Anime comes in a lot of varieties, from drama to mysteries and horror to love shows.  One style that seems to be unique to anime is the 'harem' show, where one guy is trapped in a situation where he has to live with five or six pushy women.  Tenchi, Happy Lesson, and Love, Hina are all examples of this type of show.   I have to admit I have a soft spot for these romantic comedies, and always look forward to a new harem series being released.  Well, Media Galleries has started Seven of Seven, sort of a harem series with a twist.  Instead of six women pestering a guy, in this series they pester a girl.  What makes it even more bizarre is that all seven are the same person.

Nana is living with her grandfather, a retired scientist, in Japan while her parents are working in the US.  This junior high student has a crush on Yuichi, an intelligent boy in her class.  Nana decides to bake Yuichi a chocolate cake for Valentine's day, but can't find the microwave oven.  She tracks the appliance down in her grandfather's lab.  Inside there are seven colored lights floating around.  Nana doesn't have time to wait for her guardian's return so she opens the oven up.  The floating lights zip out, fly around her and then through her.  Nana disappears, only to reappear outside floating in the sky unconscious.  She floats to the ground, but when she wakes up, something has changed.  There isn't just one Nana anymore, there are seven!  Oh yea, and they have super powers too.

Her grandfather's experiments with solidifying light have somehow split Nana up.  They all look alike, but each one has a different personality aspect.  In addition to the original Nana there is an angry one, a happy one, a sad one, a slow one, a brainy one, and a sensitive one who is a little bit strange.  The six 'new' girls start making life crazy for the original one.  First off, they decide that they all can't go out in public together.  If anyone sees all of them, they are surely to be locked up and examined by scientists.  To make matters worse, all seven of the girls have a crush on Yuichi.  Since he's so smart, he's sure to do well on his high school entrance exams, and get into a good school.  The six new Nana's think it's imperative for the original to do well on her test so that she can go to the same school that he does.

But for the six young girls that have to stay at home all the time, life can be pretty dull.  But when you can fly, that opens up a whole world of possibilities.  There is a lot of room for getting into trouble.

This was a fun show.  It had the same feeling as most of the other harem series, with the main character tying to maintain peace and quiet while the other women cause havoc.  There was a lot of humor and the whole show has a light tone to it.  I especially liked the episode where they obtained cosplay costumes from the show "Nana Rangers."  The seven colored outfits where a riot, especially if you've seen a lot of Japanese live action children's shows.  The episode where the girls had a contest to see who could be the first to touch Yuichi's hand was also very amusing.

While this program isn't deep or meaningful, it is very enjoyable none the less.  Seeing the original Nana try to study for exams while riding herd over six different aspects of her own personality was a amusing.  The plots are wacky and they move pretty quickly.  All in all a good series.

This DVD contians the first five episodes in the series.

Audio:

The viewer has the choice of viewing this program in either a stereo English dub or in the original Japanese also in stereo.  I preferred the original language although the English dub was good and I listen to quite a few shows that way.  The soundtrack was very good, presenting the dialog and music faithfully.  The front soundstage was used very effectively especially when it came to all seven Nana's talking at the same time.  The audio sounded clear on both tracks without any his or distortion.  There are optional full English subtitles or just subtitles for the signs and song lyrics.

Video:

The full frame video looked very good.  The colors were bright and there were very little in the way a digital defects, just a little aliasing in the background.  A very nice looking show.

Extras:

The only extra are trailers for Jungle Emperor Leo, Metal Fighter Miko, Figure 17, and 12 Kingdoms.

Final Thoughts:

I really liked this show.  It was funny and amusing and didn't take itself too seriously.  This light comedy with a little romance thrown in, as well as some super powered antics, is very enjoyable. Highly Recommended.