Anime: Triangle Heart: Sweet Songs Forever

Well, one thing's for sure, Opinions about this show vary greatly. I think that might be because it really smashes up genres; I'm not sure if it's shonen or shojo; you have to go into it expecting to not get anything out of it to think it's good. Like if you start watching hoping for 100% action, you'll be disappointed. if you want 100% deep emotional girly stuff, you'll STILL be dissappionted. IT has both but excels in neither.

Personally I really enjoyed it, being a fan of both girls' and boys' anime. I haven't seen the rest of it's sister series...perhaps in the future I'll look into them. I haven't heard good things though...

ANIMATION:
Choppy animation and poor camera angles leave you wishing you could get a better feel for what's going on. The art is really REALLY well done though despite the awful animation construction. The show looks great, it just needed more effort in frames.

SOUND:
barely acceptable, which is surprising despite the title. I cna't remember if it was dynamic or no, but It wasn't all that great, considering the show centers around music. Or is it centered around guns vs. swords...

STORY:
It was alright. I mean, it made sense. sort of. it was a little unrealistic and they wasted a lot of screentime on side-stuff that in the end hardly you care about. Now that I think about it, all the little side plots actually make the show suck more, but the main story is interesting enough to keep you watching for the short 2 hours. it's not really that much of a time investment anyways, so it's worth it to choke through all the "fluff" dialogue just for the main story.

CHARACTER: Unrealistic characters in some ways, but in others they interact pretty well. But really ther'es only two types of characters: violent bodyguard and gentle singer. that's it. nothing else. and character development? there was a little bit, but most of it focuses on what happened in the past and why the characters are they way they are now. though the show tries to touch on morals, it does a terrible job, the characters all remain static, and the bad guy practically gets away with a full loot in the end. Well, he gets away, and they say basically "well, we're screwed with a bunch of killers after us, but we're going to do our world tours anyways because we want to keep gunfighting after the series ends."

VALUE:
...value isn't a word I'd use to descrbe this show. I'll give it 3 just because they do a lot of contemplating but everyone in the show makes stupid and unrealistic decision despite the fact that the show tries to be serious.

ENJOYMENT:
Despite the fact it sucks, there are a few nice fights and some memorable character scenes. no romance or too deep of stuff, despite still being pretty girly of a show. IT was woth the 2 hours to see, but longer series might not have been appriciated.

I hate reviewing something without having a real understanding of its background - or at least a firm grip on it. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a choice here, as information about THSSF is a bit scarce.

Actually that's one of the main problems of this one - it somehow assumes that the viewer will already halfway know the characters and the universe. Sure, they are briefly presented in a way, but freezing the screen for a second and flashing a name text cannot be called a thorough introduction.

Well, at least I know this much:
It was a game and a series of novels before becoming an OVA, and there also plenty of merchandising stuff out there, especially trading cards and artbooks. It seems that in Japan, this universe has managed to become a kind of self-sustaining phenomenon - maybe not entirely unlike the still ongoing Kanon-mania. It's one of those universes that don't really offer much more than a healthy share of cute girls (with their underlying heartwarming stories) along with an admirable charadesign.

That said, lets move on to the actual OVA...

The plot is so-so.
Basically it's about a famous female singer who is threatened by some maniac. Because of that, she calls on three childhood friends to protect her - who happen to have become a profi bodyguard and two martial arts specialists. (its kind of explained why in the end).

The animation is good.
Very detailed and fluid, with lots of vivid shadings and details . The only slightly annoying thing is the constant use of a "light haze" effect that softens most scenes. The charadesign itself is nice and appealing enough to keep you watching.

The overall quality is... *pauses*
Good question.
THSSF is bound to polarize the audience. One half will enjoy it for its fluid action sequences and the many breathtakingly beautiful girl designs, the other half will complain about the cheesiness of some solutions and the blatant absence of a proper tension curve.
It even -has- an intricate plot and a fair deal of character interactions, but it still lacks a really satisfying plot solution. It's like... watching a mediocre play done by superb actors. Or vice versa.

Something about THSSF simply doesn't click into place, and that something is obviously connected with the wealth of not-so-sidecast charas introduced during the OVA. Ranging from close relatives of the main protagonists to a bunch of girls at the cafe that the main hero runs, there are literally dozens of characters that seem to have their own intricate story each - only that all those stories are just hinted at.

Resummee:
THSSF is like taking a mere scenic tour through a richly-textured universe filled with particular characters. There is a lot to see, and you'll most likely miss more than you can grasp. To make things worse, there is also a comparably complex main plot to keep an eye on.

In short:
It's simply too much at once to really enjoy it. A pity, since it still makes one dearly want to see more of it. =/

People’s opinion about this anime differs a lot, so I just watched it myself:


The animation reminds me of shows like “Onegai Twins” or “RoD –TV” both in quality and in the way of animation. The colours are throughout lovely, the characters smooth and fitting with the nice background / scenery. It’s really beautiful to watch!!


The music is indeed lovely, surprisingly very slow and it builds a contrast to the several high speed fighting scenes. Yet this isn’t really my kind of favourite Anime-music.


As far as I know Triangle Heart is based on a Japanese computer game and after watching the it, I think I need to have played it to realize the whole plot of this OVA.
The storyline itself is quite confusing. It’s hard to follow because of the switching between the several places (mostly to introduce the characters) and due to the numerous characters (I counted 23 named characters!; among them Fiasse, the main character, who looks similar to “Ah! My Goddess” Belldandy). Furthermore there seem to be several plot threads that don’t go together very well.

“This show has to have some of the most boring, generic character designs ever. It as though they had one outline, and they just filled them in with slightly different dresses, different colored eyes and hair, and not much else. In a show with as many characters as this one, a bit more differentiation would be a big plus.” [from another fan-review]

The story itself is too shortened to be enjoyable. It makes it unreal and gives it a constructed touch. In the End everything turns out to be connected, without any development at all. This is really disappointing.

Definitive the best about “Triangle Heart” are the outstanding fighting scenes. But please don’t care that people fight with traditional weapons (swords, knives, katanas) against guys with modern guns...
Apart from that these fights are must have watched scenes. The only unnecessary thing is the advertising of the name of the attack during the scene. e.g.: “Twin Kodachi Style, Mikami School”, just like in “Tokyo Underground”.


To sum up this series is neither good nor bad. But you can at least watch it when you have run out of Anime or if you love sword fights.

Sweet death forever...seeing this one.

With the low rating according to it's votes, I figured this anime would probably have a poor storyline or dry characters.

...it's even worse than that.

Story? Oh, you mean long talks, then fighting?

Fiasse invites her childhood friends to defend her from evil knaves after her while she performs. It turns out that her cousins only use swords to fight in this day of guns and projectile weaponry...why then? Well, it seems that these two have a deadly capability that came with their kodachis...

With an attempt to make the dialogue indepth, Triangle Heart fails miserably in maintaining the interest level it could have had. There must have been countless, pointless conversations that reigned the course of this OVA. Then all of a sudden, something would happen, everyone goes "Oh. Shit!" then the fighting breaks out. It is a shameful path for the plot to go down - having a unique Matrix feel to it with the two sword-slashing friends.

Shameful sounds, characters, and rewatchability.

Obviously, the rewatchability is low, since this anime is incredibly boring. Between the endless dialogues lived worthy fighting scenes, and quick transitions to shots of pretty girls running around. Nothing was worth the while to burn it, or keep it for that matter.

Even worse, the characters were just horrible. Not only did that resemble millions of other characters from various animes, but their seiyuu couldn't act out any emotion throughout a considerable part of the OVA. I will say that a certain song, during the girls' cafe fights, was really nice and sexy(I'd download it if I really felt like it was worth it). Yet, most of the music wasn't too interesting either, but it was a hell of a lot better than the rest of the characteristics.

And now the good stuff: the animation.

Beautiful characters, nice colors, and GREAT action. It has the Kenshin-style swordfighting, with people charging and stuff, but it streams much smoother than the average samurai-sword-anime-clone. I will also say that the blood level is impressively high, despite the clean, delicious women walking around throughout the story. All said and done, Triangle Heart has some spectacular technique.

Recommendation: Otakus ONLY.

Well, everyone else would hate this to death. It is one thing to lose free time to watch a bad anime, but it's another to lose time to a horrible one. With all of my ranting, I'm simply saying this is totally not recommended; otakus can watch this to overcome it - and that's about it.