It's been more than a week since the S.A anime premiere. I'm surprised I haven't made a blog entry on it on neither of my blogs! Oh well, I'll change that now.

The 1st episode included the main things that the beginning of the manga included: introduction of the S.A, introduction to Hikari's goal, and the conflict between the S.A and jealous students. Of course, one of the things that was different and definitely made me laugh was when Kei is telling the B students that Hikari works harder than anyone he knows. In the manga, all he does is loosen his scarf, but in the anime he unties his tie and his shirt is already unbuttoned (probably did it while he was listening before attacking^^). Gonzo's tribute to Kei fans maybe?

Another difference is that in the 1st episode they decided to include Kei's birthday. It wasn't supposed to happen until later, but somehow I'm relieved. I wished, from the bottom of my heart, that they would skip most of volume 1. Chapters 4 is the only chapter I like from volume 1, and it looks like episode 4 will be based on chapter 4. It looks like they'll be skipping chapters 2-3, and that makes me happy^^.

The 1st episode was fine. The 2nd episode......! There was something wrong with it! It seemed too bland (if you know what I mean). Almost uneventful. The character design took a turn to a more round-faced look. It was cute with them all, but it didn't look right with Kei's look.

The action was dulled when there was less movement in the pro-wrestling match Hikari and Kei were involved in. The manga lead me to believe that there was more running on Kei's part and more punching on the pro-wrestlers' part. The anime also made Hikari and Kei seem more hopeless in the match, but in the manga Kei seems so much more in control of the whole situation (not getting stomped on by the wrestlers). Maybe that part was added to make it more dramatic? I dunno.....

In episode 2, we get another case where chapters are combined. Chapters 5 and 8 are combined. In the pro-wrestling match, Hikari is placed out of the ring while Kei takes a beating by the wrestlers. Hikari is lead to believe that she is indeed getting in Kei's way, that Kei is basically telling her she can't do it. Hikari tells Kei that when he tells her, "you can't do it", it makes her sad and she starts crying. She says this in chapter 8 of the manga. Yet again, another bottom-of-my-heart wish is fulfilled. I didn't want them to animate chapter 8 in the anime. I think chapter 8 is unnecessary and they'll do fine skipping it. I'd say they fit it in pretty well.

Enough of my episode blah blah blah...

From what I've seen so far, Hikari and Kei's relationship is more mutual in the anime than in the beginning of the manga. In the manga, you can definitely tell Hikari feels bitter towards Kei, even though there are cute moments that hint a future romance between the two. In the beginning of the anime, she seems less bitter towards him and leans more towards caring a lot more for him.

To sum that up, the anime seems as if it is leaning more towards romance than comedy, which is what S.A really is anyway (over-the-top comedy). If it continues in the more romantic direction, I might come to feel embarrassed watching it!

And a last opinion about the physical changes of Kei and the rest of the characters: I don't care. It really doesn't bother me that Kei's hair is brown. It's to tell him apart from Tamaki Suoh, of course! I have seriously read on Japanese forum threads that they thought S.A was a 2nd Ouran High School HC (they weren't familiar with the story though).

Speaking of OHSHC and S.A together...I didn't even consider that they have similar settings until others fans pointed it out. I don't see how they're similar besides the whole rich-school-one-commoner setting. The characters are totally different! The plot is totally different! If fans are going to compare OHSHC and S.A just because they have the same kind of setting, fans might as well compare Imadoki and Hana yori Dango to them as well!