Saikano: The Last Love Song on This Little Planet
最終兵器彼女

dir. Mitsuko Kase

:star::star::star::star::star:

The on-again-off-again relationship of highschool sweethearts, Shuunji and Chise. Shuunji's chracter design reminds me of Piro from the webcomic Megatokyo, and Chise is just so damn cute, even though her body happens to be "the ultimate weapon".

Maybe it's cuz I hadn't stopped laughing from The Office before I started watching the anime series Saikano, but wow, the gravity of this show hit me like a ton of bricks. At first it seemed like a simple romance show and I was just about to give up on it to watch something a little more action-packed, when the end of the first episode throws a curveball i never saw coming and i was hooked. The romance lovey-dovey stuff never lets up, but it's balanced with life-or-death peril and I soon realized that the early episodes are paced slowly and deliberate so that we fall in love with the characters before they are killed off one by one.

I was so unprepared for it, but this was some really really really sad stuff.

I was seriously crying throughout episode 10, but luckily i got a laugh at the end of the episode cuz the fansub group that released the show on the internet had a "disclaimer" just before the end credits:

A friendly warning from the team:
This is the end of happiness in Saikano. If you would prefer the anime to have a happy end, consider stopping here and pretending there are no more episodes. Continuing will only bring misery and pain. You have been warned...

Even with the warning, I thought how can this show get any sadder?! Death and destruction, or specifically more death and greater destruction, it turns out, is how a sad series turns downright depressing. :`(

Sadness aside, Saikano touches many other emotional bases as well. The romantic stuff is totally adorable, and the humor is great. The show makes a powerful anti-war statement, but even greater is the portrayal of friends and family. The bonds we form with the ones we love are the strongest forces in the world, which is why they are so earth-shatteringly painful when they break. I think the ultimate question the series asks is, "Does death truly break the bonds of love?" Saikano may be tearful, but it's still very joyful because it declares that love transcends death.