Meine Liebe

[gia]

Review through episode 3, no spoilers.  Originally posted to my blog.

Grade to date: C

Meine Liebe is basically an excuse for a bunch of bishounen to ponce around and take part in swordfights. But since I like bishounen, they get a C anyway.

Bishounen, generally dressed in a weird mix between school uniforms and military uniforms (a la FMA, not like fatigues), nance around a school for gifted boys who are expected to grow up and run the country (if this idea for a school seems familiar, that's because it is: the school in Cluster Edge is the same idea).      

The cast of characters is roughly as follows: Orphe, the leader/blonde; Ludwig (Lui), Orphe's sometimes-rival, sometimes-ally, Ed, the red-haired, dark-skinned son of a nobleman and a commoner who tags along with Orphe; Camus, a clairvoyant gardener who is friends with both Lui and Orphe, and Naoji, a Japanese exchange student who follows Lui.

The main thing that this show is missing is...any spark of life whatsoever. I admit I only watched three episodes, but with the slight exception of Camus, the characters seemed stale and stagnant. They're kids, but they're almost adults and they are also all geniuses in some way. Mostly, they find themselves in weird situations, and then either Lui or Orphe babbles some semicoherent philosophy and kicks the ass of whoever is causing trouble.

If the characters are bleak, so is the animation. If you look at the pictures I've provided, you'll notice that even when the sky is blue (as in above), the colors are bleak, muted, and dark. It fits the show's tone, but it's not easy on the eyes-- even Camus' flower garden is strikingly devoid of vivid colors.

So, let's see. Hot guys, mostly boring plotlines (I assume that later in the series, something more than the usual introductory here's-each-character's-back-story episodes start happening, but I probably won't bother watching them), dark and bleak art, and oh-- Orphe and Lui are really full of themselves.

If you're really hard-up for something super-slashable, this show could be a good starting point, but as of episode 3, it's completely lacking anything to make me want to continue watching-- so I won't. It only gets the grade it does because it's still pretty, it COULD potentially get good, and I like the opening theme music.