1st Season Review:
I have been avoiding this anime for like two years now, thinking it was "Oh... another silly melodrama". So, I waited until the anime was finished airing, then I checked out a few clips of it and thought maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I thought. It turns out in some ways, I was right, there were a couple of overemotional parts but the anime in general was fairly decent. I was worried about how the story would turn out from the beginning.
The story isn't anything really special. It's about this orphaned shogi player with a traumatic family background and he struggles with socializing and depression. It tends to be too slow-paced and struggles with inconsistent pacing. The first like 10 episodes of the series has Rei bonding with these three girls named Akari, Hinata, and Momo, but the rest of the series is about shogi and Rei withdraws from the girls more. One of the good things about the series is Rei's bondage with the three girls, the girls were my favorite character but in the teen episodes, the series throws that out the window and the girls are reduced to side characters. Add in a little excessive drama but we'll get to that with the characters.
The show mainly focuses on Rei and to a lesser extent, Akari, Hinata, and Momo (before the teen episodes, that is). After that, the show starts focusing more on Rei's relationship with the secondary characters who didn't get much screentime during Rei's bondage with the girls. Those are Rei's family and his shogi associates. Rei is an okay character, it took me a lot of time for him to grow on me. He's a quiet character who struggles with depression which can make him come off as a crybaby to me. He can also be too meek as well.
The three girls are adorable and they provide the levity and light-heartedness of the show and that's why they're my favorites. They're a good balance to the gloomy melodrama of Rei's life. They are also resilient, strong, caring people who are going through a hard time too but take each day as it comes and I respect that in characters.
As for the secondary characters who Rei interacts with beside the girls, they don't really get much development. I remember Nikaido and Kyouko getting a little development and backstory but they are still weak characters as they do not get that much backstory or character development as to why they're the way they are so I couldn't sympathize or relate to them. They both just come off as arrogant, loud characters to me. So, overall, the secondary characters are weak and not compelling.
The art and animation is the most beautiful, realistic I have ever seen in anime. Shaft's quality could rival that of Kyoani's art and animation. I do remember the character designs in the beginning were inconsistent since some of them didn't really fit the scenery but that was brief so that's forgivable.
Do I recommend this anime? Maybe, it's not for everyone. It's not great but it was fairly decent to me. It turned out better than I thought it would be but I do think that the anime should've laid off some of the melodrama it had. I would rate it like a 6.4./10.
2nd Season Review:
I was excited to watch this season because I kind of liked the first one and it may end up being one of my top ten anime. I started watching bits and pieces of this one and boy, was I disappointed. I watched up to episode 5 and then kind of just wanted to give up, especially after hearing about how dramatic this season gets. Okay, here comes my problems with this season.
They shifted the focus of Rei's point of view to Hina's. A lot of the season starts focusing on Hina and her reactions to the conflicts she encounters rather than Rei's. She encounters bullying during her third year of middle school and being the sweetheart she is, protects a girl named Chiho from it, who is like an acquaintance to her. But then the bullies start bullying her. Between her classmates bullying her and her friend moving away, Hina becomes depressed and solemn. This was inconsistent to the cheerful, easy-going, bubbly girl she was in the first season. It's like the writer ran out of ideas and started to make Hina's character similar to Rei's. She starts crying excessively, she has no friends, she is going through the trauma of bullying which is what Rei's character has been through. In episode 4, she cries even during moments that weren't even requiring that sort of drama such as the ladybug scene.
They changed the tone of the Kawamoto family. In the 1st season, the Kawamoto family was supposed to represent the light-hearted, comedic part of the series and contrast with the dark, gloomy moments of Rei. Now it seems like the Kawamoto family has become more melodramatic and dark like that of Rei's. I haven't seen enough to know if Rei's life starts becoming more comedic and light-hearted, what I do know is that he is recovering from his depression.
The bullying was really hard and sad to watch and I just wanted everything to be okay for Hina. I was wondering why nobody decided to home-school her or take her out of school, that may not fix the pain she felt after seeing Chiho off but it could fix the whole situation and the arc wouldn't have gone on as long as it did.
