Anime Information
Anime Production : AIC
Director: Tsuneo Tominaga
Episodes: 20 episodes
Genres: Comedy, Romance, Sci-Fi, Shounen
Duration: 25 min. per episode
Original Run: 9 October 1999 – 25 March 2000
Synopsis
Cacao, a student at Micro Grand Academy, wakes up one morning to find a girl made of wood sleeping in bed with him. She is Hinano, a tree spirit who possessed the body of a wooden puppet after Cacao messed up his magic teacher's spell. Having taken an instant liking to Cacao, Hinano enrolls in his school. Between Hinano, monsters, two strange twins and their four-eyed cat master, a demon boy, odd teachers and students, and the fact that he may have the potential to be one of the greatest magic users of all time, Cacao's life seems to have taken several turns for the worse...and the weird. Meanwhile, the city is being threatened by alien monsters which take the form of trading cards that are packaged into chocolate bars. They show up at random times for the school defense force S.M.A.T. to battle and ... ahhh I give up!
Storyline: [7/10]
Trouble Chocolate series features Cacao, a student at Micro-Grand Academy studying magic. One day, while his magic class teacher, Ghana, is performing a spell to summon a tree spirit, Cacao finds and eats some chocolate, which turns out to be 200 year old magical chocolate. After eating the chocolate he becomes drunk and causes a wreck. During this, he interferes with Ghana's spell, letting the spirit, Hinano, escape. She inhabits the body of a marionette, who then moves in with Cacao.
Subsequent episodes of Trouble Chocolate have little connected storyline. Maybe in the last 2 or 3 episode they back into storyline but rather than that, the show itself is a gag-parody of other anime. For example, two other characters, Murakata and Deborah, are constantly shown professing their love to each other, set to absurdly explosive special effects and backdrops, as is common (to a lesser extent) in many anime. According to what I heard and read, ToroChoco is a funny blend of Urusei Yatsura and Saber Marionette J but in the end, I can’t even see where the blend is. This anime tried to blend the element of trading card collectible which is probably in that year is popular, magic and sorcery like Harry Potter, sci-fi robot like Terminator and super sentai like Power Ranger show, and supernatural love comedy like Twilight movie (maybe not exactly like that but Bella loves The Vampire Edward and Living Tree Fairy Marrionette loves Cacao, got the catch!) resulting the weird comedy-gag combination ever.
Art: [7/10]
The animation is average for modern TV anime, with crisp computer coloring and animation. The character designs are cute and appealing, and would make for some great cosplay. However, pretty packaging can't cover up the fact that the rest of the show is lackluster.
While the show was released back in 1999, this anime looks as good as recent titles. The colors were vibrant and fit well with the overall tone of the show. The picture was sharp and provided some great detail for the characters and backgrounds.
Sound: [7/10]
The background music sounds like the piano riff from "Daydream Believer" played over and over again. The opening is stock J-pop, and not worth mentioning except to make fun of the way they spell 'Choco' (shi-ecchi-oh-shi-oh!). I found it the opening music is amusing and funny but clearly not the one you hear over and over again. The first ending, Ne, Nande... by Yoshizawa Rie is so-so and the second ending, Anata ni Aitakute ~Missing You~ (Millennium Dance version) by Sakura Tange and Kyoko Hikami is so techno remix, I really like that. Try to hear it, it’s fun.
Character: [7/10]
MOST of the characters was named after plant or food, like Almond, Cacao, Guana, Ham-Ham, Mackerel, Papaya, Sardine, Truffle and Wheat. ALL of the characters are simply hollow archetypes of anime (and non-anime) icons. Cacao is a tame wannabe Carrot Glace (Sorcerer Hunters), Hinano is a catchphrase-dropping wannabe Lime (Saber Marionette J), Professor Guana/Ganache is a surfer dude wannabe Gilderoy Lockheart (Harry Potter), and Truffle is a wishy-washy wannabe Mendou Shuutarou (Urusei Yatsura). The ONLY original character in this whole mess is Professor Big Bang, the bipolar transsexual Frankenstein monster. (Which in and of itself is a great big WHAT THE HELL!?!) In the end, ALL of the characters can make you laugh and I really give both the Japanese-language cast and the English-language cast a credit because they success delivering the jokes through out all episodes.
Enjoyment: [8/10]
Most of the gags and parodies were recognizable but were just not that funny. There were a few bright spots most notably the giant lucky kitty statue that attacks the school. Matcha and Azuki desperately want to be idols, but they lack any semblance of talent. After each of their acting scenes, a cold wind freezes everything in sight.
In the last 3 episode showed me what this series could have been. It drew me into the story and made me care about the characters. It was engaging and finally made the romance between Cacao and Hinano believable. The writers really found their stride with this episode. I really enjoy this anime and whenever I watch this anime, I can always laugh and that was all that matter. This anime isn’t great anime but isn’t worse either.
Overall: [7,5/10]
Trouble Chocolate is not the worst anime I've ever seen–I didn't totally hate it. I have seen far, far worse anime. But it is also nowhere near as good as I was led to believe. Originally released in 1999/2000, Trouble Chocolate is a good recent show that looks to be one of the ones that was going completely digital and not quite mastering it all that well. The show has a lot of bright colors, almost too bright in many instances, but they all retain a good solid feel here.
Personal message and opinion:
I can’t say much about this anime but I grew up with this anime. I was about 10 years old when this anime aired in my nation TV channel. For short, this anime really something for me. Trouble Chocolate has been very popular on the fansub circuit for a long time, and I've heard nothing but good things about it. This anime has a hard time deciding what audience it is trying to target because they trying to blend together elements from so many genres yet not quite finding the right mix. But once you watch this anime, you’ll always remember this anime.
Well, the fact that this anime was quite popular in overseas in United States by given a good score and professional comedy writer, Pamela Ribon actually helped with English dubbed Trouble Chocolate makes this anime somewhat interesting.
