Alternate Titles: SoniAni, The Most Interesting Girl In The World
Game Adaption by White Fox
Simulcast on Crunchyroll

Premise

It’s just a normal day in the life of a very busy Sonico.

Timmy’s Verdict: This Fan Has Been Serviced

I had a fair amount of fun with SoniAni, yet it is pretty obviously meant solely to cater towards preexisting Sonico fans such as myself. As someone with some prior knowledge of and interest in the character, it is always going to be a little harder to give a fair impression for people who are out of the loop. Having little idea of how they would actually handle things, I was pleased to find that the anime has met the low expectations I had set for it. While it does kick off a little slow to establish Sonico as a busy college student with a side job at a restaurant who borderlines on being a crazy cat lady, the latter half of the episode is easily the better of the two, focusing on her budding modeling career and her band related activities, things that I find most interesting and I think the show will focus most on throughout its course.

The modeling part was pretty fun and considerably less fanservicey than I was expecting. Sure, there was a pretty provocative butt shot when Sonico was sitting on that bike, but that seems to be pretty modest compared to some of the images I have seen of her. Of course, the pervy client wants to push things by having her change into something much more embarrassing then a swimsuit, but naturally her manager shows up and brings the hammer down on that whole idea. It will be interesting to see just how deep they will delve into the modeling industry and if White Fox will elaborate further onto its potential to be cruel and uncaring to the models involved.

The band part was more of an introduction to Sonico’s two friends and bandmates, and episode 2 promises to expand on their antics a bit more. In the end, like I said, as a Sonico fan, I am bound to enjoy this. Though if you enjoyed the various slice-of-life idol shows we’ve had recently, like The iDOLM@STER or Love Live!, and would potentially harbor interest in one that focuses on just one girl instead of many, you may find something to like here as well.

Marlin’s Verdict: Boring, Then Creepy

As a non-fan, I really just did not get SoniAni at all. Even from the perspective of watching this just for Sonico, I don’t get how you could muster up the enthusiasm to last the whole way through. The beginning is just this really boring and slow-paced meandering through the life of Sonico, Crazy Cat Lady Extraordinaire. Then it gets a whole lotta uncomfortable once we end with the super skeevy photo shoot, which I imagine is what 90% of the willing audience is here for anyway. I will admit it is nice to see a girl with some actual curves on her, but when there’s no story, there’s really no point for me to care. And seriously, what is up with those headphones? She never takes them off. Is she hiding her secret robot identity under those or something?

Lifesong’s Verdict: So Moe It Hurts

So first of all, a confession: I’ve actually played the game this is based on. I started it up for kicks and ultimately I actually started enjoying it. It follows the same basic pattern as an iDOLM@STER game, only you are the photographer. Basically you play the support role for an idol and your goal is make her successful. You do so with mini games or conversation choices. In the case of SoniComi, you dress her up and take photos. The thing to note is that for any sort of storytelling to work in this situation, the producer’s perspective and actions are vital. The appeal of the original game is tied up in the concept of working with an idol. The iDOLM@STER recognized that and put the producer front and center of its anime. Super Sonico might do the same thing in episode 2, but episode 1 missed an opportunity to make this story about Sonico from his perspective instead of hers.

Despite my complaints that this doesn’t really capture most of the charm the game has, it does have Sonico being the most moe thing since running with bread in your mouth. You probably know if you have a stomach for that or not without even watching an episode, but in case you’re not sure what this might bring to the table, well… Honestly, I don’t think Super Sonico is going to work very well as an anime, unless they add in the lacking perspective and let the producer help drive the story, but it might make for cute slice-of-life with a slightly more mature edge to it if nothing else.