Jan 14 2012 05:51 PM Mashiro-iro Symphony, yet another harem visual novel title adapted into an anime. If people thought Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon was going to get good, I'm sure many didn't see this one coming.
Mashiro-iro Symphony starts out as your typical high school romance comedy series. The male protagonist is introduced to your primary heroines and ideally ends up choosing one by the end of the series. Luckily for Mashiro-iro Symphony, this show ends up not only making that ideal come true but picks a "non-main" girl instead. The development of the characters, while shallow, gave some meaning to each (barring Sakuno). The only real downfall here is that Sana and Airi really got the short end of the stick with a lack of further development. For example, Airi simply was cast away from the show after episode 4 and we never really got to learn as much about Sana despite all the emotional dwelling we saw. The drama in this show wasn't spectacular but the rain scene with Sana and Airi was rather touching. Story isn't perfect but it's not bad either. In fact, maybe one more episode could have helped develop the whole "merger" thing better but I guess since they went with Miu's route, the whole merger is no longer an issue unless it's Airi's. The OP/ED sequences constantly hinted at Miu as a highly potential candidate and while I'm personally not satisfied with choosing Miu over Sana, the development and material leading up to it was very solid. Now if it only went a little further on the Christmas episode then I think we may have a winner since the time of Shuffle!
Manglobe's animation really made this show look pretty. While certainly no Kami Nomi level of animation, this is still very much respectable quality. The art was even better though in my opinion. The lighting could have used a bit more work given a number of the darker scenes throughout the series, but all in all still respectable and certainly watchable.
OP was by Choucho and ED was by Marble. No problems there. Insert in episode 12 was also nice. Background music was not particularly memorable though. Seiyuu was okay but was hoping for a certain seiyuu to voice Sana given how much she looked like Corticarte Apa Lagranges...not to mention acted like her. In fact, a number of the characters looked like Polyphonica characters, I wonder if it's the same artist.
Enjoyment? Certainly a lot more than I had ever anticipated. While the show is by no means groundbreaking, I had much more fun watching this show than say Ika Musume, Working'!!, Un-Go, etc... from this season.
Overall, Mashiro-iro Symphony is literally what last season's Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi wished to be. A harem show that manages to capture the background and major characteristics of its primary heroines and ultimately come to a conclusion. Mashiro-iro wasted little time with any excess filler and really plowed through as much material as it could. The first few episode were a bit slow and Ange wasn't particularly interesting but once it really got its foot off the ground, the show was great. However, I wouldn't consider recommending this title to anyone. It's still more of a guilty pleasure than anything else.
Preliminary Score: 6/10
Final Score: 7/10 
