The title really does say it all…
The apparent synopsis of Ai-Mai-Mi is quite simply that four girls are in a manga club and fight evil invaders amongst other absurb situations when they’re not writing manga. In reality, it’s just… nothing. Arguably due to its yon-koma manga style, the plot of Ai-Mai-Mi is far from being coherent. Sometimes, this makes it have a slight charm to it. Most times, however, it’s just a mind-hurting experience.
If you’re here hoping this review is about a serious, logical show, then I suggest you just leave now. It’s completely insane and, because of this, it means the anime just suffers from its own premise. Whilst I admit that I sometimes laughed, this was an extremely rare occurence. Each episode being three minutes long, there isn’t enough time to put together a plot that actually explains what the heck is going on. If there was an attempt to at least try and explain it, perhaps it would have gone a lot better.
Similarly to the plot, the characters don’t exactly much substance to them. From the lack of time you spend with the characters, you don’t get chance to really get to know them, except from knowing that they all slot into place somehow. I don’t blame the show for having a lack of character development – it’s almost impossible after all in such a short show – but as someone who often appreciates character development moreso than the actual story, this was a big no-no.
The art was fairly average, but it’s quite a low-budget show, so again, that was to be expected once that had been established to the viewer. It certainly has its own style, which I appreciate seeing, but it’s certainly nothing spectacular. The same can be said about the voice-acting and the other sound aspects. Music is pretty much non-existent within the series, although there is both an OP and an ED.
Perhaps I didn’t enjoy this because it’s a lot like Nichijou in how it’s more cute-girls-doing-ridiculous-things rather than cute-girls-doing-cute-things. Alternatively, perhaps it’s like Joshiraku and the humour is completely lost at times at someone who isn’t good with Japanese culture or humour. Nevertheless, whatever the reason, I certainly haven’t been persuaded to stick around to watch the second season – especially considering it has ‘catastrophe’ in its name. This was quite the catastrophe to begin with…
Rating: 4/10
