The Essentials

Name: Uta-Kata
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Episodes: 12
Released: October 3, 2004 – December 18, 2004
Based On: N/A
Director: Keiji Gotoh
Produced By: Bandai Visual
US Distribution By: N/A

Major Japanese Cast

Ichika Tachibana: Youko Honda
Manatsu Kuroki: Masumi Asano
Satsuki Takigawa: Tomoko Kawakami
Keiko Takamura: Yurika Ochiai
Michiru Munakata: Yukari Tamura
Sei Toudou: Nobuo Tobita
Kai Toudou: Nobutoshi Canna
Saya Kogure: Maria Kawamura

Major English Cast

N/A

Scores

Animation: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Story: 6/10 (x 4 = 24 pts)
Music: 7/10 (x 4 = 28 pts)
Coherence/Story Arc: 7/10 (x 2 = 14 pts)
English Dubs: N/A
Gut Score: 3/10 (x 5 = 15 pts)

Total: 113/190 (59.5%)

Review

Uta-Kata is about a girl, Ichika, whom while cleaning with her friends an old school building which is about to be demolished finds an old mirror. As they clean, Ichika drops an item that her twin tutors Sei and Kai gave her and she returns to the building that night to retrieve it. However, when she gets there, a mysterious girl named Manatsu comes out of the mirror with the item Ichika droped. However, Manatsu says she’ll only give the item back if Ichika does her summer homework for her: writing in a diary about her experiences in working with the 12 Djinn – magical beings which allow Ichika to do things such as…glow and occasionally fly (Ichika is also supposedly able to “see” through whichever of the 12 elements the Djinn she is currently using represents, but this seems to be used rather sporadically).

However, this show appears to exist for one primary reason: to satisfy the lolis out there. The transformation scenes for Ichika, who is 14, and Manatsu, who at least looks like she is of a similar age, could probably only be rivaled by those found in a show like Moetan, as they obviously attempt to portray as much fan service and skin as they can possibly get away with. On top of this, questionable fan-service is littered elsewhere throughout the series. The series tries to make up for this by having episodes which deal with “serious matters” – matters which would be more interesting if addressed more in depth, but which largely give Ichika an excuse to launch into another fan-service filled transformation scene, do her thing with the Djinn for 2 minutes, then change back.

When the story finally gets serious in the final 3 or 4 episodes or so, there is all this talk about hos Ichika has been trapped by the magic and the possibility that her twin tutors have gone through a similar thing in the past comes up. When we finally get down to it, it seems that Ichika has been tricked into a cruel joke played by…someone forced with a choice which, if it apparently weren’t so easy to get out of, would have a choice that would seem to be pretty obvious, if not cruel, at least to the outside observer.

As for the technical aspects, the animation is probably slightly above average while the music is around average.

However, in the end, the blatantness of the fan service and the apparent uselessness of the Djinn just weigh this series down too much in my opinion.

First Watched: April 2008
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: No