Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight!

Manabi Straight! follows the lives of a group of young high school girls living in the year 2035 while they attend the all-girl Seioh Private High School. Since the birth rate has dropped dramatically, schools are being closed down due to the sheer lack of students available to teach. Morale in schools has dropped dramatically, and Seioh is no exception.

The story begins when the main character, Manami Amamiya, transfers to Seioh. After some initial hijinks involving a futuristic scooter and a swim meet, followed by an inspirational school song performance, she is inducted as the student council president. The story that follows pertains to Manami working with Mika Inamori, the only other student council member, and three other classmates named Mutsuki Uehara, Mei Etoh, and Momoha Odori, in student council matters. After some remodeling of the student council room, Manami and her friends set forth to plan for the upcoming student festival.

(Source: Wikipedia, edited)

Amamiya, Manami Main

Horie, Yui Japanese

Inamori, Mika Main

Nonaka, Ai Japanese

Etou, Mei Main

Hirano, Aya Japanese

Odori, Momoha Main

Fujita, Saki Japanese

Uehara, Mutsuki Main

Inoue, Marina Japanese

School Principal Supporting

Satou, Ai Japanese

Shimojima Supporting

Usui, Takayasu Japanese

Kibukawa, Kyouko Supporting

Hisakawa, Aya Japanese

Kakuzawa, Takako Supporting

Kurokawa, Nami Japanese

Amamiya, Takefumi Supporting

Tachibana, Shinnosuke Japanese

Kondou, Hikaru Producer

Yamanaka, Takahiro Producer

Takechi, Tsuneo Producer

Hirao, Takayuki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Reviews

Dec 26, 2007

maybelletea

Recommended

What a wonderful series. I am so glad I decided to watch this anime. I wouldn’t hesitate to say it’s one of my favorite, maybe one of the greatest anime I’ve ever seen. Don’t be fooled by its childish loli-looking exterior, what lies in this anime is the bittersweet and heartwarming message of moving forward.

The story is set in the future, where schools’ populations continuously decrease, and is about girls brought together by something as simple as a student council. They develop such a strong bond throughout the series, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anime where friends were this close. Mainly ... it is about them preparing and then trying to revive the school fair, which turns out to be a long struggle. There is the lighthearted and funny moments (mostly brought on by Momo with her refreshingly odd antics) but there are also sad and dramatic times. Each episode will bring on different emotions, some sad, some happy.

I love the animation. Each shot seems to be carefully done, and though some angles can be odd, others make the series a piece of art. The music is well done too, and the opening is so beautiful and becomes so clear as to what they've done once you finish the last episode. The ending theme is a little strange considering it is stop-animation, but perhaps this is one of the things that makes this series just a little different.
What I was very impressed at, also, was that when the times of Manabi singing, the lip movements actually correspond with the words perfectly, instead of going up and down. This isn't true the whole way through the anime, but there were instances where I saw the brilliance shine forward into tiny details such as that.

A strong controversy sets out over the "loli" factor. Yes, the girls are drawn looking cutesy and they look much younger than high schoolers, but if you get past that in which would attract viewers who would only watch this show for the cute girls, you see a deeper interior of a sweet, heartfelt anime that deserves to be watched.
There are also other debates as to whether to consider this shoujo-ai. They do blush a bit with eachother and hold hands, and things could be inferred there, but nothing is taken too far. I believe the story tries to focus more on friendship, but obviously there are some undercurrent hints.

However, I cannot give character as high of a score as I would like. The characters may be sweet and likeable, but really most aren't developed enough. While I realize it would take away the point of the show to feature their home lives, this results in a lack of character development. This could have been made up for by each character having an episode of their own besides Mei, whom in episode four you really get to see inside of her. Also, you would think the main character would be Manabi, but it is mostly shown through Mikan's perspective, probably the reason being Mikan is the person Manabi affects the most. So we see this change in Mikan... but do we really get to understand Manabi, and why she fervently defends the school she has been at a significantly short while?
You do get to go into Mikan and Mutsuki’s relationship a bit, which is nice; however, the a couple scenes with them proved to be a bit confusing, because it gives the viewer no knowledge of what is happening beforehand, at the current time, or afterward. It’s sort of a key point to why they are good friends, too… perhaps I missed something. I believe their episode is episode 6.
Don’t get me started on Momo. All we know about her through the entire series is that she has no attention span and she wealthy (which I’m not sure you really see until the OVA anyway). She may have been adorably odd and a treat to see on screen, but it’d have been nice to explore her personality a bit more. Yet despite these flaws, the characters are still enjoyable and each girl’s personality is different, but they still all become good friends.

To sum it up: the animation is great and the art is adorable; the characters are cute and very loveable but some could be better developed; the opening and ending themes are amazing but the BGM is forgettable; and the story is sweet and poignant and the end suggests a positive outlook in life. The basic concept of the story is maturing and growing up, while still maintaining relationships. Though this may not be anyone’s cup of tea, I still recommend this highly and Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight reminds one of my favorite anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jul 27, 2008

Chag

Mixed Feelings

Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! is a classic example of looks over substance. While not totally devoid of any redeemable qualities, it's hard to recommend Manabi Straight to anyone, as it is simply outclassed by too many other choices.

The story revolves around the Seioh high school student council and its attempt at organizing the school fair. Underneath that lies a story of friendship between the five girls who takes part in student council activities. However, neither of these stories succeeds in gathering much interest for one important reason: the characters.

Simply put, after the initial impressions, the characters of Manabi Straight get stale very quickly. You have ... Manabi, the hyperactive student council president; Mikan, the mousy and insecure treasurer; Mei, your typical tsundere in an all-girl setting; Mutsuki, the cheerful tomboy, and Momo, the side character with the attention span of a goldfish. There's not much to the characters beyond that, and if you have watched any significant amount of anime, none of the characters would strike you as original; but more importantly, the key flaw is in the lack of meaningful character development. Viewers are never given a glance behind Manabi's over-excitable disposition, hence they never come to understand her zealous passion for the school. Mikan's growth from her shy self is done in the ancient formula of "confidence through friendship", the kind of stuff you would expect from series aimed at younger children, such as Digimon. The only meaningful character development happens with Mei, but most of that takes place in one episode during the first half of the series, leaving the rest of Manabi Straight rather dull.

The underlying friendship story concerning the student council as well as the rest of the school is just not very compelling, partly because of the caricature-like main characters, as well as the cliche developments that you would be able to see coming from a mile away. Because of this, it's very hard to actually care for the personal struggles of the characters or the school fair, which accounts for much of the overly simplistic plot.

On the bright side, the art style of Manabi Straight definitely scores it some much-needed points. The colors are very pleasantly vibrant, both in the backgrounds and on the characters, producing an unique sheen. The characters are drawn in a slightly chubby style that is probably cuter than their actual personalities will ever hope to be, though trying to pass them off as high school students is a very long shot. Beyond that, the animation in the movements and mannerisms of the characters are above average, though the detail is never too high when dealing with the simplistic (but pleasant) character designs.

In the terms of sound, the seiyuu of Manabi Straight did a fine job, though Mikan's mousy voice may get on some viewers' nerves at by the end of the series. The musical score consists of nothing too memorable, but nothing offending either. The opening, ending, and insert songs are also commendable, but once again fail to leave much impression.

In the end, beyond the refreshing art style, Manabi Straight fails to impress. With a story more suited to younger audiences, yet a concept that appeals to older viewers, it suffers from a sort of identity crisis. The comedy is sparse, the drama is weak, the plot is cliche, the characters are generic -- reflecting upon these facts, Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! probably turned out better than the sum of its parts. Of course, that's not saying much, as Manabi Straight remains merely a mediocre experience.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 28, 2018

Dennis_King

Not Recommended

Another day another anime another review where i have to come up with interesting things to say about said anime.

But this is not just any other day,it's a rainy day and i'm dead tired.Only thing keeping me awake is my pure hatred which i'll try to transfer into this review as best as i can.

And where to start really?When an anime such as Manabi Straight is so devoid of..Anything to be honest.

Let's get the story part out of the way since there's no story to talk about..It's just another slice of life anime..Cause we needed one in 5 minutes,correct?Well no we didn't need another Moe-SOL ... anime in our lives but market says otherwise and the rest of us who were not hit in the head as children have to suffer for it...Basically all you need to know about this anime is that it's about a school FULL of girls and more specifically the student council which tries to overcome some problems such as "oh no my nail just broke,what is the society gonna think i won't be able to get married" and "oh my god the festival we planned is gonna get cancelled OMFG i'll die"..I would commit suicide too if those were my only problems in life..

And don't whatever you do be fooled by the description and think of this as an anime where dark themes are explored in any way at all..You might have thought that they would at least explore the reason why kids choose not to go to school or why school is deemed unnecessary or at the very least a mention of the ever decreasig population..And you'd be wrong,very wrong..In fact this anime is just about cute girls and their cute things.Sure there are times where they try to pull off some dramatic scenes but they are so obviously fake that even a 3yr old would die laughing.

And speaking of kids why don't i share some thoughts on the characters?

Well there are characters for sure and many of them but who cares?Did the writers care?Not in the least it seems cause apart from Manami the rest of the cast is like watching a dead horse race.

I'm prepared to bet you all of my hair that the stuff had a meeting and said "right lads,moe sells..So to prove how idiotic the moe lovers are i have a proposal to make..Let's make only the main character interesting in some way and not bother at all with the rest of them,see how that pans out".

And boy did it work cause anyone with working brain cells could plainly see that this cast is a farce.To put it into perspective Manami while offering nothing new in terms of characterisation,is at least a joy to watch and full of energy..In contrast the rest of characters are like they overdosed on these new zombie drugs.In fact if you search the term "generic archetypes" a photo of this cast is gonna show up..Somwhere along the way they did try to breathe some life into them but it was hopeless.The show was already consumed by the moe-fog and as a result you can't connect with them as characters to the point that if someone came into the school and killed them all you wouldn't even notice.

So even if it had a story it woudln't have the characters part right.

Visually i can't say i'm dissapointed but i'm not over my self with joy either.The character designs consist of a faux chubby loli style which is all the rage in the circles of child molesters in the late years.No facial features whatsoever,with huge eyes and they look like they're a LOT younger than they're supposed to be.The backgrounds and the tone is well done,nothing fancy but they cleverly hid that under tons of vibrant colours..So it's like sleeping with a woman who has tons of make up on and when you wake up next morning you are next to a 40yr old man.

This might be the result of the absence of a director.The role of the director was taken upon by a team of creative staff members.Now i can't very well sit here and say the whole thing worked cause yes the visuals were nice-y but again it lacked story.

In their defense the last episode was at least a lot better than the rest of the series.So there you go,if you want an anime with fluffy shit all around and a cherry hid in the mountain of shit,go ahead and watch it.

Now before you march in with your opinions and whatnot i want you to do an experiment with me..Try and read every review,every comment and try not to find the words cute,moe,romantic or other similar words to describe the show.

Manami is at best a generic mediocre borefest..And we had enough of these already,in fact 80% of the shows produced are the exact same copy of each other.So yeah sure they're heartwarming and all that crap but in the end they're not special..In fact they're not even worth of mention.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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