No Money!
(Okane ga nai!)
Reviewer: Wiggle [website] [email]Overall Rating: C+
Media Reviewed: DVD
Creator: Hitoyo Shinozaki
U.S. Licensed: Yes
Released by: Kitty Media
Run time: 4 30-minute episodes
BL Content: Hard (nudity, sexual situations)
Genre: Comedy
Other media: Japanese manga Okane ga nai
Do the ties of family still bind even if that family betrays you? Can love be bought, or does it have to be earned? And most importantly, just how much money is a tiny blond virgin boy worth in bed? These questions form the admittedly somewhat thin plot to No Money!, the anime based on the popular Okane ga Nai manga. While such questions are not quite as weighty as they may seem, at least this anime tries to form a story and believable relationships between the characters. If only the art and animation in the first 60 minutes had been more consistent, No Money! might have taken a place among the best of yaoi anime.
Okane ga Nai is a well-known Japanese BL manga created by Hitoyo Shinozaki with art by Tohru Kousaka, created in 2002 and still ongoing in Japan. This is the story of tiny, gentle, sweet-hearted Ayase, who is auctioned off to the highest bidder in order to pay off the debts of his unscrupulous cousin, Tetsuo. The highest bidder is Kanoh, a short-tempered loan shark who is rough, quick to anger, and completely smitten with Ayase's cuteness and kind-hearted nature. After paying 120 million yen for Ayase, Kanoh takes him home, and thus begins the story of this ultimate odd couple. Both manga and anime versions make the sharp contrasts between the two glaringly obvious: itty-bitty Ayase is fragile and thin, barely standing as high as Kanoh's chest; Kanoh's rough demeanor frightens gentle Ayase even when he's trying to be kind. Of course, when the first thing Kanoh does when Ayase awakes in his bed is strip the fragile young man's clothes off and push him into sex with a virtual stranger, Ayase has every reason to be afraid, and the viewer has every reason to be uncomfortable.
Kanoh stumbles, bumbles and shoves his way into a relationship with the boy he clearly does love, even admitting after the fact that "rape > incarceration > declaration of love" is not the appropriate order of steps to take toward the relationship he wants. Kanoh has a lot of learning to do if he wants to win Ayase's trust, but he isn't alone. Each of them have to take steps to meet in the middle and come out of their comfort zones. These small, shuffling steps -- Kanoh winning Ayase's trust by following the steps in a "how to care for small animals" guidebook, Ayase letting down his guard when Kanoh calls him "special" -- bring the couple closer together without betraying their true selves, the qualities in one another that kindled their attraction in the first place. Those truly warm moments of connection begin to make up for the difficult, uncomfortable beginning.
An oddly lovable relationship between the main characters does not quite make up for the lack of quality in the animation of the anime's first two episodes, however. That pivotal first scene between Kanoh and Ayase is sketchy at best, mostly shown through still panning shots and little actual animated action. The lack of attention to detail here make this important introduction unfortunately pretty boring, and the stiffness here repeats itself through several other scenes. Even the sex scenes, where one might expect a yaoi anime to really shine in quality, are sadly lacking in detail. Just when you might get hopeful for a little yaoi action, the shot pulls back and nothing of any substance is shown. Most of the intimate scenes are of Ayase's enormous, watery eyes - an enormous turn-off for the many fans who despise a crying, girly uke.
The music of No Money! is equally forgettable, consisting mainly of a strange gay love song as an episode opening, and a smarmy ballad for an ending to each episode. The voice acting, however, steps far away from the animation and music and leaps into the stratosphere in terms of quality. Delectable Juurota Kosugi plays seme Kanoh gliding between his sexy, trilling purr of seduction and his snarling, angry bark, bringing a truthfulness and life to Kanoh's rough-edged and jagged personality. Kosugi-san is likely best known to yaoi fans as Honma in My Sexual Harassment, but here he has a much broader range of emotions to play on. In strong contrast is the light tremolo of Jun Fukuyama as Ayase, small and soft and squeaking. Fukuyama-san has played a surprisingly wide range of roles such as Albert in Gankustuou and Kouno in Princess Princess, and while he is almost unrecognizable from those passionate roles, his acting personifies Ayase's quivering frailty perfectly. The acting is so strong in contrast with the animation that the OAV comes across almost like an animated drama CD rather than the anime version of a popular manga.
Despite No Money!'s many problems, Kitty Media has put forth a quality effort as far as production values are concerned. The DVD packaging is nicely designed with a fun English title integrating Japanese yen coins into the lettering. On the DVD itself, we get clear, user-friendly menus, scene access to different parts of the two 30-minute OAV episodes, and trailers for a few of Kitty's other harder yaoi anime. Best of all, several omake episodes are also included as extras, which are amusing little comedy snippets that would seem out of place in the overall story, but which really bring a needed lightness of heart to this otherwise uncertain and sometimes uncomfortable relationship between Ayase and Kanoh.
The two episodes contained on No Money! Volume 1 are just the first half of the complete four-episode OAV. While the forced sex that is a necessary part of the plot, combined with animation quality that skips and struggles just to keep the characters on-model, makes for a wobbly start, the strengths of a promising relationship and truly enjoyable voice acting make up for quite a lot. Fans of the original manga may be disappointed at the poor art quality, but No Money! still has enough going for it to convince this skeptical viewer to stick around for volume two.
