https://v.animethemes.moe/TenshiTsukiOP1. Video includes audio. Be sure to unmute Ive long abandoned the idea that every anime needs to aspire to artistic greatness. To think that they should is to be so consistently setting an impossible bar and inevitably getting disenfranchised as well as to ignore that sometimes media can in fact purely exist for the sake of entertaining or distracting its audience for a brief time. Theres nothing wrong with that media carries innumerable uses. Although it does unfortunately mean that the phrase turn your brain off has become accepted as a default soundbite to undermine critique of a show thats simply trying to entertain and to the person in question failing to even succeed at that level. Media does not need to make a point or be about something in order to function or even be considered good but media also does not get a magical getoutofjailfree card simply because its aspirations are lower. Aiming low is after all still aiming and carries the risk of missing. I bring this up because Studio Apartment Good Lighting Angel Included is a show that dispels any notion of deep storytelling within its first minutes to let its audience know what theyre in for and still manages to wilt like flowers in a basement with its bar being set so low. With its emphasis on the cute titular angel the sugarcoated sweetie named Towa comes to Earth in order gain more firsthand knowledge about humanity. But thank goodness that she just so happens to land on the apartment veranda of Tokumitsu Shintarou who is such a goshdarned nice guy that he lets her live with him. And while shes at it why doesnt she spruce up his place and cook him his meals? And why stop at just one supernatural creature coming into Tokumitsus midst when the show can throw at least another three on top of that as well? The shows presumption is that the inclusion of fantastical characters from varying myth or folklore is enough to carry interest. Lets put aside any of the details concerning the differences between angels yukionna or any of the other myth creatures that find their way into the series since those are such a given. Studio Apartment Good Lighting Angel Included has its distinctions between characters feel less like distinctions and more akin to reaching into the metaphorical hat and pulling out a character trait to assign them. Its most evident in the materials treatment of Towa her inherent nature as an angel is less of a presence than one would expect as it only ever manifests in rare moments of attempted comedy or for what is supposed to be tantamount to a big reveal. Instead Towas nauseating adorableness is often trumped by her naivety of the eyerollingly absurd variety how else would you explain nearly getting lured by a suspicious man in her first day on Earth to a love hotel despite having studied some Earth behaviors. The other characters do not fair much better in this respect. Any references to their mythological origins are treated as window dressing rather than something that could provide more offthebeatenpath variety to the shows cheap vanilla taste. A blizzard being conjured or other such things make for trifles. 550https://i.ur.com/eArCUEG.png 550https://i.ur.com/lxsS0r8.png Despite being presented inuniverse as a pure and virginal angel and a character that Tokumitsu needs to protect the material apparently has no problem using Towas moe to make her an object for oogling fanservice occasionally Tokumitsu isnt treated much better either because he is not a person. Not really anyway. There is virtually nothing about Tokumitsu that would instill any sense of confidence in his ability to provide anything of note within the material. He exists almost exclusively as a blank slate lacking any singular thing aside from his niceness that makes the group of oddball women flock to him like flies to honey. That niceness he has might be a relief in the sense that hes not acting like a prick and still manages to get a bunch of women to hang around him as is sometimes the case in other properties but it does not go a long way in making him appear like anything other than an author insert even though the mangaka Matoba is actually female. The overarching sense that colors Tokumitsu the other characters and the scenario as a whole is just that of no effort pallid personalities that do little more than take up space on the screen. 550https://i.ur.com/zMWh1Pz.png Any insights into anything that Tokumitsu might provide either to Towa or in conversation with other characters like Tsutsumi in this particular stillshot are as laughably empty as his character itself And thats the shows tragedy there is no effort anywhere to be gleaned here. Whether within the writing itself the character designs or the overall aesthetic of the show Studio Apartment Good Lighting Angel Included does not succeed because it does not try. When its not using a phenomenally bland color palette or barebones storyboarding it is constantly recycling or reusing settings and backdrops that have been seen countless times with no attempt to appear different at least to any degree that anything matters. It does not cultivate its own mythological riches beyond the shallowest ways because it clings to its own moe so tightly. It thus comes to the detriment of essentially everything because everything else HAS to adhere to that cuteness overload. The unintended consequence is ironically the absence of anything warm. It all instead has the illusion of warmth feeling so cold in its seemingly unapologetic and zombieesque clichs. I do not blame director Oonishi Kenta or main series writer Yasukawa Shougo for what transpired here with how equallyunimpressive the original manga is I doubt that anyone could have taken Matobas concept and done anything meaningfully with it. Between this material and Beelzebubjou no Okinimesu mama it seems that Matoba has a fascination with tinkering with notions of mythological characters or creatures to reimagine them as cuteness incarnate. Thats not a concept without merit in an entertainment age so suffused or overstuffed with irony and attempts at being meta or meta something good is perhaps buried here. 550https://i.ur.com/5lVWMKR.png The aesthetic overall relies on the same kind of overly bright fluffiness that has been defining so much of modernday animes visual style making it just as uninteresting on that front as any other facet of the show But heres the thing good media regardless of whether its trying to entertain or say something profound does not make itself. Putting a bunch of characters in a room and having them occasionally do a thing or realize something is not in and of itself the same as creating fun. Studio Apartment Good Lighting Angel Included seems to operate under the assumption that its characters simply existing and moving through preprogrammed motions of iyashikei / romantic comedy sliceoflife and the occasional moment of development is somehow enough effort to justify its creation and existence. Any such motions are too hollow to matter here. This show is an automaton soulless and godless no matter how many angels you throw in. To put it another way its not very good.