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When two doors are discovered in an ancient ruin, the gateways to shinkai, the realm of the shinzoku (Gods) and makai, the realm of the mazoku (Demons) are irreversably opened. The races of human, shinzoku, and mazoku come together in the mortal world and nothing will ever be the same. One day, two new families move next door to a boy who had previously been living a very peaceful life. In one house lived the family of the King of the Gods, and in the other lived the family of the King of the Demons. Both families had one daughter whose single wish to live next to the boy they had fallen in love with years ago has just been fulfilled. Also living with the boy is his childhood friend. With these three girls vying for his affections, the boy finds that his new life filled with despair, jealousy, and just a little hope is beginning.

Eyecandy






Currently subbed by:
AnimeU
Froth-Bite
KazeNoKoeFansubs

Characters
Personality-wise, the characters Nerine, Lisianthus and Kaede are your typical dating-sim type characters. Shy, polite, kind with maybe a few things which they are not good at. Rin Tsuchimi is your typical average high-school student (reminds me of Fujita Hiroyuki from To Heart). And there’s the must have pervert male supporting character (Midoriba) to give the male lead a much better good guy impression. Primula is pretty much quiet and doesn’t do much most of the time. There are also other characters like Asa Shigure to bring optimism into the group.

A nice addition would be the parents of Nerine and Lisianthus as comic-relief characters. Their appearance usually means that something interesting is to be expected within the next few minutes. Really liked the chair-attack (please see eyecandy pic for reference).

Story
SHUFFLE! can somewhat be considered a late starter. Initially the story progresses like your typical cookie-cutter harem anime. It feels like I’m watching a dating-sim in progress. The highlight of this anime would most probably the humor coming from the interaction between characters, especially between Midoriba and Rin as well as the girls’ parents. And there’s also the KKK, RRR and SSS fanboys to break the pace once in a while. Other than that, story seems somewhat generic.

Nearing the halfway mark of the series, the story starts to take a turn for the better as the characters’ histories are brought into the picture. The harem theme that dominate much of the earlier episodes are discarded and character development goes into full motion. From that point onwards, the mood of the story takes on dark undertones as darker emotions such as despair, shame and guilt plague the characters. The plot also now does not progress in a linear fashion as twists are thrown in. It is good to note that the twists are pretty much difficult to predict and can catch the viewer off guard at times.

Animation / Design
Overall, characters are animated quite nicely. This is to be expected from any harem anime (Is it me or must all harem anime be about high-schoolers? Must be because of the uniforms *nods*). Character design for the male character is kind of generic, i.e. lazy look, messy hair with smooth talking voice. Well, suffice to say, there’s nothing breath-taking in the character design department.

Colors are somewhat vibrant but a do suffer from slight blurriness akin to gaussian blur effect when it comes to color borders. However, it does not detract from the viewing pleasure.

Music
OP is kinda rock-ish. A voice sings and followed by electric guitar playing and it’s on to the main song. Not bad actually. I find myself replaying the episodes just to listen to the OP. ED music is a bit melancholic but it’s also worth listening over and over again.

Verdict
It is relatively easy to write this anime off as another generic style harem anime early on. However, it is rewarding to continue watching as the story starts to take itself more seriously later into the series. Emotional dramas and relationship complications from thereon make SHUFFLE! a gripping anime that will leave you wanting for the next episode. The ending is slightly short of satisfying due to the choices made but does help the series in avoiding an abrupt ending due to unresolved relationships.

Rating: 8.0 / 10.0

REVIEW REVISED AS AT 17 MARCH 2006

Well, it is based off a dating-sim of the same name =p and it's a harem anime.. nothing much to expect really.. but i think it's better than some other anime in the same category really...

While I agree with you that the designs for the characters are somewhat generic, I think the quality of the art and animation in this show to be of surprisingly high quality for it's genre (Something I wish alot more animes did, it's frustrating to see a show butchered with low production values, like Ichigo 100%).

I disagree with you using harem anime cliches about the main character's needing to choose between two girls as a failing point in the series. It wouldn't be a harem anime without this cliche. A good story will teach someone something about life, and in the case of choosing someone you like between more than one option is an important lesson too. There have been some animes that have even shown the important consequences of not choosing one of the options and hurting all of them instead of just one.

Really, pretty much all good stories have been told hundreds of times over, now, it's not about telling a new story, it's about telling a story in a new way. Instead of looking at a shows similarities, we showed be looking at what is new and different in the show, and do these things make the show good.

I agree with you on most oif your points Dias, but I also feel it's a little to early to rate the series since we've only seen the first 3 episodes. The series may yet surprise us with some interesting twists to the story.

I feel this series is one of the better harem animes of the current anime season and is worth the download at the moment.

While I agree with you that the designs for the characters are somewhat generic.

let's not compare this kind of design to what you usually see in Magna Carta or War of Genesis...

i actually liked the character designs of this anime... when designing characters, you really don't need to go all out and make them all so flamboyant (these characters are regular people after all, and the design fits the anime)

So far, I like it. I don't know where exactly the series will go but hopefully it will keep my attention.

My personal rating for Shuffle! : 7.5/10

I´ve laughed much to hard and much to say this is bad. Who cares about story if it is this funny =)

I don´t want something serious, a little story, oh the God/Satan wants a human to marry their daughter? Sounds good enough for me if there are some comedy as well. And since I laughed like hell from the Prologue I got what I wanted.

Comparing to what I´ve seen this is worth a whopping 8/10 because of it does what it should. Entertain the viewers with comedy. It shouldn´t do more.

It's funny how the God is actually the more mischievious one than the Satan, who is much more collected and nonchalant.

And one question: which fansubbing group seem to do the best in quality and in subtitles? I personally use AnimeU, but Froth-Bite has known to do pretty well in fansubbing and I am not sure about KNKF.

Froth bite is good... but KazenoKoe Fansubs are actually decent.. colored subs and translator notes throughout each episode (they're my main supplier for shuffle now)

I am getting Froth-Bite's. But as to how accurate the translations are for the groups listed in the first post, that I can't say till someone makes a translation comparison review at APN.

I agree with you on most oif your points Dias, but I also feel it's a little to early to rate the series since we've only seen the first 3 episodes. The series may yet surprise us with some interesting twists to the story.

Yeah. I forgot to add the paragraph about the series still being too early.

disagree with you using harem anime cliches about the main character's needing to choose between two girls as a failing point in the series. It wouldn't be a harem anime without this cliche.

Regarding cliches for harem animes, I was hoping for something different. We already have near-similiar storylines from Maburaho, Futakoi, Love Hina and a many more. I agree most harem animes need to use this kind of plot. That's why I called it cliched. It has been overused time and time again. Can't be helped though.

I feel this series is one of the better harem animes of the current anime season and is worth the download at the moment.

Agreed, but there's D.C.S.S., which I feel is better. However, there are harem animes from past seasons which are much better like Maburaho and Final Approach.

-EDIT- CHANGED ANIME NAME ABOVE TO MABURAHO AND NOT MAHOROBA.

I´ve laughed much to hard and much to say this is bad. Who cares about story if it is this funny =)

Well, if SHUFFLE! is going to be 26 episodes, I'd rather concentrate on the storyplot. Slapstick and intereaction humor can only take a series so far before running out of ideas (hence I feel it's more suitable for 13-episode runs). Excel Saga had a larger variety of characters and humor-types while Azumanga focused a lot more on intelligent-humor and weird personlities. SHUFFLE's character diversification is a bit low and there's not much out-of-this-world personalities in the characters other than the Sia's father and Rin's senior (plus the fanboys).

Mahoroba being a harem anime?? what?

Oops...I meant Maburaho.

Mahoroba is easier to type on the keyboard as compared to Maburaho

Lol... maburaho is okay.. i didn't like the ending really though..

Shuffle is pretty good, and for some reson doesn't piss me off as much as other cheesy cliche ecchi/harem animes. I love the KKK and other fanboy groups, especially that nerd, they made him look like a zombie! Twitching and stuff. XD
And man, the OP is just badass. In my opinion, the ED isn't as good though.
I dunno why though, i'm just hooked on it.
The fansub group I use to supply me with Shuffle! is kazeNoKoze, they do pretty good work.

God and satan are drinking buddies... what's the world coming to!??!?

kekekeke

This is really good anime. God and Satan are total opposites. God is loud and Satan is quiet. It's crazy, lol, I'd love to see a bunch of fan boys chase a random guy. Hopfully it won't be me.