Review of Tsukigakirei

What set's Tsuki ga Kirei apart from most of the typical middle school, slice-of-life romance shows is the sheer realism of the story. None of the characters, neither the main or the supporting, are stereotypical tropes or even have one single, blaring personality trait that makes them different than someone else. The beauty of this story is that these are two characters who have a chance encounter in the first episode and awkwardly go from crush to a relationship. They have no idea what they are really doing and both at times feel awkward around one another as they figure out how they conducttheir relationship. Their ease at talking over a text message as opposed to in real life is something familiar to a lot of kids their age. And the series demonstrates this communication effectively and realistically. The use of the stickers and even the animation of Akane's phone shaking because she hits the screen pretty hard are all great at building a world that we can relate to.

There is no huge stakes in this series, unlike comparable shows like Your Lie In April, but that doesn't mean there isn't drama and once again it is so real it feels fresh. The conflicts arise in determining if they are a couple, what their feelings are, how/if they tell their friends about their relationship and how they interact in front of them.

The art style while nothing special, is not distracting. The music is also a little forgettable but it does still set the mood. If there is one criticism I could make of the show it is the side stories at the end that explore the tertiary characters. Very few of the characters, besides Kotaro and Akane, get much development and while some show some promise at being interesting, they get almost no screen time. Considering the series is only twelve episodes, because the show is so focused on it's two leads, it may have benefits from a few extra minutes to perhaps give us more of them. But that's a really minor quibble.

This is definitely one of the better slice of life shows and if you want are really looking for a story driven show with intimate character portrayals, this is one to watch.