Akikan! is a series of Light Novels written by Riku Ranjo and illustrated by Hiro Suzuhira which were published from 2007 to 2013, with a total of 10 volumes. They were later adapted into a manga and a 12-Episode Anime by Brains Base. Compare with Inukami!.
Kakeru Daichi, sixteen years old. Collector of rare drink cans. Considering the first two things, no wonder he's never had a girlfriend. That is, until he finds a can of melon soda he purchased transforms into a girl. She is an Akikan, one of the few that have begun to appear recently. A strange take on the Magical Girlfriend genre, but with all the same craziness. The rest of the cast is quirky, including the government officials researching the case and Kakeru's classmates.
Akikan! provides examples of the following tropes:
- Above the Influence: Even Kakeru is moral enough to not give into Najimi's drunken demands.
- All Your Powers Combined: The "strongest Akikan" that appears has the powers of everyone.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Yell proves herself to be easily distracted by tiny moving objects (a feather held by Kakeru) and large moving objects.
- Amusing Injuries:
- The Kakeru-shaped burn in his closet door.
- Averted in episode 5 when Najimi's Akikan Yell slashes his torso. Much blood is spilled.
- Animal Reaction Shot: lots and lots of cats.
- Animation Bump: Compare episode 11 to any of the others.
- The Assimilator: Reason why the "mixed juice" Akikan is the strongest in the end.
- Beach Episode: Episode eight, though it's an indoor water park rather than a beach proper.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Najimi, if episode 5 is any indication.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: This is part of the Strongest Akikan's power. First Budoko, then Yell, and then Melon.
- Butt-Monkey: Goro Amaji, Kakeru's friend. He makes his first appearance by fading in as if he were invisible. It gets worse, since nobody can remember who he is. At all.
- Calling Your Attacks: "Isotonic Sword!" / "Sour Grapes" / "Melo-Melo-Melon!"
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Najimi gets drunk off something/anything carbonated.
- Catgirl: Yell, when under the effects of Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!.
- Chekhov's Gun/Chekhov's Gunman: The reaction cat turns out to be the mixed juice Akikan's owner.
- Childhood Friend Romance: The aptly-named Najimi.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Melon, who got upset that Kakeru would "drink" another brand of juice. She also beats him up at the end of episode 12 when he tries to take on another Akikan.
- Najimi in episode 5 and at the end of episode 12.
- Both Yell and Melon don't seem too happy when Najimi and Kakeru seem to be getting close to each other during their date at the water park in episode 8. Yell even tries to disrupt/break down the ferris wheel before Melon stops her.
- Yurika towards Najimi anytime she thinks Kakeru makes her cry, or is getting too friendly with her.
- Combined Energy Attack: Melon, Yell and Budoko combine their powers to take down the strongest Akikan in one shot.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: In the final battle, the three main Akikan take out dozens of fake Akikan with little trouble.
- Covert Pervert: Najimi's mind goes to some dirty places when Kakeru is involved. With the smiling and the laughter and the blushing...
- Credits Jukebox: Every episode has a rearranged version of the ending song.
- Cuteness Proximity: Kizaki loses her cool entirely around kittens. It doesn't help that she's apparently a magnet for them.
- Date Peepers: Melon, Yell, Yurika, and Goro.
- AND Airin and Otoya.
- Day in the Life: Episode ten, which focuses on the three Akikan girls at home alone with the human cast either being reduced to cameos or not appearing at all.
- Declaration of Protection: When Najimi tells Melon about her backstory with Kakeru where 2 years before the show started, he saved her from some thugs by wrestling the gun away from them, and then shooting and wounding them. It caused a lot of controversy in the city he lived in however, so he was forced to move to a new place.
- Depraved Homosexual: Government official Hidehiko Otoya.
- His office has a huge clock on the wall that says (in Japanese) "MEN. I like them."
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Melon hums the second opener in episode 10.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: "Drink me!". You can see the subtext all the way from space.
- And then there's putting a straw into Melon's soda can....
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Kakeru usually deserves any attacks he receives from the female cast, with the possible exception in episode 5 with Yell's attack on him.
- Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: Occurs in episode 8 when Otoya drags Goro into the men's bathroom at the water park.
- Drama Bomb Finale: In a way, there's two of them.
- Erotic Eating: In this case, the possibly suggestive imagery of lips on the edge of a soda can is taken to its logical extreme.
- Fantastic Racism: There appears to be some tension between the aluminum and steel cans.
- First-Name Basis: Inverse of its usual use. Airin Kizaki, Otoya's secretary, does not like being called by her first name.
- Girly Run: Najimi shows herself to have quite an exaggerated one in episode eight.
- Hot Springs Episode : The OVA released after the series. Skinship Gropes are out in full force from both the male and female side of the bath.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The Japanese name of every episode contains the syllable カン "Kan"
- Insistent Terminology: "Thank you, Airin-kun." "It's Kizaki."
- Intertwined Fingers: Between Najimi and Yell in episode seven.
- Kissing Under the Influence: Najimi, tipsy, orders a sports drink that turns out to be an Akikan. Akikan can only be female, which leaves her shocked. Yell, however, sees it as no big deal.
- Large Ham: Kakeru tends to ham it up when he's thinking about perverted things.
- Likes Older Women: Kakeru starts coming onto Kizaki (she's also their teacher).
- Locked in a Freezer: Happens in episode 2.
- Lovable Sex Maniac:
- Kakeru is completely shameless in his behavior, believing himself to be the ultimate ladies' man.
- Yurika is even more of one; unlike Kakeru, she doesn't hold back when push comes to shove.
- Love Dodecahedron: Everyone in the main cast except for the two little girls.
- Meaningful Name:
- Can you guess the sexual orientation of Yurika? Correct!
- Najimi too. Osana najimi means "childhood friend", and, well... Actually the whole cast falls into this.
- Moe Anthropomorphism: It's a series about soda can girls, this trope is out in full force.
- Mood Whiplash: Episode 5 starts out pretty innocent enough, then after Kakeru cancels his date with Najimi, she accidentally catches a glimpse of him and Melon going to a baseball game. In the heat of the moment, she orders Yell to punish him. Yell responds by giving Kakeru a pretty deep cut to his stomach, which bleeds pretty severely.
- Mundane Utility: Yell using her Isotonic Sword for household chores like remove trading stamps from empty bags of chips or cutting vegetables.
- Naked First Impression: When Melon first appears, Kakeru is wearing nothing but a towel. He remains this way until the commercial break.
- New Transfer Student: Melon. She claims to be a cousin of Kakeru's from Denmark. Yell too, but this time no one even bothers with a backstory.
- Rearrange the Song: The ED has as many remixes as there are episodes.
- Running Gag: The reaction cat, burnt Kakeru, invisible Gigolo.
- Sacred First Kiss: Yes, it's with a soda can. But it still counts.
- Shout-Out: A movie theater is showing Denpa Teki na Kanojo, another work animated by Brains Base.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Akikans towards their owners.
- There Can Be Only One: The Akikan Elect competition, steel vs. aluminum to decide which material will be used.
- Third-Person Person — Najimi. Perhaps thankfully, CoalGuys ignore it.
- Token Mini-Moe: Budoko. She speaks with a lisp, making it tough to understand her sometimes.
- Trash of the Titans: Najimi's apartment is quite messy at first, until Yell starts to clean it up.
- Tsundere: Melon. Type A. Lampshaded in the second chapter of the manga where Kakeru outright calls Melon on being a "tsundere soda"
- Undead Tax Exemption: Melon and Yell apparently get this to enroll at school.
- Un-person: Played for Laughs with Goro, who often seems or is invisible to the main characters unless he really tries to get their attention.
- Unrequited Love: Several examples.
- Najimi towards Kakeru.
- Yurika towards Najimi.
- Goro towards Yurika.
- Melon feels this way towards Kakeru at least initially.
- Kizaki towards Otoya. She seems interested in him, and he seems to tease her occasionally, but appears to only want men.
- What Have I Done: Najimi quickly regrets having Yell "punish" Kakeru after seeing what she does to him in episode 6.
- Yandere: Najimi falls into this trope briefly, ordering Yell to "punish" Kakeru after accidentally seeing them attending a baseball game together in episode 5. Yell manages to strike a pretty deep cut into Kakeru before being stopped.
