My Rating: 
Release Date: Japan_01/09/2005
Creator: Akira Kojima
Studio: J.C. Staff
Genre: comedy, romance, slice of life, drama
Themes: split personalities, death, life, art school, children’s books, friendship
Number of Episodes: 26 (24 minutes x 26 episodes = 624 minutes)
Shiratori Ryushi wants to become a Children’s book writer, and he moves to the apartment complex, Narutaki-Sou, in order to attend an art school in Tokyo. Narutaki-Sou is an old Japanese style one-story house which doesn’t fit the surrounding urban scenery. The complex is owned by his mother’s cousin and the manager of the apartment is his second cousin, Aoba Kozue. They met each other when they were children, although Shiratori doesn’t remember much of it. Kozue is in the second grade of a high school attached to Aoba Junior College. Narutaki-Sou is filled with charismatic and eccentric people.However, the most eccentric person is Kozue herself. Kozue has a secret of which even she does not know; when she is shocked at something, her personality completely changes. Not knowing this, Ryushi moves into Narutaki-Sou to realize his dream.
WORST CHARACTER
RYUUSHI SHIRATORI episode 01
Personality: simple-minded, go-lucky, plain, lame, boring, not an artist
Significance: main character
GENERAL ENVIRONMENTS:
Narautoki apartments, Ryuushi’s room, Narautoki’s courtyard, city
that Narautoki is a part of, Ryuushi’s art school, Narautoki’s kitchen
and dining room
Ryuushi Shiratori is DEFINITELY not an art student, that much should be obvious after watching the first episode. At most, Ryuushi is an Illustrator (a really bad one). And the art school that Ryuushi attends is more like just a regular high-school because the class doesn’t even do art or even critique work; they just talk. Now this art school thing would be fine if Mahoraba was making fun of an art student, but Mahoraba takes itself way too seriously. Also Mahoraba’s story tries to connect Ryuushi’s child book drawings to the narration of the story which does not really work because the child book story is just used as a metaphor to Mahoraba’s real story which is not really good use of a metaphor. Ryuushi is also a really plain and dull main character. of course, after you realize how plain and dull Ryuushi is, you realize why the creator decided to make Ryuushi an art student; it was in order to make Ryuushi not too plain and dull, but even though the creators make Ryuushi an art student, Ryuushi’s plain and dull personality still sticks to him because his artwork is bad. Ryuushi should learn how to think more creatively before he tries to be an art student.