Wagnaria also known as working when translated in English tells the story of a family owned restaurants employees. Each employee has their own personality which brings the Anime to life and gives viewers the chance to associate themselves with a character from the show. The only down part to Wagnaria is that it ends too quickly with only 13 episodes produced and all of them are now available on DVD courtesy of NIS America.
If you've purchased NIS titles in the past then you're no stranger to the way they set up their Anime's. Each NIS title has a book which gives viewers an insight of the characters and their personalities as well as episode information so watching the series is a must before reading or even taking a look at it. I will say that I am a little disappointed in Wagnaria though. The art book practically looks the same as all the other ones and that is not a bad thing but they could have gotten more creative with it and made it look more like a restaurants menu instead of just plain white. Also the DVD's have pictures of real food in them so I think creativity just wasn't in that day. Besides those negatives Wagnaria is still a fun show to watch and there are plenty of laughs to keep you entertained.
The show starts off with the manager of Wagnaria needing to hire someone. She leaves Tanishima, a small high school student who always gets picked on by the staff for being so short to hire someone. She goes out into the street and finds Takanashi. He is one year younger than her but a lot taller and is someone who finds small things cute including people. There's always a running gag on the show where the staff thinks Takanashi is a pedophile which is kind of disturbing at times but never the less they still allow him to work there but is forbidden from buying a kids meal ever. You have to watch the show to get that joke.
Through out the first few episodes, Takanashi meets the whole staff of Wagnaria. Each one of them has their own distinct personalities and play an important role in the series. A few episodes later we meet Inami who has a phobia of men and ever time she sees a male she punches him on sight. This is where out plot begins. Takanashi make it his mission to help Inami get rid of her phobia of men and he'll do anything he can to help her.
Until Takanashi started working there, Inami would normally be scheduled at times when men normally wouldn't be around even her co-workers. This is later explained through Soma's perspective in which he states he always got punched on site. Soma is also the type of character who blackmails people by finding out information about such person and makes them do his bidding. This of course doesn't work with Inami when Soma is about to tell Takanashi a secret about Inami which results in Soma almost being beated to death by Inami.
Takanashi and Inami's romance isn't the only one in the restaurant. Sato who is a chef at the restaurant and probably the only normal one of the group who keeps all the other employees in line has a thing for Todoroki who usually wears a katana around her waist. Todoroki though is not quick to catch to Sato's hints because she's too busy caring for Shirafuji, the manager of wagnaria and also Todoroki's savior when she was a small child. This leads to Sato to mess with Taneshima and make fun of her height and mess with her hair style while she complains to others about Sato.
On top of the regular workers at Wagnaria we also get to meet Takanashi's sisters whom are all taller and have given him a hard time except for his little sister who is 12 but as tall as Takanashi. As we move more into the story we also get to know why Inami is the way she is towards men. All the adventures take place at the Wagnaria restaurant and keeps it focuses on the main cast and while there are some minor characters, they don't get as much camera time as the main cast does which is great because they're always up to something.
As for extra's I was really disappointed because there are none. Other releases have had short cartoons or something extra to watch but Wagnaria doesn't have anything extra besides the art book. Because there are no extra's there's really nothing much to talk about.
Verdict: Must Buy
Because it's a short Anime with only 13 episodes that span 2 DVD's I won't spoil much of the story. Wagnaria is a fun anime with plenty of laughs and should definitely be a part of any Anime lovers collection. The only downside of course is no extra's and not much creativity was used when putting together the art book or selecting the DVD art. But besides those 2 negatives I highly recommend Wagnaria to anyone who is looking to laugh from beginning to end.
No comments:
Post a Comment