フォトカノ

PHOTOKANO

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
13
RELEASE
June 28, 2013
LENGTH
23 min

DESCRIPTION

Kazuya, a mild-mannered high school sophomore coming to the end of a very average summer break, receives a digital single lens reflex camera as a gift. His nerdy fascination with its design soon turns to wonder when he realizes this little gadget could really give his social life a shot in the arm!

(Source: TBS)

CAST

Haruka Niimi
Kanae Itou
Aki Muroto
Mai Nakahara
Mai Sakura
Hisako Kanemoto
Rina Yunoki
Asuka Oogame
Nonoka Masaki
Chiwa Saitou
Hikari Sanehara
Kaori Mizuhashi
Tomoe Misumi
Miyuki Sawashiro
Kanon Maeda
Mariya Ise
Kazuya Maeda
Nobunaga Shimazaki
Momoko Ootani
Aya Endou
Yuuko Uchida
Ayahi Takagaki
Katsumi Kurebayashi
Kaoru Mizuhara
Hiromichi Kudou
Hikaru Midorikawa
Misa Kitagawa
Saori Seto
Itta Nakagawa
Minoru Shiraishi
Takashi Azuma
Nobuhiko Okamoto
Ruu Narita
Akiko Hasegawa

EPISODES

Dubbed

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RELATED TO PHOTOKANO

MANGA EcchiPhotokano: Sweet Snap

MANGA EcchiPhotokano: Happy Album

MANGA EcchiPhotokano: Your Eyes Only

Cover Art for Photokano: Penta Prism Memories

NOVEL RomancePhotokano: Penta Prism Memories

MANGA EcchiPhotokano: Love Album

REVIEWS

Znatte
50/100
This could've been a really good show but ended up with bad structure.
Have you ever had that situation where you love the beginning of an anime but the rest of the series doesn’t turn out to well? You get disappointed and just want to forget all the things that were bad. That is how it was with Photokano for me. Photokano is a 13 episode romance school TV series produced by Madhouse. It aired from April 5, 2013 to Jun 28, 2013.

This series is about Maeda Kazuya, a normal high school boy that receives a digital camera from his father. He starts to get interested in photographing which opens a lot of doors for him. During the series he comes across people he would never had talked to if it wasn’t for his new found hobby.

The structure of this series is pretty simple. It starts off with four episodes of introduction where you get to meet all the characters. Then the series becomes arc based. This is when it becomes problematic. Every arc is focused on one of the girls that Maeda meets. During these arcs Maeda helps the girls with their problems and also starts a relationship with them. The problem here is that the arcs are very short. Most of them only last for one episode. This makes them very rushed. This structure also makes it feel like the story doesn’t progress so much.The photo theme is very interesting and was the reason for me checking this series out. They did handle it pretty well although they could added a bit more of it. Again the bad structure prevents from doing this.

The main characters Maeda Kazuya isn’t that special of a character but he is likeable. He doesn’t have so much development or a backstory, but this works because the focus is more on the main girls. The girls are many. So many that I won’t take the time to talk about each one of them. The good thing about them is that even if they are so many they still have interesting and unique backstories. But then we do also have a problem with the amount of girls. As I said before the arcs is only one episode and that’s because every girls is going to have one. The lack of time makes them really rushed and the main character barley gets to start a relationship before he has to move on to the next girl. I think the series would have been better if it had a smaller cast of girls.

The series also have few supporting characters. These characters don’t get so much screen time because of the focus on the main girls. This is pretty disappointing because some of where really good and funny. My favorite character of the series is Kudou Hiromichi, the leader of the photo club Maeda joins. He does only appear a few times during the series and most of his appearance comes from the previews which he narrates.

I don’t have so much to say about art and animation. It holds a good standard. My favorite part was how they did the photographing. It looked nice and beautiful. One of my favorite things about this series is the great feeling you get. You feel calm and relaxed. The biggest reason for this is the background music. It is always used at the right time and set such a good tone in the scene. The voice acting was good. There weren’t any performances I didn’t like. My favorite performance in this series came from Midorikawa Hikaru who played the character I talked about earlier Kudou Hiromichi.

Photokano is a series that sets high expectations that it can't live up to. It follows the classic dating sim structure which is not a bad structure, but it has to be handled well. Photokano has a great intro but has a really bad structure. In this case it's the structure that decides if this series is very good or just good. This series would have worked out a lot better if it just where longer or had a smaller cast. Even with the bad structure the series has some interesting characters and it gives a really good feeling which is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think back on Photokano.
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Bruhgreenbean
60/100
rushed development with characters
Photo Kano originally a visual novel which was released in November 2011 and other volumes which were released up until October 2013. During that time in April 2013 the studio MADHOUSE started the release of the anime with the last episode coming out in June of the same year. Please note I have not read the manga, so I do not know if anything that I am saying is dotted on in the manga, so I may be wrong, and I do apologize.

The main story of the show can be hard to follow if you don't completely understand on your first watch. The main connector of the story is about Kazuya Maeda and how he got his dad’s old camera handed down to him. With his camera, he meets new friends and gets interested in taking portraits of others. For some explanation, after each episode past episode 4 he either goes back in time or to an alternate universe, then in the next episode it's as if the last episode never happened.

When trying to make a romance anime, I think that the introduction of the characters is crucial in how they develop together. Photo Kano introduced the characters nicely, using most of the first 4 episodes to do so. After which, each girl got 1 episode (except for Haruka Niimi who had 2) to develop their character and have a romance with Kazuya Maeda.

I think with each girl only getting 1 episode made things feel rushed. When I started watching this, I was expecting a similar experience to that of Amagami SS or Seiren, but it didn’t feel that way. Things felt like they had to be moving along as fast as they could, with what normally would take at least 3-4 episodes only taking half of their episode. The saving grace of this was that in the beginning when they are introduced they have time to get introduced to the main character and start from there, but I don’t think that this was enough.

In my opinion, the best character had to have been Hikari Sanehara, a kuudere who once she gets to know Kazuya Maeda starts to change in a way that you can connect with. Each character had their own respective development, and some were definitely better than others. Not everyone starts off by liking the other, but after spending 15 minutes of our time they have become totally in love with one another, and once again it makes it feel rushed.

I feel like this is not a bad watch, but it is not a great watch either. I think that if each girl got at least one more episode, it would have allowed for greater character development and being able to connect with their romance more. That said, after you watch this, I highly recommend Amagami SS. It was wonderful in comparison, but if you enjoy Amagami SS, this may be a watch for you. If you aren't an avid anime watcher this might not be a terrible watch either, the episodes past 4 don’t have many intertwining elements, so you could pop on an episode and go back to working after that.
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