Ajimu ~ Beach Story~ is a Romance, Comedy, Drama that can be described in one word “tacky”. Like those horrid pickup lines no uses anymore, this is just a shabby attempt at some serious romance. It’s about Nakaido Hirosuke, some guy who’s become infatuated over a girl who takes the same train to school as him but he’s too indecisive to do anything about it. Then after some typical misunderstandings, Nakaido soon grows some balls to do something about this ambiguous situation he has with her. I could go on about what this anime is about but that would just about spoil the only interesting thingabout it, which is the romance. Sure the romance in this follows a typical pattern; making it highly predictable for the average romance watcher nonetheless it’s still interesting. Although it would have been much better without the random comedy and thoughtless characters that ruin whatever decent mood that is being set up.

The characters here are fairly ordinary for your average high school themed romance anime and some are more interesting than others. Like the main heroine Ajimu and the other one Suzue, who are pretty much the only characters that make this worth watching. I don’t know why time was wasted on that fat chick but at least she doesn’t get in the way of the adequately written story.

The animation is another aspect that’s just about passable, since there are factors like the date of its release (2001) and it being an ONA (Original Net Anime) to keep in mind. So even though the inconsistent animation and unappealing art style did bother me somewhat, at least the settings and scenery were nicely done. As for the sound department, the voice acting is nothing special but the music’s interesting, which is mostly due to the Hawaiian theme. This results in some great insert songs but there’s a particular song that will become repetitive, fast.

Overall Ajimu is certainly not a bad anime but all the clichés, pointless comedy and stale characters don’t make it a great anime. Even though it was only 4 episodes long the story developed surprisingly slowly, leaving the final episode to throw in the “all so predictable” twist. At least I wasn’t disappointed but it’s not as if I expected much from it. Let’s just say it’s a romance anime good enough for romance lovers who are bored and have nothing decent to watch.