Clockwise from 12 o'clock: Sae, Ai, Haruka, Tsukasa, and Rihoko
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My Thoughts on Amagami SS (No Spoilers)

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I discovered Amagami SS and Amagami SS+ about three to four months ago through an online friend. He knew (and knows) of my fondness for the slice-of-life genre, and I believe he recommended it to me because of how much I love the Clannad series.

His recommendation of this series was spot-on. There are enough parallels between Amagami SS and Clannad to make them contemporaries. For example, there are the high school settings, the presence of at least one humorous sidekick, and the possible romantic interests available to the protagonists. You also have a reasonable amount of drama and comedy.

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From left to right: Haruka, Ai, Sae, Kaoru, Rihoko, and Tsukasa. Unknown artist.
Amagami SS differs in its use of an omnibus format, meaning all of the female protagonists receive their own arcs. Think of these arcs as being a part of their own, separate parallel universes. All of them share an identical beginning from the perspective that Junichi Tachibana had his heart broken two years prior when a girl stood him up on their date on Christmas Eve. After this, Junichi’s actions leading up to his encounter with the arc’s female protagonist are similar but not identical. Once he encounters the female lead, these parallel universes further branch away from one another.

In addition, this franchise is about as ideal as it becomes for a slice-of-life romance, and this is intentional. The omnibus format appropriately sets up the series to cater to fans of its visual novel series. Every female protagonist receives an opportunity to be with Junichi, who acts loosely as a representation of the fans. The girls also have their own ending themes in the first season.

Rihoko, Tsukasa, Sae, Kaoru, Haruka, and Ai.
From left to right: Rihoko, Tsukasa, Sae, Kaoru, Haruka, and Ai. Courtesy of Kisai Takayama.

In this regard, Amagami SS is more close to its source material than a lot of other anime adaptations of visual novels (excluding any adult material, of course), such as the aformentioned Clannad, Grisaia no Kajitsu, and Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai (Majikoi). This does not mean it is inherently better. Adaptations like these are meant to act as service to people who already are fans of the franchise and as teasers and advertisements for the source material and for those who do not know about the particular series yet. This is true for anime based on manga, light novels, etc. as well.

If you enjoy visual-novel series like these and may like the idea of an omnibus format, then Amagami SS gets my recommendation. This is such a heartwarming series of ideal high school romances. There were moments where Junichi disappointed me, and I mean this in the best manner possible. Whenever I wasn’t happy, I essentially was frustrated by something he did or did not do because of a lapse in his judgment. And yet, with all honesty, I became happily envious at some time in every arc in both seasons.

Full Romaji and English lyrics for i LOVE by Azusa

Full Romaji and English lyrics for Kimi no Mama de by Azusa

 

2 thoughts on “My Thoughts on Amagami SS (No Spoilers)”

  1. I enjoyed the series as well, if only because the romantic plot lines all lead to conclusions and the endings are generally quite happy. It’s fun, and easy to relax to, and it’s a faithful adaptation for fans.

    What I will also say, however, is that I was mildly disappointed in the lack of creativity on the part of the writers. If I had played the game (I’ve only seen playthroughs) then I would have no reason to watch this show. Now that I’ve seen this show, I don’t feel particularly inspired to play the game. I feel like there was some missed opportunity here. Take, for example, some of the liberties taken with another visual novel adaption, White Album 2. White Album 2 was a fantastic series, bitter in its realism (though I use that term loosely), and sweet in its convictive romance. The writers really took the time to flesh out the friendship between Setsuna and Touma, which upped the ante when they both fell in love with Haruki. This is part of the visual novels, but not to the same extent (in my humble opinion). The anime inspired me to play the game again, and having already played the game prior I was not disappointed or bored by the animated interpretation.

    Again, I enjoyed Amagami SS, but I wished there was more. I think that it’s a problem with the omnibus format–perhaps the writers played it too safe.

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  2. This is an excellent point, EightTemples!

    I believe mainly the most faithful fans would play the visual novel and watch the anime. There are secrets in the visual novel the anime doesn’t touch on, but many fans who have already seen the anime probably wouldn’t think it’d be worth it to go through the routes to discover those secrets. At least, I can see them going through the visual novel quicker in order to do so. There likely is extra content within each route to make each more substantial than the show’s arcs. Although, as you said, there is little to no reason to play the game if the writers decided to leave many of the major events unchanged without adding anything different as adaptations of other series do.

    Perhaps, the creators knew there would be a large enough market of viewers who enjoy franchises such as Amagami SS but prefer anime (or manga) as a medium over visual novels. (Maybe they would have discovered this through surveys, focus groups, etc.) Thus, the anime could be targeting two types of audiences: the most faithful and those who just don’t play visual novels for whatever reasons. This is just speculation on my part, nevertheless.

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