R – 15 gives off the feel of a classic school life drama anime with a kick of comedy to keep the viewing interested. Now as I have always said the opening for an anime really sets the mood for how the show is going to develop and play out and I don’t think it will be any different for this particular anime. The opening is both light an charming with air around it reminding me of anime such as School Rumble and Happiness!. This doesn’t come to much of a surprise to me as it is an ecchi, school life anime but so far we are off to a decent start as the opening does give hints of good things to come.
After just a couple of minutes I am reminded of Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou. The major reason for this is in the character development in that there seems to be a large range of interesting personality types as well as quirks for the characters in R – 15. Having a large range of characters with very different and contrasting personalities gives the potential of fresh and interesting character development as well as side stories, even though some of them may be considered filler.
Many anime fail early on because of poor plot development and usage of innovative ideas. Well since it is the beginning and I mean the absolute beginning (I am about 1 episode in) there really isn’t much to evidence the fact that there will be great plot development. I can however I think safely say that after the opening episode I have (and you will have) a really nice but fairly basic understanding of the characters and the roles they will inevitably fill in the anime as a whole as well as the mood for the entire series. This seems to be the winning combination if you look at some of the more popular shows of this genre in the past couple of years Zero no Tsukaima, Happiness!, School Ruble are just a few I can name off the top of my head.
Being the first episode of the series I think it sheds a lot of light on the development as a whole though the vivid personalities of the characters to the countless possibilities of stories that can be told. And honestly if people were to have complaints about the dynamics in this show and how they possibly may be similar to other shows I have only to mention that anime has been around forever and there are really no more unexplored dynamics. All you can hope for in these shows is that they bring a fresh new outlook to the age-old story of a school life style anime and I think this one definitely will do the trick and with a director like Munenori Nawa, with hits such as Da Capo II as well as Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, I will definitely be expecting this anime to take off. I will definitely be keeping a tentative and hopeful eye out for this series.
I am providing an AniDB link for you guys in the event that you are wanting a summary or more information on the cast or team.
