Review of Akikan!

Like Hollywood, it seems Japan is suffering from a lack of creativity recently. Here we have been brought Akikan!, a story about empty juice cans that turn into girls. Uh what? It certainly is a bizarre concept and I guess it scores some points for being one of a kind in that sense. The story revolves around your typical anime loser Kakeru. Of course he’s a virgin. Being a pervert is a given. He’s never had a girlfriend, despite having the cutest girl at school practically throwing herself at him on a daily basis. Are you retarded? Blind?How could you not know!? Anyway back on track, so he buys a can of melon flavored soda, drinks from it and surprise he’s lip locked on a busty girl in his apartment. I know this will sound surprising for anime but they both become extremely embarrassed by this! No way! She’s also a magic powered tsundere! Wow! I’ve never seen that before either! You’re never going to believe what happens next either... she’s going to live with him! Even though he’s only 16 he lives by himself. Does this really happen in Japan!?

While watching this series, if you have seen any other echii romance comedies then you’ve seen the basic plot and characters of Akikan. It’s so similar to a dozen other shows that I almost knew what was going to happen before it actually did. The plot is extremely thin and mostly uninteresting. Akikan suffers from the way it seems to meander around and not settling down on what it wants to be. Is it an action series? Romance? Comedy? It tries to be too many things and ends up being nothing. The biggest problem I had was with the introduction of this mysterious government agency that knows about the can girls and wants them to join this group called Akikan Elect and battle each other until only one is left. By the end of the series it feels like such an unimportant part of the overall story that in hindsight they shouldn’t have ever bothered to mention it in the first place. There are some other bizarre elements that really made no sense as well, such as the inclusion of the witch character Kochikaze. She is very typical of the schizophrenic nature of this show. The ending is typical of what one should come to expect from these kinds of shows. That means nothing is resolved in terms of the character relationships with each other.

All that being said, it’s not completely devoid of humor or enjoyment. Just about anyone will probably enjoy Kakeru's antics and dramatic perversions and overacting. For a while anyway as they eventually get old and overused. I also give the story some credit for not having every female character in the cast be in love with Kakeru.

The characters are a mixed bag. Kakeru is the most animated of them all and entertaining most of the time. Though because of his voice actor the entire time I was reminded, its Lelouch. His personality is almost exactly like Lelouch's silly school persona. He is completely over the top, overly dramatic, and has absolutely no tact once so ever. The various can girls, Melon and Yell are mildly amusing and entertaining. The relationship between Melon and Kakeru reminded me a lot of the one between Keita and Youko in Inukami! Najimi as the childhood friend of Kakeru who is blind to her love is not anymore interesting. The characters who steal the show are really the pair of government workers, Otoya and Kizaki. I found the interaction between them to be pretty funny. Most of the other characters are forgettable.

The animation and art are solid but unspectacular. I enjoyed the character models and all the action scenes were well fairly exciting. The voice cast was stellar, it featured some of the top talent in the industry and a few of my favorites. Unfortunately because of the unoriginality of the story too many of their performances sounded like characters from other anime. Because of this it’s unlikely anyone is going to remember any of them for their roles. The songs from the OP/EN were also not very inspired either.

Overall, Akikan was a show that was mildly entertaining but completely lacking any new ideas or originality. There are definitely better shows out there to watch than this one. But its not a complete disaster. If you don’t mind that it doesn’t bring anything new to the table and is as filling as an empty can of soda, then you might find some enjoyment out of it.