Special A

Stories of two people who used to fight, become friends and end up falling in love with each other is cliche. But the formula never fails to work among the hopelessly romantic viewers. Special A tells a story of childhood friends and rivals, Hikari Hanazono and Kei Takishima. They met through their fathers who were also friends and pro-wrestling fans.

As kids they've always competed with each other at wrestling. Hikari had always wanted to beat Kei ever since she was defeated in a match. She began competing with him in everything from school to athletic activities. She would always take it as a challenge as long as Kei is involved in something.

Hakusenkan has a different class for the top 7 students of their school, apart from the A to F sections. This class is called Special A. The members of this class include Kei (1st) and Hikari (2nd) and five other students in order of ranking: Jun Yamamoto (3rd) who has a dual personality; Megumi (4th), Jun's twin sister; Tadashi Karino (5th); Akira Toudou (6th) and Ryuu Tsuji (7th).

Kei and Hikari

While Hikari is intent on defeating Kei, she is unaware that her rival is in love with her. Everyone else seemed to have noticed this including the girl's parents, but it wasn't until Kei asked her for a date that she started to examine her feelings for him. She denied this at first, telling herself that he is a rival until she heard that Kei has a fiancee.

There were also other pairings in this series. But I'll leave that to the viewers.

What made it so appealing to me was that the guy was chasing after the girl. Most anime have it the other way around. The characters aren't airheads as well. These are kids who are at the top of their class and it showed that even they could be like normal kids at school. I enjoyed Hikari's ignorance about Kei's feelings. It made the chase even more exciting. Although Hikari excels at a lot of things, she is not portrayed as a perfect woman - which is good. She may be brilliant at school but she's unaware of Kei's feelings and she isn't a good cook. She couldn't beat him in the challenges and exams as well.

It took so long before Hikari finally admitted that she liked Kei. Me and one of my younger sisters finished the series in one day (went to bed at 3 in the morning) because we could not wait for Hikari to make a move.

This is not just about romance though. This 24-episode series also discussed the issues of friendship and loyalty. In the later part of the series, the SA class' determination to stay together was tested when Kei dropped out and the Special A class had to be dissolved.

I liked how they used the Japanese voice actors for the opening and ending themes. The animation was not bad but some of the characters looked too thin. But overall it's a good series. There are no squeaking, annoying cutesy girls present. The characters are likable and funny. Anyone who likes romance will find this interesting. I'm giving Special A a 9 out of 10 rating.