Fortune Arterial: Akai Yakusoku (FORTUNE ARTERIAL 赤い約束)
Well, Fortune Arterial turned out rather decent in comparison to my initial expectations. Just knowing that this show is an adaptation of a standard harem-esque Visual novel immediately smelled like trouble, but surprisingly enough, the story did not degrade into a complete mess. That being said, this anime definitely had a lot of issues, mainly with pacing and a very generic plot. Even the vampire twist in this anime, which was done in a relatively untypical fashion, ended up not making much of a difference.
The one flaw to VN adaptations is that, because there are usually multiple heroines in the original source material, adopting all the storylines into a single coherent plot usually proves to be difficult. In that aspect, Fortune Arterial did a relatively good job of merging all the storylines together. The major issue here is that it did not do a good job with pacing each arc, and with only 12 episodes in the series, I’m not too surprised. For example, Haruna’s route felt way too rushed and, thus, the story and character development suffered tremendously.
In fact, I could probably argue that the entire first half of the series, up till around episodes 7-9, were poorly put together with some very cliche plot twists and rushed character development. Even so, as rushed as the development may have been, the characters’ motivation and hard-work ethic is very easy to see, and quite a charming aspect to them in a sense.
What the creators did right with this anime was it’s focus on the main relationship of the show; the story between our main protagonist Hasekura Kohei, and the Vice President Sendou Erika, who happens to be of vampire lineage. Their relationship got the most development in the last few episodes, and it was surprisingly well done, with a solid plot and a great atmosphere throughout most of the arc.
While the ending to the series felt very much lacking (I seriously think the creators half-assed the final episode, and played it too safe), overall Fortune Arterial turned out into a surprisingly decent show watch. This show most certainly has it’s issues, and although it’s production quality was solid, the art and character designs just screams “generic”. There was a lot of potential in this show, especially the main relationship between Kohei and Erika, but that never quite reaches it’s full potential in the end.
Instead we get a somewhat unremarkable slice of life, romance oriented anime. The romance aspect was probably the strongest part to this show, but even that also could have used some work. Nevertheless, I enjoyed watching this show for the most part, not to mention this show has a pretty decent OP theme, sung by Lia of Clannad fame.
Production Quality: 7.0/10
Characters: 6.0/10
Story: 5.0/10
Setting: 5.5/10
Overall Enjoyment: 5.9/10
Distant Paradise 