Fringes and frills.

You can’t miss seeing the Wallflower DVD set on store shelves with all the primary colors its packaging design employs. On the cover of the box is a neat triple portrait of Sunako, Kyouhei, and Yuki all spruced up in high fashion, with heavy bold use of the colors blue, red, and black to grab instant attention from potential buyers. (This is a huge design plus.) On the back of the box is the series synopsis and a small host of screenshots with a collage of Sunako’s creepiness off to the side. The two DVD cases are clear with each front cover sporting one of the character images from the front of the main box (in this case, Sunako and Kyouhei). On the interior of each DVD jacket is a one-side illustration, each featuring Sunako and the boys. The DVD menus sport an appropriately scary image of Sunako with fitting background music. However, the text font for the listed episodes is so stylized that it may be harder to read on smaller screens. The English voice cast for The Wallflower is so-so, but it almost sounds like the male actors are trying too hard to match up to the Japanese actors’ tones rather than just trying to fit themselves to the characters they’re representing. The Japanese cast, especially Sunako’s actress, is some of the more expressive voices I’ve heard in awhile and is superior to the English dub by comparison. Sadly, one thing that fans of the manga will note is that The Wallflower has the same problem that Peach Girl had; the art style from the manga simply doesn’t translate well into a cel-style animation form. Regardless, while this is a hard aesthetic to accept at first, the huge comedic elements and story quickly overcome it and viewers soon forget about such a trivial detail.

More make-up, please.

The extra content for this two-disc set are very minimal. On disc one you find textless versions of the opening and ending songs. This isn’t even that great because the ending song has little to offer visually without the text. The DVD credits and previews are found on disc two, and even the trailer list is smaller than what you normally find on Funimation DVDs. Regardless, you get some decent trailers for Negima (the newest series), One Piece, Suzuka, The Wallflower, Paniponi Dash, and Kodocha.

The path to a swift death is paved with beauty products.

The Wallflower is one of the most unique shoujo stories I’ve had the pleasure to come across. It breaks the formula of cute girl+cute boys=instant love and drama by making the female protagonist very much the anti-girl. She hates “normal” cute things, finds self-beautification to be pointless, adores anything bloody or macabre, and would go to great lengths to keep any handsome boys far-far away from her at all times. Just about the only thing Sunako enjoys that could be considered feminine is cooking, much to the boys’ benefit. Not only this, but any drama that does happen in the series is easily counter-balanced by comedic reactions, crazy situations, and ongoing subtle jokes. Just about everyone will find his or herself relating to Sunako’s insecurities and find a bit of her in them. That’s what makes the Wallflower such an engaging and fun series that will fit perfectly into just about any collection.