Special A

Hikari Hanazono has always been able to do things that normal people cannot. As a child, she assumed no one could beat her—until she met Kei Takishima. Thinking she would win, Hikari challenged him to a match. But things didn’t go as planned; she lost not once but each time she rechallenged him. From that point on, she has sworn to best Kei at everything, ranging from academics to athletics.

To achieve her goal, Hikari enrolls in the same school as Kei—Hakusenkan, a prestigious institute for the wealthy. As a pair, they hold the top two rankings in school and are among seven of the academy's best students in a class known as Special A.

While Hikari treats Kei as a rival, she is completely oblivious that he harbors hidden feelings for her. Together, the of Special A deal with competition, friendship, and just a bit of love.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Takishima, Kei Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Hanazono, Hikari Main

Gotou, Yuuko Japanese

Karino, Tadashi Main

Shimono, Hiro Japanese

Tsuji, Ryuu Main

Horie, Kazuma Japanese

Yamamoto, Megumi Main

Takagaki, Ayahi Japanese

Toudou, Akira Main

Nabatame, Hitomi Japanese

Yamamoto, Jun Main

Yonaga, Tsubasa Japanese

Saiga, Yahiro ing

Taniyama, Kishou Japanese

Takishima, Sui ing

Shimizu, Kaori Japanese

Koupe Shuzette, Finn ing

Yamazaki, Fumiki Producer

Kawamura, Hiroshi Producer

Watanabe, Takashi Producer

Miyao, Yoshikazu Director, Episode Director

Reviews

Jun 14, 2025

50Fiftillididee

Recommended

Rock 🥈 Paper 🥇 Buzzsaw 🏆 Love Is A Game °8.2° °excellent° 💯%🔍

Hikari Hanazono has always been able to do things that normal people cannot do. As a child, she assumed no one could beat her. ~Ever~ Then she met Kei Takishima.

Hikari & Kei hold the top two rankings in school and are among seven of the academy's best students in a class known as “Special A." The problem is (and this is a big problem for Hikari) Kei's ranked #1. Always #1. She's ranked #2. Forever #2. Thus, the lifetime rivalry kicked into high gear. It's Hikari’s very ... raison d'etre: She must beat him. She must triumph. She will. 😤 She absolutely will❗ What she doesn't realize is that she beat him long ago. He's already utterly 😍 vanquished. Not that she'd notice. She's BUSY.

SAC is 2008 release. It's 1 season consisting of 24 24-minute English dubbed episodes. The English voice acting is excellent, as always. Unfortunately, none of the written word is transcribed. One of the characters only communicates by way of writing on a tablet. We don't get any of that dialogue. I understand that it may not be cost-effective to put English words on the screen to translate what's written. But couldn't they, at least, have a voice actor read it for us? This is a common problem in older anime. Thankfully, newer shows do a much better job.

Hikari Hanazono is our FL. She's a bit competitive. When it comes to Kei Takishima, she's /rabidly/ competitive. Surely she can beat him once…. She will not give up. Even after scoring straight perfect💯 scores in exams, she came in 2nd (‘When I pointed out an error in the exam the teacher gave me 5 points,’ Kei explains). 😤 Not even then will she give up. Hikari is super fizzy soda, or a Red Bull, perhaps. Kei is an afternoon mint tea. He isn't expressive, and he's always acting cool, so Hikari can't read him at all.

SAC was written for warmth and chuckles. While it reinforces the better aspects of human nature, the value in SAC is found in its entertainment. Positive themes to be gleaned are the value of being earnest and hardworking. Also, we shouldn't judge others for good or bad based on the gifts (like intelligence) or privileges (like wealth) that they were born with, but rather their character.

SAC is a new twist on old style animation. The art has a signature look. It almost looks like a kid's drawing. Their portrayal of emotional expressiveness is above average. They cleverly use color changes to express emotion with fresh techniques. Pictures can say paragraphs when done skillfully. The almost rustic look to the drawing is full of bold long lines and is dotted with unique markers. It's almost dreamlike. People are long and lean with round eyes and simple features. Backgrounds stylized realism with simple lines, heavy outlining and pale colors. I've never seen another show quite like it.

SAC is a 24-episode smile. The show feels like it could have inspired the magnificent Maid Sama-10, which is a stellar romcom. This just works as a romance. She's oblivious, but he L💓VES her. Attraction builds slowly over the course of the show. The last half of the last episode nearly reaches the level of romance-porn, it's that good, and there's a great wrap up. They missed one opportunity: It's astounding that he never said to her that she's his #1, his first🏆place, and she had conquered him long ago. They opted to keep it playful. Perhaps they were saving that for the sequel? They did such a good job, overall, we can overlook it. As a bonus, there are secondary romances that are a wonderful compliment to the lead duo.

There's nothing as sweet as a challenge that one can't lose. That's where we find Hikari. Sometimes, NOT prevailing gives way to an even better reward. Hikari doesn't have any concept of that until the show’s end. While she was piddling around contesting inconsequential things, like test scores, she unwittingly won life's MOST consequential contest: She bagged a prince among men. She'll never be looked at as second best ever again.


〰🖍 IMHO

🎬8 📝78 🎭83 💓8 🦋8 🌞65 🎨79 ⚡55 🎵/🔊6 😅6 😭2 😱2 😯3 😖1 🤔5 💤0 🔚9


Age 12+ for occasional language such as b@$+@rd & d@mm!. Rated TV-PG: Parental Guidance Suggested.


Re-📺? I plan to start a friend on this one, so rewatch is nearly assured.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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May 7, 2021

Shizukana_Sekai

Mixed Feelings

Special A came out in 2008 when I was first falling in love with anime, which is why I was rather surprised I had never heard of it before. Having watched it now, I realize that I hadn't missed much.

Story: Calling this a poor knockoff of Kaichou Wa Maid-Sama wouldn't exactly be fair, as this show came out two years prior, but it is difficult not to compare the two. Special A follows the now standard trope of a strong independent woman and her seemingly perfect male rival. While this trope is meant to signal female empowerment, that message falls flat when our female lead's ... "strong independence" always fails to sur her male counterpart. Nearly every episode ends with the heroine being saved by the hero, even under circumstances where she had the situation under control and did not need saving.

Art: The art is as expected for 2008, and does nothing to help or harm the show.

Sound: The sound is about as bland as the art, but earns a slightly lower score due to a couple of glaring faults. The suspenseful music most often comes across as corny, and the voice actors have uncomfortably long pauses in between lines that is usually reserved for the dubbed community.

Character: The characters begin and end as boring tropes. In the first episode, I had hopes for real character growth on the part of the female lead, but that hope died quickly, and no other character came close to filling the gap.

Overall: This anime is a feel good that thought about making a statement and decided against it. To put it plainly, it was boring. Not bad enough to turn off, but never good enough to keep me watching at the cost of other things.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jan 14, 2025

MidniteAndBeyond

Not Recommended

Out of all the shows on my to-watch list, this one has been on there the absolute longest. Its been on there for so long, I honestly have no recollection as to why I put it on there in the first place. Did I like the art? Did I see the opening a million years ago and think it was good? Was it a recommendation from a friend? I have no idea! I've spent YEARS seeing this show as an absolute enigma because I've never heard anyone else talk about it, but it somehow made its way onto my to-watch list but would just NEVER. ... GET. WATCHED... UNTIL NOW, THAT IS! AND NOW, AT LONG LAST, I CAN FINALLY SAY..... this show is just fine.

The first half is very repetitive with your typical "will they or won't they" storyline between two characters who keep going back and forth between loving and hating each other. It does get a bit more interesting in the second half as the other cast get more of a spotlight, but of course they all end up turning into forced romances between characters who have little to no chemistry with one another. It's also just a very... odd set up. The main cast is part of this elite group of students who are the smartest in their school, which gives them the privilege of.... sitting in a greenhouse in their school uniforms all day, instead of going to class? Uhhh.... sure. And also they're all super rich for seemingly no reason other than for being able to do whatever and go wherever they want every episode. Feels kinda anticlimactic to have this show that I've been meaning to watch for so long end on such a "whatever" note, but I really don't have much else to say. It was fine. I might've enjoyed it more if I had seen it back when I first discovered it. But at this point in time, I've seen these types of characters and storylines done 1000 times over, and often executed much better in many other shows. Special A? More like... Average... K... heh... heh... I'm so tired.

5/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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