Endless Serenade. Sounds romantic, right? The bad news is, the only reason I can think of as to why this anime's title is such is because the main character Yuji ponders about his love life aloud almost a hundred percent of the time. Nobody does any serenading, and the romance that ensues is far from the sweep-you-off-your-feet kind of loving you'd expect after reading the title.

Endless Serenade unfolds from a first-person perspective. Yuji starts by telling us all about his dream girl Satsuki -- how he's in love with her, how she's his brother's fiancée, etc. Then Yuji proceeds to introduce us to the other characters, all of which who work part-time at Satsuki's store. There's Miki, the shy redhead. Then there's this blue-haired guy and green-haired girl whose names I can't remember, both of which contribute absolutely nothing to the story except for additional sex scenes. The funny thing is, I actually liked the blue-haired guy and the green-haired girl best among all the characters. During their brief appearances, they were cute and romantic. Never mind that they were extras. Yuji is a wishy-washy, effeminate guy who looks and talks like a girl. Miki is like a stone cold statue for most part. Satsuki is... well, the usual nice girl with whom everybody falls in love with in an anime.

Like the usual clichéd love triangle, Yuji loves Satsuki and Miki loves Yuji. What's strange is, the part about Miki being in love with Yuji is interjected more than halfway through the show. She's stoic the entire time, even after she and Yuji have screwed each others brains out. In fact, only Yuji talks incessantly. The overall mood is just so dead and devoid of any feelings, even Yuji's relationship with the girl he eventually ends up with just struck me as artificial and robotic.

The art and animation are nothing to get excited about. The characters stick out like sore thumbs from the dull, washed out backdrops that comprise the scenes. Character designs are a mixed bag. Satsuki and the green-haired girl looked nice enough, but everybody else was rendered questionably. In some angles, Yuji would look almost bishounen (pretty boy-ish), while in other scenes he'd look just fruity. Miki looks like she hasn't had a bath in years with disheveled hair that sticks to her face. Then there's the sex. Since Yuji spends most of his time jacking off to visions of Satsuki in his head, there are a lot of sex scenes. Although all the anatomical parts and acts were shown, I felt as if I watched nothing. Yuji's penis resembles a steel rod and it's colored red for crying out loud. There's just something about the sexual presentation that takes away any sense of excitement, impact, or titillation. There were hardly any screen cap-worthy Hentai scenes. The English dubbing was kind of tolerable, putting aside the fact that Yuji sounds like a girl... but then given the boring and useless dialogues there's really not much of a point.

Despite its brevity, Endless Serenade's pace dragged. I kept checking my DVD player's timer just to see if I was already near the half hour mark. Admittedly it's a lot cheaper compared to say, Nutech's one episode per DVD releases but that's about one of the few things it has going for it. Sorry to say, I really can't recommend this title.

Back to Hentai Movie Review Section