Fortune Arterial Review

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 11:34 PM PST

just so happen to stumble upon this nice picture

The story is pretty simple, you’re an average transfer student going to a new school and the girl who welcomes you just so happen to be a vampire. And believe it or not, the story stucked there…..

My thoughts

Over the years of anime watching, i’ve seen wide varieties of romance shows, from tear jerker shows such as Clannad to the dramatic Toradora. And yes, they’re both wonderful series with a “happily ever after” feeling right to the very end. Thus, I believe a romance show needs to end with at least a confession or any other form of love for each other.

Apparently though, they’re way too few romance animes which really had a nice ending and usually, nothing is resolved. That being said, alot of harem animes are actually like that, with Fortune Arterial being one of them.

Story

To be honest, the story has quite a decent start as I really expected alot from it. But throughout the series, it just seems to be going downhill and nothing really happens. And needless to say it is awfully concluded as it feels like the story is going around in a circle, with nothing resolved. So in short, one of Fortune Arterial’s biggest weakness is it’s lack of depth in storyline.

Hence, they could have put in more depth with the whole “vampire” idea. Instead, about more than half of the series were wasted on needless fanservices like the pool, beach and even the stupid tea time moments, this gives me the feeling that “vampires” really didn’t give much impact to the whole storyline. And it’s just feel like this show wants to be special but didn’t actually executed in a right way.

Though there are moments that are vampire related such as Erika’s suffering moments, Kuze turning out to be a vampire and “servants”, “master” thing going on, but all those moments ended up in trash because the ending is like ” hey! let us decide whether we want to have servant-master relationship or not” – see my point? nothing is resolved and it just goes back where it started.

Romance-wise it is the same as well. All the interactions between Erika and Hasekura all along the series turned out to be meaningless since they chose to “let them decide by themselves”. And it is very disappointing indeed.

Character

What did you expect more of it’s character development since the storyline itself is bad? Then again, there was not much of character development as every character in this series is pretty much the same till the very end. Not to mention there was a certain useless character in this series which pretty much does nothing and has nothing to do with the main story at all and he’s non other than our Tsukasa-kun here.

Taken from MAL...did't bother to specially find one for this guy

Furthermore, most of the characters were not likable and heck, even the main character was not likable. Thought there are certain characters which I like but i’ll talk more about that in the Art/Graphic part.

But still, you can’t ignore the fact that our main character, Hasekura Kouhei actually has character development. Let’s not forget that initially he doesn’t mind being brain washed since he’s used to transferring schools to the point that he doesn’t even remember his previous friends anymore. But ever since he entered this new school and met Erika and some of his new friends, he changed and has now cherished his memories with his friends more than ever.

Art/Graphic

Despite Fortune Arterial’s awful storyline and weak character development, the art is the only shining aspect for this show. So just as i’ve mentioned above, the only characters that I liked solely on it’s character design were Erika Sendou and Kuze Kiriha.

First of all, I don’t like blonde girls to begin with but Erika just seems different. As far as I can recall, blonde anime girls are usually very annoying in a way but Erika just doesn’t seem to be like that. And speaking of which, Kuze kinda looks like Mio Akiyama in some angles. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. Thus, they’re both really well drawn characters with the beautiful faces, stunning body proportion and all. So yeah, that pretty much sums up why I like them.

As for the background sceneries and experiment, they’re pretty well drawn and was quite detailed. So yeah, at least they’re nice enough for me to remember and talk about it here. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even mention that this is the only aspect that saved it from getting a ” FAIL “.

Music/Insert Songs/OP and ED

The opening song feels like songs from the 80′s and it turns me off right away. The ending song however is not that old-fashioned as the opening song but it’s just not good enough for me to listen it. Honestly speaking, I rarely skip opening and ending songs ; so for me to skip it means that it’s really awful and this show’s opening and ending just so happen to be one of the few ones i skipped.

The insert songs were easily forgotten that I don’t even remember them inserting one.

Final thoughts

If you feel the need to kill some time with shows that has no actual plot but with decent graphic, then Fortune Arterial is just for you to watch. Otherwise, I could name a few more shows out there that has actual plots with a much more better and adequate ending.

Though personally , I guess shows with vampire elements are just not for me as they only remind me of stupid Twilight. Don’t get me wrong though, if you like shows with vampires, go ahead as you could probably find some humor in it. But be warned, don’t expect too much from this show.