Seikimatsu Darling
(End of the Century Darling)
Reviewer: Wiggle [website] [email]Overall Rating: B+
Media Reviewed: Digital fansub
Creator: Naruto Maki
U.S. Licensed: No
Released by: Unknown
Run time: 25 minutes
BL Content: Soft (emotions, touching)
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Other media: Japanese manga
I'm going to go out on a limb with this review, at the risk of being beaten to death by a million squealing Shuichi plushies wielded by a million angry yaoi fans. I'm risking incurring their wrath with this statement: Seikimatsu Darling is the funniest boy's love anime ever, even funnier than Gravitation. Smarter, faster and more subtle than most june comedies, this is yaoi for a slightly older, working-age audience. Though enjoyable to all, Seikimatsu Darling puts a twist on some of the conventions of yaoi that fans very familiar to the genre will definitely find extra amusing.
Translated as End of the Century Darling, the 25-minute OAV is about two adult men battling for dominance in their brand-new relationship. Ogata Kosaku (Ogata-kun) confesses his love for a co-worker, Takasugi Yochiro (Takasugi-san), and is surprised to hear that his beloved returns his feelings. However, Takasugi says that they cannot be together, because their love is too similar. What in the world can he mean by that? It's a rather lengthy scene of dancing around the subject before the animation makes it clear: Takasugi and Ogata are very nearly the same height! Which man should pursue the other, which should fall in love first, and how the relationship would normally proceed is uncertain. Without the typical yaoi Height Rule (in which the taller man is always seme and in charge), Takasugi and Ogata are at a loss.
So, the couple agrees they will compete, each trying to make the other fall for him first. For help and support, Ogata enlists the help of his homosexual friend Shikibu Yukari (Shikibu-kun) and his lover, the utterly adorable Tsutsumi Masayuki (Tsutsumi-san). In my opinion, Tsutsumi completely steals the show from the moment he arrives on the screen with his cheerful, witty commentary. He and Shikibu are the perfect peanut gallery to observe Ogata and Takasugi in their struggles toward an equitable relationship.
Naturally, to further the plot, all four go away for a weekend to an onsen (Japanese hot spring). The competition continues in all the ways you might expect, and it looks like Ogata is losing ground. However, before the weekend is through, Ogata and Takasugi will discover that they both have weaknesses, and that it really is true that "if it's him (being seme), then maybe it (being uke) is okay."
Facillitating the adorable humor of Seikimatsu Darling is the voice talent of Matsumoto Yasunori as Ogata, most notable to yaoi fans as Hiroshi from Gravitation, though he also played serious roles in Samurai Troopers and Please Save My Earth. Playing Takasugi is the very talented Kazuhiko Inoue, whose smooth voice has been Arislan's Daryuun, Fruits Basket's Hatori and Yami no Matsuei's Oriya. Both men take on more emotional, broader roles in this and succeed marvelously at the quickly-delivered comedic lines as well as the overblown dramatic scenes, then tie everything up nicely with sincere and heartfelt emotion at the very end.
The only thing I really didn't like about this show, and the thing that kept my rating lower than an A, was the very average art and animation. Many of the backgrounds are undetailed and plain, detracting from the fullness of the plot. Also, while the moments of chibi-ness and Ogata turning super-deformed in anger or embarassment are cute, they're often only sketchily done. I watched Seikimatsu Darling as a very small RealMedia-format digisub, having been copied who knows how many times, so the image quality was very badly degenerated as well. Still, none of this completely detracted from my enjoyment of the show.
If you're a longtime fan of the boy's love genre, be sure to check out Seikimatsu Darling for an innovative twist on the usual conventions. Even if you're new to the whole thing, take a look at what not to expect from the other yaoi anime out there.