I'm not really a big fan of Happiness. While I'm usually a sucker for harem-comedy anime, especially visual novel conversions, there's just something about Happiness that makes me feel weary and bored after watching half an episode. I think part of it is due to the mediocre animation quality, and the strange use of colour gradients that make it feel too bright and overexposed. The music also didn't really hook me as much as some other shows at the time, and finally, the lack of fansubs made following this show a lot more effort than I thought was worth it.

Still, there was the one thing that made Happiness remotely interesting to me was the resident trap Jun Watarase, and yes, his trappiness was one factor in my interest. It's actually more that Jun is not only just a trap, but also a) an attractive trap, and more importantly, b) one of the guys. Watching him interact with Yuuma and Hachi in such a natural, easygoing way, while Haruhi and the others were going all "does he love me? does he hate me?" felt refreshing and fun. In a harem comedy, Jun fills the role of the Close Friend, who isn't a horny guy or a potential love interest girl (at least not in the official game). The frustration with deciding on a suitable gender pronoun seems minor by comparison.

After it became clear that there wasn't going to be a whole lot of Jun screentime in the series (since Jun is, sadly, a side character), I stopped watching Happiness after episode 4 or so. However, when I heard that the OVA was going to be Jun-centric, I decided to watch that all the way through. Watarase Jun no Kareinaru Ichinichi ("Watarase Jun's Day as a Pretty Girl") turned out to be fairly entertaining, but didn't really exceed my expectations or anything.

Read the rest of this entry »