The Pet Girl of Sakurasou is a 24 episode romantic comedy anime that is based on the light novel series. It follows Kanda Sorata, your typical male protagonist who ends up striking it lucky with the ladies. He’s currently staying in Sakura Dormitory (the titular Sakurasou), which is the school dorm for Suimei University for the Arts. The thing with Sakura Dormitory is that it is for trouble students, so the residents lean more towards the weird side. That said, they are all talented, it’s just that their personalities are definitely not normal.
Sorata got put into Sakura Dormitory not because he was clever, or talented, or even a (true) troublemaker. He plays the nice guy and was there because he wanted to take care of abandoned cats that couldn’t stay at the normal student dorm he was previously at. Shiina Mashiro, the cousin of the teacher overlooking Sakura Dorm, arrives from England to transfer to the school and Sorata ends up with the task of looking after her.
Mashiro, in keeping with the theme of the rest of the residents, is an odd character. Sorata has his hands full just taking care of her as it seems that Mashiro is incapable of doing it herself. She also has social issues, not conforming to the norm and just seemingly oblivious to her surroundings and what is accepted. This easily leads to misunderstandings, although there is a deeper meaning to Mashiro’s background that is gradually explored over the course of the first half of the season.
Mashiro, along with Sorata’s friend Aoyama, are initially portrayed as rivals for Sorata’s attention. Even if they don’t compete with each other in the open, it’s sort of implied with both having feelings for Sorata. However, everyone in the Sakura Dorm has their own aspirations, from Mashiro wanting to become a manga artist, Aoyama a voice actress, and Sorata a game designer. Their chosen career paths are similar given that they are all studying arts.
Sorata is portrayed as having a hectic life and in some ways he does, but it also falls into the usual trope of him being a wish fulfillment character with enough girls vying for him. That said, with the paths that the characters take towards achieving their dreams, they are not always successful and encounter failure more than a few times. There several developments where it is very predictable. In particular, the one where the team as Sakura Dorm creates an original anime for the cultural festival, and Sorata wants to put in several gimmicks to have audience involvement. Naturally, you can easily see how it can backfire as it asks too much from the audience but of course it works when the group kickstarts the process and leads it to huge success. It’s cringe-worthy and hard to watch.
While Mashiro gets the bulk of the focus and screen-time, there are several ongoing stories involving the side characters. These characters have sad back-stories. The anime also finds a lot of opportunities to give several fan service shots, even when they have nothing to do with what’s currently occurring and can feel out of place when there’s a scene transition for the fan service, before instantly transitioning to the next. Jealously is an ugly emotion and Sorata shows bouts of it, which is really unfair to those that he takes it out on. While it is hard to avoid the emotion, the way that Sorata acts by lashing out, even unintentionally, to others like Mashiro, does not paint Sorata in a good light. At the same time, he’s confused about his feelings and his indecisiveness is also unfair to Aoyama.
Mashiro has the curse of being too talented and too amazing at what she can do, that she completely overshadows everyone else. Even if you don’t want to, you’ll end up at least feeling a little bit of resentment when you’re just a normal, or even an above average talented person and failing at every turn. The anime actually does a good job at conveying these feelings of unfairness but not in a way that’s overly negative.
The anime impressively turns what was a casual carefree story into one with a more serious front packing an emotional punch. The ending, as with all endings where the characters have to say goodbye to each other, is sad. While some of the developments are crazy and idealistic, it manages to rouse the atmosphere quite effectively, keeping you enraptured. You’ll end up empathizing with the characters, feeling their sorrows and gratitude at the same time. The ending is well balanced between an idealistic happy ending and a more realistic picture that not everyone will succeed. It gives the message that even if you fail, you will continue to grown from the experience so that you will eventually succeed.
Overall, The Pet Girl of Sakurasou started off as yet another generic romantic comedy where the male protagonist gets the adoring love of several female characters, however, it turns into a surprisingly good and meaningful story. The obstacles that each character has to overcome as they journey on to achieve their dreams allows you to appreciate their efforts, doubly so when they do not immediately succeed and has to experience several failures along the way. The second half of the second, and in particular the ending, is where it truly shines with how it shows all the characters maturing and marching on despite time forcing everyone to separate and move on.
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