Final Approach anime review

Ever since their parents died a few years ago, Ryo and his sister Akane have been living alone together. Despite their difficult situation, they are still living reasonably happy and normal lives. However, everything is about to be flipped upside-down due to a secret government project. Due to increasingly low birth rates in Japan, the Japanese government is testing a program in which two young people are forced to marry. Ryo wants no part of it, but he is given little choice in the matter; his new fiancée, Shizuka, comes to his home late one night with several dozen government issued bodyguards, who are there to ensure the success of the new couple. Unlike Ryo, Shizuka couldn't be more willing to go along with this new program, and eagerly goes about her wifely duties, despite his objections. With meddling friends, pushy bodyguards, and an overenthusiastic new fiancée, Ryo's life has taken a turn in a direction the young man certainly didn't expect.

Here we have the "fiancee as government conspiracy" schlock of the horribly sexist Rizelmine. Couple that with the girls-on-guy violence of Girls BRAVO (though it's really just one girl who happens to make Narusegawa Naru look like Gandhi).

Welcome to Final Approach, a television series that proves conclusively that combining two one-star shows does not guarantee two stars.

From the beginning, we knew this could not bode well, largely because the characters simply can not be taken seriously. The main lead, Ryou, is constantly either fretting or daydreaming over his little sister Akane, in ways that seem a little more than merely overprotective. (Shades of Sister Incest Princess anyone?) For her part, Akane sounds suspiciously like a nonstop car commercial. "Nissan. Nissan? Nissan!"

Then there's Shizuka, the kind of girl that we here in the States would call "a real piece of work". She and her Men in Black (who are, in all honesty, the only redeeming thing about this show) are constantly causing collateral damage, and when she's not being violent, she's a cute, demure wannabe housewife straight out of Stepford. Creepy and psychotic, with a giggle that could break glass. If this is Japan's best answer to their population crisis, then I'd suggest moving to Canada. (Because, you know, every refugee is welcome in Canada.) In the first two episodes, she goes so far as to knock Ryou unconscious, with the concluding line beginning with, "In the fading moments of his consciousness ..."

As if these three characters weren't enough, the folks behind this show throw you a bunch of other cute, vapid, largely forgettable girls. Miki is a wannabe voice actor who looks disturbingly like a high school Card Captor Sakura and calls everyone distinctly cute irritating nicknames. (Did someone just set off my Comic Party rip-off alarm?) Emiho is a straightforward rich-girl who is in an arranged engagement of her own. Of course, the writers of this show squander their chance to challenge the topic, instead using her to reinforce the morality of accepting arranged marriages even when the engagement is done with someone you don't even know. WHAT?

Therein lies the biggest problem with this series - every single time it tries to do anything, it falls on its face. The comedy is at best contrived, at worst agonizing. The animation is at best mediocre, at worst, no better than the cardboard cutout dating sim game it was based off. Even fan service is thwarted, as the network standards demand that nudity is reduced to superdeformed butt shots.

Just as you think Final Approach might actually pull off a safe landing, it veers right back into its death spiral. Honestly, folks, Final Approach is terminal. It may be as irresistible to watch as the last seconds of a doomed airliner, but you would be better served doing something truly worthwhile. Like, oh, taking a shower. Or drinking your liver into oblivion.