but there are some odd narrative decisions that either don’t make sense or go nowhere, like the “haunted piano” scene in the first episode, and the whole time capsule thing in the second one.nnThe characters are okay for what they are; there’s no development, of course, but once we’re introduced to them, we pretty much understand their personalities and motivations right away. Satomi’s character is under-utilized however, as she doesn’t get nearly as much screen time as Medaka, Keisuke or Rie.nnI felt that the dialogue was too simple and could have been better. There are a couple of memorable lines, however — “A typhoon can’t stop rock and roll” in the first episode, and “I hope your [private parts] get crushed under a trucks' tires!” in the second.nnAs far as technical aspects go, you can tell this didn’t have much of a budget, but they did okay with what they had. The animation is not bad, and there is even some sakuga in…

External Links:

• AniDB
• ANN

Related Anime/Manga:

• Lemon Angel (manga - Adaptation)
• Cream Lemon: Lemon Angel (anime - Other)