This anime started out really slow for me, so I took a break and came back to it. Before I knew it, I was completely engrossed in the characters of this story about a high school professional shogi player living alone in March Town.
I want to emphasize that my opinion of this anime is based on all 44 episodes taken together, so keep that in mind.
To summarize why I think this show is a
...
This anime started out really slow for me, so I took a break and came back to it. Before I knew it, I was completely engrossed in the characters of this story about a high school professional shogi player living alone in March Town.
I want to emphasize that my opinion of this anime is based on all 44 episodes taken together, so keep that in mind.
To summarize why I think this show is a 5/5, I'll break it down by 5 categories:
Music: The music in this show is stellar. I found the opening and ending themes to be pleasant to here every time I sat down to watch this anime; however, where the music really shone for me was in the soundtrack: the ambience by the melodic piano and symphonic violin was a gorgeous coat of colour on a frequently quiet show. They really went the extra mile to pair the music with the visuals and moods in the show and it worked really well.
Art: The characters all look great, but once again I find myself drawn to the beautiful setting this show creates. I'm pretty sure in the last opening theme you could get a beautiful wallpaper just from pausing at any moment their. I also appreciated the switching from greyscale to colour at moments when it felt appropriate. While the music and art both amplify the setting together, I take each as an individual point because of how impressive I found it.
Imagery: This is a slice of life anime in the most realistic sense: no aliens or magic involved. The story is about the everyday life of these characters and the problems they grapple with as they are growing up. This show does an excellent job of conveying those feelings, especially in the second season, through imagery or visual representations of a character's thoughts and feelings. I'd particularly point to the Shogi matches as a point of success for imagery and symbolism.
Characters: To be blunt, this is the most important factor for me in any show I watch, regardless of whether it's a slice of life anime or a historical fiction novel. Despite initial skepticism, the anime has done a fantastic job at building up its characters over two seasons, in part by adding a lot of helpful context to better relate to and sympathise with them. In the case of the main character, it's as clear as day by the end of the anime that he has completely transformed as a person--you can really see how the characters he interacts with affect him (and in some cases how he affects them) in a meaningful way.
Engagement: This anime has engaged me at an exponentially increasing level. One particular arc sucked me all the way back to middle school when I was dealing with a lot of the issues one of our main characters has to deal with. What happens in the anime and what happened to me were so similar, that I don't think any other show has touched me this way before. I could not be more satisfied with how they handled that arc--it did not seem superficial or cliche to me at all. Outside of those personal feelings, I also found the show to be generally increasing in engagement as I went along. When I started, I'd watch one or two episodes at a time, and by the end I was storming through several episodes a day.
I realise this isn't a show everyone will enjoy, but for me, this kind of Slice of Life left a deep impact on me, and I don't think I will ever forget that. It is not a perfect anime as far as pacing and animation may go; however, the music, art, imagery, characters, and meaningfulness come together in such a brilliant way that I could not give it anything less than 5 stars.
Read more