Subs by Hadena.
Expectations
I think you all know the “manga readers” in anime communities well. Whenever one of their manga is adapted, they’ll go bitching about how everything that was different is terrible and how it didn’t live up to their expectations. Oh, and preferably they spoil important parts of the story while doing so. Now let me come clean: I can be one of those manga readers as well. My poor girlfriend had to put up with that when we watched the Zettai Karen Children anime. Once I figured out that these kind of people annoy the hell out of you and then reflected on myself, I felt pretty guilty.
So what does this have to do with Kimi no Iru Machi? The problem is that I follow the manga, and of course I’m biased when watching it’s anime. But I don’t want to compare the two endlessly, I want to review the anime itself. There are plenty of people who have watched this without planning to ever pick up the manga, and that is a fair decision. Anime is anime, manga is manga.
Anyways, I was happy to hear KNIM was getting an OVA. The first art that popped up did annoy me because the designs looked different than in the original. The problem is that one of the best things of KNIM in my opinion is the very detailed art and character designs. I’ve said it, now that’s out of my way. Still, KNIM is a hard story to tackle in two episodes. Only doing the Tokyo arc makes sense to me in that case. And why not refresh that part of the story for me? I’m looking forward to this!
About this episode
After a scene with Haruto and Yuzuki in Hiroshima (that’s the prefecture Haruto lives in), we’re suddenly on a train station. Takashi (the kid with the glasses) started talking about some Sakurai Honoka. I thought that was a seiyuu or other kind of celebrity in Japan. I googled it, and it seems to be a character from Suzuka (the mangaka’s earlier manga). I haven’t read Suzuka, so I have no idea why everyone wants to meet her, but it doesn’t really matter I guess.
Now we go back in time a little, where Kirishima Haruto calls up Eba Yuzuki, his girlfriend. I liked this part actually. Their long distance relationship is really nice, just being happy to see each other.
Flashback #1. Half of the OVA is a flash-back, but they actually work out really well. I was impressed by the way the flash-backs were put into this. I’ll talk about this a bit later. This explains how Haruto and Yuzuki got to know each other. Yuzuki suddenly pops up as a freeloader in Haruto’s house, Haruto isn’t very pleased by the idea. In his monologue, he has some theme of spring, wind and seasons, which I thought was nice.
No bike for you, Yuzuki!
And then he finds out soon enough that Yuzuki can’t even ride a bicycle. This is an hilarious idea for me, since I live in the bike capital of the world, the Netherlands. This also weirds out Haruto who is used to traveling a lot by bike. This makes me wonder how many people who live in big cities really don’t know how to ride a bike. I guess it makes sense if you can get everywhere by public transportation and cab… Now came a part which annoyed me to no end, Yuzuki’s hyperactive giggling and SUGOI HAIAI!
The funny thing is that this part also reminded me of Ranka Lee’s voice from Macross Frontier, since it’s the same seiyuu. I’m a fan of Ranka’s Macross Frontier songs (Especially the soundtrack from the second movie, that was her best imo).
For the manga readers, this was a detail I really apreciated.
Now we get a really sweet part. Yuzuki running to Haruto. It was just touching how they wanted to see each other so much. Although I knew what would happen, I felt really sad for them that they couldn’t see each other. Now Rin (the one who says that the long distance relationship is a waste of time) annoys me to no end whenever she appears. And here she does it as well. Don’t ruin the moment for us!
So we’re left sad that they couldn’t see each other, and then suddenly OUT OF NOWHERE Kanzaki asks Haruto to be her boyfriend. The fuck. We’re left utterly confused for a minute until it all gets explained. I don’t quite get why Haruto decided to do this after all, with all the stuff going on between the two of them. Anyways, now comes the greatest part of the OVA. First of all the way how the flashbacks play while Kanzaki tells her friend about her relationship. The best part was that Kanzaki didn’t lie during the first two flashbacks. But knowing that they did not end up together made this all the more ironic. I guess that for somebody who doesn’t follow the manga, the whole thing must have happened really quickly and may have left some questions. It was a fast-paced part. I remembered pretty much every scene, but that was a lot of information to proces at once I guess.
Look at me giving a shit.
The whole story between Kanzaki and Haruto is really good, actually. The scene where Kanzaki slaps him was very impressive. Just because it’s so painfully true.
Because, like, people do this in public.
And then, this. The whole cafe looking at this made it hilarious, because it’s so awkward. I rarely laugh out loud with anime, and this was one of those moments.
We say goodbye to mrs. Interested and the train leaves. Haruto decides to hold her hand and keep up their act. And on the other side of the train, Yuzuki appears. This just made me mad, sad and feel sorry for Haruto at the same time. It just shouldn’t have happened. Of course, we’re living in anime world here so it does happen.
Rating: +
Whatever we manga readers say, I enjoyed watching this. Although I prefered the part before Yuzuki moved to Tokyo in the manga, this was a good part to animate and it certainly lived up to my expectations (including the animation quality, that is). I was impressed by the way that the original was tackled, I never thought “damn, they missed something important!” or anything while watching it. I’m definitely looking forward to the next episode in July. Still, the best thing that can happen to Kimi Machi is a 24-episode tv series so all of the characters and storylines can receive more attention. I keep hoping, of course.
Semai Sekaide 