Fish in the Trap

Webmaster's Note: This anime is a prequel to the manga, and is intended to stop where the manga begins.

When I first watched anime Fish in the Trap, I thought that it was really short and plotless. And I wasn't wrong. But as the time passed, I gave it another try and I realized that there is something that could catch interest of potential consumer.

Fish in the Trap is a story based on 3-volumed manga by Nekokichi Ranma about Tsukamoto Yuuji, a young buisnessman and great swimmer, and Matsui Takahiro, who is still attending school and is also a beginner in swimming.

But THEIR story started much much earlier.

Five year old Matsui is playing with his friend and friend's dog. Suddenly, they both notice that there is a blue-haired and older boy (Yuuji) staring at them. Matsui doesn't know him, but is greatly suprised, however everything Yuuji say is "I want a dog".

Several years later, Matsui is already in school (but I don't know which year) and it is revealed that he is third in school's swimming contest (in boy's group). His best friend is Yoshino, who from what I've noticed has more than platonic feelings for his best friend.

Now back to our story.

Matsui's attention is caught by one, particular swimmer(from older boys group), which is the fastest and is also the winner of the contest. When the contest is over, two friends decide to have something to drink. When Yoshino is gone, Matsui is (by accident) witnessing a fangirl's attempt to flirt with Yuuji. The blue-haired man skillfully gets rid of her and leaves with Matsui.

Yuuji takes Matsui to a bar, where he serves him a drink.

A while later, a bunch of Yuuji's friends joins them and they get interested in Yuuji's new "toy". I probably don't have to mention that they are all gay. And I should stop here to not spoil all your fun!

Anime (as I said) is short, it probably ends in most inappropriate moment and there are some juicy scenes but nothing hardcore.

And now my opinion:
I don't really care about Matsui or Yuuji. Especially Matsui is hard to be liked since he seems to be one of the most typical ukes of all the time with his total lack of personality. Maybe if the story was more developed...

Anyway, I grew really fond of secondary cast, pariculary Yuuji's gay friends. So first we have red- and long-haired boy named Karakawa who (beside being my favourite one) is, as it is easily noticeable Yuuji's lover, but that doesn't stop him from flirting with Azumaishi, the not very smart, but firm and honest guy, who (I guess) is the oldest in the group and is also totally in love with Karakawa (their scene is superb).

Beside this we have Tanemura, hot-tempered spitfire with Koyasu Takehito's voice and Uji, who is little clumsy and also a little hot-tempered.

As I mentioned, my favourite one is Karakawa and it was his relationship with Yuuji and Azumaishi that really kept me interested in Fish in the Trap.

Anime has a nice design, animation is fairly good, music is smooth and really fits the climate of story.

You can say whatever you want, but I think that this OAV is great! It has that aura of mysteriousness and temptation, like not everything was revealed (because it was cut off, that's why).

Anime had a great potential, it's a pity that it wasn't fully exploited.