The Wallflower

Genre: Comedy
Age Appropriate: Pre-teens
Emotional Response: Ha!, ::swoon::
Notable Features: Cute guys, creepy girl, becoming a lady (or not), kidnapping
Language: English
Length: 1 season, 25 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Yay!

"What would you do for a popsicle?" -Yuki (singing)

The Wallflower in this case is Sunako, a young weird girl with a love for all things creepy and gory. There is a bevy of good-looking guys living in her aunt's mansion with her. Those guys have been charged with making her a respectable young lady, and in return they can live there rent free! However, if they fail then the rent will be tripled. Needless to say, these handsome guys are desperate to avoid the terrible money situation. Each episode includes a segment titled, "The Road to Womanhood," that shares tips about different little things to make a girl into a young lady - or at least, that's the idea.

Sunako is battling her feelings of being ugly and worthless because of something thoughtless a guy said when she was young and confessed her love to him. He said, "I hate ugly girls," and her fate - along with her roommates' - was sealed. To top off her difficulties, she sees her new friends as "radiant!" and can't handle looking at them without sprouting a nosebleed. As the series progresses, she actually forms worthwhile relationships with the other characters, despite her strange quirks of watching zombie movies and having an empty medical mannequin, named Hiroshi, as her bff. Every other episode has something to do with kidnapping, and requires everyone to work as a team to save whichever member is in trouble. Despite all of their efforts, the friends struggle with changing Sunako but also learn to accept her weirdness as a good thing.

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I didn't want to watch it. Then, I totally did. Oh the pretty boys, and the funny girls - so much fun. I adored it. I could definitely put this in my watch-it-again list for those days when I really need a pick me up. Truth be told, I was sick all week and this really kept my spirits up. I also admit that the pretty boys had something to do with it. They totally tickled that teenager part in me that giggles with girl-crushing. Heehee. Shockingly, I had a mini-crush on Kyohei. I also feel a little lame for being so predictable about it.

It's not a complicated anime. I appreciated it, not only for the funnies, but also because Sunako reminded me of myself. I didn't have any sexy roommates but I was a total outcast geek. I didn't like horror movies, but I did wear a lot of black. I can only hope that I wasn't as scary as some of the bit playing girls that chased around the guys (like the GothGothLoliLoli girls). I do remember feeling the way Sunako felt a lot. I think it made the whole comedy even better for me. I would definitely recommend it for the geeky-gothy girls in the world. It was totally awesome.

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And action!: Black Butler