Rumic Theater

-Details
Company: TMS Entertainment/TV Tokyo
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Format: 13 episodes
Dates: 5 Jul 2003 – 27 Sep 2003

-Visuals- 8.5/10
The visuals are a slight bit of hit or miss, although I feel the hit outweighs the miss by a large margin. First let's look at the "hit". This aspect of the show is more than adequate and while nothing spectacular certainly is very well portrayed and drawn/colored very nicely indeed, once again, nothing necessarily great but most definitely a nice representative of a typical realistic anime style. the "misses" though are the real (and honestly so seldom as to not be a huge issue) slight issue with the graphics. My problem here is that sometimes the graphics approach the over the top visual aspect of some anime. This in itself isn't a bad thing but when the vast majority of the show has looked mostly realistic and you suddenly see extra large heads or unrealistic looking expressions it becomes somewhat glaring. Now, each episode is a stand alone story so it's not as if the continuity has been sacrificed but still...it simply subtracted a bit from my viewing pleasure.


-Characters- 9.0/10
Hmm, well, this is tough, As each episode is comprised of different characters the development of each is somewhat limited. However, having said that I must say that seldom, if ever, have I found a show in which I cared about the characters as I did in this show. yes, each episode is only 25 odd minutes but the writing is so wonderful that I was fully immersed in the various individuals in the show. Thus admitted some more so than others but still I found the vast majority of the characters and their story to grab me and keep me interested from beginning to end!


-Story- 9.3/10
Rumic Theater is a true anthology. And I mean an actual one in the sense that while quite a few anime's are not serialized episodic shows this one is based on different characters and each episode is strictly stand alone (although few characters do have cameo appearances). The stories are extremely varied running the gambit of emotions and showing what happens when relatively normal people are put into different situations and forced to deal with the various challenges. Some are more serious such as "Hidden in the Pottery" while some are certainly serious but take a slightly less serious approach such as "As Long As You Are Here". Others take a more comical approach such as "Living Room Lovesong" and "House of garbage" and yet even these are certainly more drama/slice of life than a true comedic anime. I loved a couple of the episodes, adore a few more and really, really liked the rest. This is by far the best anime of it's type I have ever seen. None of the episodes are bad and quite a few are actually great, simply a true joy of a show to watch and experience.

-Overall- 9.1/10
I was a tad cautious about this show as I'm more a fan of a cohesive story, but this anime was certainly a very pleasant surprise, my only real complaint was that it was over way too soon only being thirteen episodes long. But what a truly enjoyable thirteen shows this was. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a slice of life anime with well written stories and wonderful characters.