Review for Super Sonico Collection

Introduction

In this sudden unnatural heatwave that overtakes us in London, June 11th, 2015 (for the record), I might just be suffering from brain fuzz, but this particular title seems like a first for me. It might just be the first in a long line of idol anime to come to the UK, a genre that we’ve somehow managed to avoid so far, but more specifically, it might just be the first anime crafted around a corporate mascot. Super Sonico is the busty, cute girl in oversized headphones that represents Nitroplus, a.k.a. nitro+, the visual novel software company that’s behind a whole heap of popular titles in Japan, including erotic games, but who are better known in western anime circles as the creators of the semi-colon works, whose anime adaptations we’ve seen in the form of Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate, and Robotics;Notes. Super Sonico is the mascot for the music festival they sponsor, but has exploded beyond that into merchandise, games, manga, music, and last year this 12-episode anime series. Try as I might, I can’t think of any other corporate mascot that has gone on to garner a television show. There was never a Busby cartoon, no Ronald McDonald TV show, Churchill the Dog doesn’t have a chat show, although I’d pay to see the Meerkat read the news.


And in another first, Super Sonico’s English dub casts professional cosplay celebrity Jessica Nigri in the main role, and in the US as well as the UK, the show has been heavily promoted on this fact; there are even some Jessica Nigri focussed extra features on these discs. Not being a follower of the cosplay scene (I can never match a 3D person wearing a costume to the 2D anime character that originated it); it’s a marketing aspect that has left me a little bemused. But I will be paying attention to the dub more than usual this time.


Super Sonico leads a busy life. It may be the fact that she’s never removed from her chunky headphones that four separate alarm clocks will fail to wake her, but fortunately she has five pet cats to do the job, even if punctuality isn’t her strong suit. You’d think she’d be a better time keeper, given that she has to juggle being a college student (studying Marine Biology), working at her grandmother’s cafe, and being an up and coming model, ably represented, if somewhat scarily so by her demon-masked manager Kitamura. On top of all that, she’s also the singer and lead guitarist in a band called First Astronomical Velocity, along with her friends, Suzu and Fuuri. It certainly gets hectic being Super Sonico, and this anime presents 12 slices of Super Sonico life...


Twelve episodes of Soni-Ani: Super Sonico The Animation are presented with extras across two discs by MVM. The show is also available on Blu-ray if you are HD capable.

Disc 1
1. I’ll Do My Bets
2. First Astronomical Velocity
3. Sonico Goes to Okinawa
4. Daydream
5. New World
6. Cruising of the Dead

Disc 2
7. Star Rain
8. The Super Sonico Murder Case
9. Sonico’s Longest Day
10. Ramen and a Small Rice
11. A Saint Comes To Town
12. I’m Right Hear!

Picture

Super Sonico gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer on these DVDs in native PAL format. The distributors are getting this stuff down to a fine art now, and it’s hard to find any flaws beyond that which you’ll see at the limit of the DVD format. But if that bugs you, get the Blu-ray for less in the way of visible compression, smooth and fluid line art, and a stronger, more vivid colour palette (and no moiré on slanted guitar strings). Super Sonico on DVD looks good enough, clean and sharp throughout, with consistent colours, bringing across the artwork and animation without issue. Super Sonico’s world design is contemporary and detailed, while the character designs are appealing and memorable. The animation can switch to 3D CG, usually for the end credit music video sequences, which allows for more realistic, motion captured dance moves, but the anime episodes themselves are mostly traditional 2D anime style. There’s also plenty of fan service, given that Sonico is a magazine model, to sate otaku eyes. Speaking on a purely aesthetic level and not in terms of the story or content, Sonico is something of a positive role model, as she’s not the usual, super skinny, waif character supporting impossibly large breasts. She’s actually curvy, and has, for an anime character with over-sized breasts, a more believable body shape.

Sound

You have the choice between DD 2.0 English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a songs and signs only track. The discs default to Japanese with subtitles, a fact for which you will be glad. I went with the Japanese audio and was happy with some decent, character appropriate performances, some palpable stereo use for the show’s few action sequences, and some very pleasing music, incidental songs and end credit songs (the j-pop bubblegum opening very quickly drove me to distraction though). The subtitles are timed accurately and are free of typographical error. When a show hypes the dub as much as this one, filling the disc with English voice acting extra features, then you’d expect it to be a good one, and rather than my quick sample technique, I decided to watch a whole episode in the English language. I could only make it halfway through before I had to switch back. The English dub is another, desultory production line dub from Sentai, where the actors sound like they don’t care about... well, acting, or the director doesn’t care about getting decent performances, or Sentai don’t actually care about dubbing anime, and are just putting the bare minimum in to tick all the boxes. Avoid!

Extras

The discs present their contents with static menus. Each episode is followed by a translated white text on black credit reel.

All of the extras are on disc 2, and there are quite a few of them this time around, although most of them are on the English dub side of things.

The English Sonico Reveal Commercial Collection lasts 3:46, and features the voice actors in the booth, split screened against scenes from the anime that they are dubbing.

English Radio Spots, 2 of the ads last 2:03, while there’s also a 0:52 narrated trailer to watch.

Recording with Jessica Photoshoot lasts 11:23, of which some 9 minutes or so is an interview with the hyperactive professional cosplayer turned voice actress, and the remainder is devoted to a slideshow of images.


There are 4:02 of English Outtakes on this disc, and they still aren’t funny.

The English Blooper Reel actually focuses on Jessica in the recording booth, screwing up. Still not funny.

You get the clean opening animation to that bubblegum dirge, but more importantly you get 20:44 worth of clean closing animations, all 12 of them. For one thing, the music here is a lot better, and for another, they are all shot like pop videos, each of them different songs, different imagery. My favourite is the Thriller inspired ending to episode 6, but really they are all worth watching sans credit text.

Finally there are trailers for Familiar of Zero Season 2, Devil Survivor 2, and Hakkenden.

Conclusion

An anime based on a corporate mascot? I wasn’t expecting good things from Super Sonico, even if it is the UK’s first reputed idol anime. I was all set for 12 episode of Nitroplus being plugged constantly, references to the semicolon anime, the erotic games, lots of cameos and winks to the audience, and very little in the way of actual content. And as so often happens with these things, I was proved absolutely wrong. Super Sonico is a fun little slice of life show, little moments during a year in the life of its title character, and the friends and people around her, with each episode offering something different, whether it be just pure silliness, heartfelt emotion, or reflective whimsy. They’ve created quite the life, quite the back-story for Super Sonico, and it really helps flesh out the character and makes the episodes appealing, fun to watch. It also helps that the supporting characters are so strong and wonderfully varied.


Sonico is the adorable main character, wholly likeable, doesn’t have a bad bone in her body, and is juggling a busy student life with several jobs, and a passion for rock and roll. She isn’t perfect though, has a problem with waking up, is a little ditzy, a little too trusting, and tries to please everyone, which in one case gets her in over her head with commitments. She loves cats, has five of them that serve as a better alarm clock than her actual four alarm clocks, but if there is one thing she is passionate about, it’s music, which is why she’s lead guitarist and vocalist in her friend Suzu’s (schemer) band, First Astronomical Velocity, along with drummer Fuuri (gourmand). When she isn’t at college or playing with the band, she’s either working as a waitress at her grandmother’s pub, or working as a model, which is often where her troubles begin. Fortunately she has a demon-masked manager named Kitamura to get her out of trouble when clients want a little too much skin, or exceed the bounds of their contracts.


The first couple of episodes introduce the characters and really focus on Sonico most of all, the first episode showing her typical packed workday, while the second looks at the band, with Suzu’s idea for a melting costume for Sonico to wear. The third episode takes Sonico modelling in Okinawa, we get to meet another model from the agency, a diminutive eyepatch girl called Ouka, and Kitamura gets drunk, and for once gets Sonico into trouble instead of out of it. But from here on, the episodes get a lot more varied, and really develop guest characters, looking at how knowing Sonico has affected them. It’s a good tack to take, given that there’s a degree of perfection and constancy to Sonico that precludes character development. But the episodes can be hit or miss, all depending on the quality of the story. Fortunately more of the episodes are hits.


Daydream tells the story of how Sonico got her guitar, the upperclassman she met at school that resonated with her enthusiasm for rock and roll, and helped her start to overcome her innate shyness. New World has a local journalist do an article on Sonico, approaching a mere bikini-model with a degree of cynicism, but then inspired by Sonico to re-evaluate her own life. Cruising of the Dead is a very silly, and very enjoyable ‘zombie’ episode, Star Rain is one of those reflective, whimsical episodes that sees Sonico go on a trip around Japan to seek inspiration. The weakest episode in the collection is The Super Sonico Murder Case, which introduces Suzu’s annoying sister Ena as a wannabe detective, who’s wheeling out theory after theory when Sonico is found passed out in a puddle of tomato juice. This is the one episode in the collection that managed to put me to sleep.


But the rest of the episodes are all fun, with Sonico’s Longest Day, the one where she overextends herself during the college cultural festival, and finds out who her friends really are. Ramen and a Small Rice sees Sonico adopt a sixth cat, and we get to learn more about her feline menagerie. The penultimate episode is a touching Christmas tale, perhaps the best anime Christmas episode I’ve seen in a long while, really getting into the spirit of the season, with a touching story about a girl missing her father, and a Santa Claus that can make her dream come true. The final episode takes us to the First Astronomical Velocity New Year’s concert, flashing back to the difficulties the band had in setting it up.


Super Sonico has plenty of fan service, as you would expect from a show about a part time bikini model, but it’s never prurient or exploitative, and as I mentioned previously, it’s refreshing to have a female main character in an anime that looks comparatively realistic in physical proportion. The show itself is surprisingly good fun, with some interesting stories, varying from the comic to the heart-warming, and it has a cast of likeable characters. It’s a delightful slice of life show, and given that particular genre is over-subscribed these days, it’s worth noting the good ones when they show up. It also has some great music, in sufficient quantity to make you go looking for a soundtrack CD. In that respect it’s a bit like K-On for me, only I’m not as invested in the characters in the same way. This DVD release from MVM is good, but if you’re into Super Sonico for the music, I’d get the Blu-ray, as you’d get the audio at the right speed, 24 fps instead of PAL. The animation is good enough to warrant the HD transfer as well.