TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You 01
Tonikaku Cawaii: Fly Me to the Moon 01
Tonikaku Kawaii/トニカクカワイイ

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

YUZAKI Nasa has a complex about his given name after learning its origins. As such, he works hard in school, determined to attend a prestigious high school. One snowy evening after school, Nasa sees a highly attractive girl. He attempts to cross the road to speak to her, but gets partially hit by a truck. The girl saved his life and leaves Nasa with the truck driver. Nasa is determined to not let her go, so he finds her in a bus stop. She tends to him and attempts to leave to get help. Nasa confesses, so the girl agrees to go out with Nasa if he marries her.

Nasa has to go through rehab and decides to quit school. He spends the next two years working and saving. After he turns 18, the girl shows up at his apartment door. She introduces herself as Tsukasa. Further, she has a marriage form for Nasa to fill out. Nasa does so and the couple take it to the night registrar’s office to officially make them married. On the way home, Nasa is happy to hold hands with his new wife. And he’s very happy she likes his name.

Thoughts/Review:

Man, talk about going off the rails when it comes to an official English name. In Japan, this series is Tonikaku Cawaii: Fly Me to the Moon. (Yes, “Cawaii” is the official Japanese spelling “kawaii” in romaji. Don’t ask me why. And yes, English is used for the Japanese subtitle.) Viz opted to just use the subtitle for their manga adaptation. But Viz or someone decided to go strange and call the anime series TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You.

Modifications to the Source Material

As I’m wont to do for anime adaptations who’s source manga I’ve read, lets see what Seven Arcs did with TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You 01. This episode adapts chapters 1-4 of the source Fly Me to the Moon manga.

• In order to have a dramatic start, the anime took part of the accident scene and moved it before the OP.
• The anime makes a more overt, visual reference to Kaguya-hime. And there are more visuals when the Kaguya-hime story is told.
• When Nasa and Tsukasa are walking home together, the scene has a bit more padding in the anime.

These are insignificant changes and frankly do not hurt, or even help the adaptation. I was a bit worried we might get a situation like Hayate the Combat Butler, where the anime adaptation immediately went off the rails.

General Thoughts

In terms of story, it is difficult for me to comment on TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You 01 since I already know where things are going from here. However, I do love finally seeing the Tonikaku Cawaii manga series adapted as an anime, even if Viz (or whomever) had to do their own thing. The seiyuu choices for Nasa and Tsukasa work, so that’s a positive thing.

The only minor negative thing regarding the adaptation is that the anime character design for Tsukasa fails to properly catch her occasional amused, smug look that she gives Nasa. This is something that happens often in future, so hopefully, future episodes can try to properly capture this.

For fans of Hayate the Combat Butler, Klaus shows up, and the name Tachibana appears.

Viz (Crunchyroll/FUNimation) Adaptation

I’ve already discussed how Viz (watched via Crunchyroll) oddly decides to give this anime adaptation a different name. That aside, TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You 01 has a decent adaptation for the most part. The honorifics are left in, which is good. We’ll see if the brother/sister ones get retained in the future.

While the anime’s text has some variances with the official manga adaptation (which is understandable), the anime still botched one moment the same way the manga did. Tsukasa’s condition for going out with Nasa was that he marry her. I realize that this is an odd thing. But there’s a story reason for Tsukasa making this odd request. But sadly, CR decided to do like Viz and change “going out” to “be with you”. From an English standpoint, it may make more sense. But from a story standpoint, it won’t really make sense.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You 01 is a pretty good adaptation of the source Fly Me to the Moon manga material. Tonikaku Cawaii’s manga has been very enjoyable so far and based on the first episode of the anime, I’d say the anime series will be good as well.