Shuffle!

Synopsis:

Rin is your average everyday guy, he goes to school, he works a part time job but he lives with his childhood friend Kaede. Things are a little different in this universe as the gateway to heaven and hell is open and both gods and demons live amongst everyone. Imagine his surprise when Rin discovers both the King of Demons and the King of Gods become his next door neighbors and both insist that Rin marries their daughter. To make things worse, a young 13-year old experiment of both the gods and the demons named Primula has escaped and made her way to the human world and Rin, being the nice guy that he is, tries to help her when he sees her attempting to adapt to society. Of course, this causes Primula to instantly latch onto Rin and garnishes him constant teasing from his friends. With nowhere to go, Rin and Kaede move Primula in with them. Rin is an honest down to earth character and therefore doesn't mess around with anyone's affections but more like avoids them. This causes all the girls' true selves to be revealed and actually things get quite scarey towards the end and the main question will be answered, who does Rin decide on?


Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes watched: 24


Review:

Shuffle! takes what seems to be a highly original idea but refuses to push the envelope with it leaving you with a somewhat stilted story of watching magical and regular everyday girls all vying for one guy. Luckily there are some great characters here presented in an honest yet lighthearted manor that makes each one stand out on thier own merit. However, unlike most harem/fantasy/romance anime I've watched... all this changes. This is where it becomes even more interesting. While the series starts out in a hilarious manor this diminishes completely over time and becomes more of an over-dramatization of everything that is going on. While this is quite different, it almost (key note: almost) works against the whole series.

I do recommend it though as the animation was decent and all in all it was a blast and if you're not in the mood for anything too serious but things do get a tad ridiculous towards the end. But, unlike most harem anime series, it does keep you guessing as to which girl will get the man. Personally, I think he should have gone for Primula just to cause a commotion, and besides... lolis got it goin' on!

Shuffle! (opening)

Recommendation: |Above Average|

Online viewing: Available at FUNimation's website

Shuffle! (subbed and dubbed)

Media Type: Free internet streaming
From: FUNimation
Spoken languages: English;Japanese
Subtitles: English

*Note - FUNimation's online player is not bad. It's not that good either but... not bad. I recommend using Firefox with the Ad Block Plus plug-in to avoid ads and go straight to the video with no waiting.