I’m going to take a break for the moment from spirituality to focus on something entirely off-topic. Atom.com is a hosting a new show titled, “My Anime Girlfriend.” The site describes the show as follows:
Sid is getting back in the dating game, and his friend John has the perfect girl for him, Yuruki. She’s cute, fun, and extremely animated. If anything, maybe too animated. Featuring Patrick Shepherd and SNL’s Abby Elliott.
Interesting concept, right?
The first episode of the short (it’s only about three minutes long) primarily revolves around Sid’s first date with Yuruki. She walks into a coffee shop to meet him, splattered with blood from an apparent fight with a many-tentacled octopus (which explains her tardiness). But despite some differences, the two hit it off and Sid invites her to dinner.
Of course, the humor is in how an anime girl acts nothing like a real one would. Her eyes sparkle as she squeals in delight, and she offers to take down Sid’s ex-girlfriend with her crystal sword. Oh, and of course, she’s animated. The gag never induced real laughter for me, but I smiled throughout. It was clean and cute.
The short does have some major flaws, though. Yuruki is…well, maybe I’m not familiar enough with anime, but she doesn’t seem to fit real well into any character type that I know of. Perhaps she’s Sailor Moon-ish…I don’t know. She seemed to jump more out of an old rpg than out of an anime. A certain character introduced at the very end of the episode also feels more Sabrina the Teenage Witch-ish than anime-ish. Yuruki is also drawn poorly, but that might fit well into how ridiculous the situation is.
That said, it’s well worth three minutes of your time. And stay tuned for the “next episode” preview at the end – maybe the biggest laugh of the entire episode.
My Anime Girlfriend: Episode 1 – Blind Date
My Anime Girlfriend huh? It felt more like I Dream of Jeanie to me.
That’s pretty much exactly what it was…
I think the first episode was great. Some improvement may be a need for the upcoming episodes
The girl need more shadows. She just looks “plain” without lighting effects, like Roger Rabbit.
Like the first commenter said, It was like I dream of Jeanie. I think the girl was too much sympathetic with him. At least, the guy had a very good luck on this date.
There are not many 2D & live action series involving “anime” characters so I think this was really interesting. Hope to see more episodes with more improvements along the way.
Yeah, I’m also looking forward to more episodes. It was certainly fun. If their “most popular” sidebar is any indication, others are digging it as well.
I think that maybe the character was meant to look extremely plain. Besides the obvious possible budget constraints, it just seems as if the creators wanted to make her look as unreal as possible.
I went to the animator’s site and she’s quite good – nothing she draws looks as underdeveloped as Yuruki. That, too, makes me think she was drawn as she was purposely.