Aishiteruze Baby review

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Reminder: reviews usually have spoilers, at least minor ones. In this review, the ending is discussed. You can read down to the point where it says "As for the ending" and still be safe from having the ending spoiled.

Aishiteruze Baby is the story of Yuzuyu, a five year old girl whose father recently died, and whose mother Miyako is not handling the loss of her husband well at all. Realizing she's in no shape at the moment to care for her daughter, Miyako drops Yuzuyu off at her older sister's house, and up and disappears.



Kippei is the eldest son in the house, and regarded as unreliable. So the family assigns Yuzuyu to him to handle, completely. Not the choice I'd make, but that's the premise of the show.



Aishiteruze Baby is about how Kippi changes as the result of having to be responsible for Yuzuyu, and how Yuzuyu and her "Kippei-oniichan" bond, with some side stories of Yuzuyu at preschool, and Kippei and his almost, kind of, sort of girlfriend, Kokoro.



In other words, this is a relationship show. (Thankfully, no fanservice here.)

The animation, as the pictures show, is of the "everyone has a pointed chin" style that isn't my favorite to be honest. Good stories make up for bad animation of course... too bad Aishiteruze Baby didn't have one. Yes, the main characters bond with each other, and that's kind of developed... slowly. Kippei and Kokoro come together... slowly. Events occur... slowly.



Plenty of "relationship" shows have a rather slow pace. Anime fans learn that lesson really quick. And slow in terms of plot can be good, if the time is used to develop the characters. But my god, this show was slow. Slow for the sake of being slow. Not just in plot development, but within each episode. The voice actress playing Yuzuyu did a good job emulating the speech patterns of a typical five year old -- speaking slowly, and with great pauses. But, there's a point past which being accurate is also being detrimential to the entertainment that the show is supposed to be providing, and Aishiteruze Baby is standing a few miles beyond that point, waving at you and smirking. Waving slowly, mind you.

As for the ending... I'd love to critize the ending of this anime too, but it didn't actually have one. It just stopped. I'm totally serious. None of the show's main plot points were resolved: will Yuzuyu's mother Miyako come back for her? Will Kippei and Kokoro end up together? Will Yuzuyu ever stop referring to herself in the third person? Best read the manga, kiddies, 'cause the anime doesn't answer any of these questions. This is the second worst kind of ending (the worst being, of course, the Mahoromatic 2 ending, of which it is best not to speak).

A bad ending can ruin an otherwise very good show; Aishiteruze Baby's sudden stopping after 26 episodes didn't ruin it, but rendered the investment of time watching it rather useless. Aishiteruze Baby had a premise that wasn't the usual run-of-the-mill anime setup, but it never rose to it's potential. There were moments of brillance: Yuzuyu's bouncing around the house at random, while saying "Bounce!", was a hilarious and cute moment, which just showed how much potential wasn't being used. Mind you, there's lots of cuteness in this show, so if you're just looking for cute you might love it. Just be ready with a mop because the cuteness is likely to leak out of the screen and leave big puddles of cute on the floor. For me, though, there's got to be more to a show than just the cuteness, and a bad ending bugs the hell out of me.

We anime fans get flak at times for being adults who watch shows supposedly aimed at Japanese children, but I can't think of who this show was broadcast for. Children would be bored stupid. Was the audience supposed to be old Japanese ladies who have outlived their familes who are in nursing homes awaiting the welcome release of death?

Don't watch this. You have better things to do.

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Well I've seen all eps not including the final one which will be subbed pretty soon probably. Anyhoo, there are shows that are much more useless and just plain time consumers. I probably won't mind the ending, unless they left it at somekind of cliffhanger or something, which they luckily didn't do. My main point is, it's ok but slow, watch it if you don't mind that and want something cute and cuddly like to watch... that's it I guess.

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It's already out.



I have to admit that I seem to place more emphasis on the ending than most anime viewers do. One of the reasons I like anime over the more American-type of series is that almost all anime tells a discrete story; it ends, unlike most American shows that keep going and going until they get cancelled and just disappear. But since anime series do end, there should be some kind of resolution. It doesn't have to be a huge resolution or anything, I don't ask for much. But Aishiteruze Baby gave... nothing. And yes, I don't like that.