Review of Tsukigakirei

[Middle-School Romance] Anime shows entailing romance, adolescence, and school-life are nothing new; many follow common themes, employ cliche characters, and have hackney narratives. And, while, this show may share similar themes, its characters and narrative go beyond simple cliches. They add hints of realism and truth, recreating events people could relate and reminisce about. Tsuki ga Kirei may not subvert the romance genre, but its stellar technical production, realistic narrative and charming characters are both refreshing and remarkable. STORY: The show features a simple storyline summarized as: boy meet girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy dates girl, boy and girl stay together foreverand live happily ever after. Its themes are also simple, revolving around youth and innocences, first love, the trials of love, and overcoming challenges. While, its themes and storyline aren’t original, its execution, and how it handles familiar themes and plot points, such as love triangles, confessions, dates, and arguments, are outstanding.

The setting is middle school, where our main characters are anxious, immature, and still developing. Scenes of social awkwardness, insecurity, and fidgeting are common occurrences and, yet, scenes of confidences, determination, and acceptance occur just as often. All of these moments add to the realism. Speaking of realism, don’t expect outrageous situations, forced drama, or random twists to interfere with the narrative. What you can expect is a down-to-earth story with its main conflicts rooted in everyday life like dealing with first love, how and when to confess your love, how to handle awkward silence, and many more.

Now, the pacing for this show may appear slow, however it isn’t. On the contrary, the pacing is consistent and even, each episode allows enough room for both character and plot development without any additional fillers or distractions. Furthermore, there are no expositions; only meaningful character interactions, visual cues, and dramatic silence moments. And, at the end, of certain episodes, are short scenes, focusing on other characters’ relationships. These scenes are cute, funny, and relatable. Overall, the narrative is amazing and realistic.

ANIMATION:

Using watercolor palette is an unusual art style, but one that is appropriate for this anime. Warm light colors, like blue, pink, red, and yellow, fill the screen, cueing viewers that the tone is lighthearted and the ambience pleasant. The lighting, while slightly bright in certain scenes, also play an important role in maintaining the tone and ambience. The background animation features many fine details, from moving, talking crowds to tiny water droplets, that enrich the world the characters live in. The character models are well designed, sensible, and distinctive, bringing to life the personalities and appearances of young children in their youth. And finally, the consistent animation, accompanied with great camera angles, allow significant moments between characters to be played out. All of these points aid in highlghting the narrative’s themes and the characters’ personalities. Overall, I love the show's style of art.

However, there are two minors issues, first, CGI background characters are low-detail and lousy, and second, a few animations appear choppy. Other than those two issues, everything else concerning art and animation is perfect.

SOUND:

Like its art and animation, the sound design, itself, is important in maintaining a certain mood and atmosphere. For example, the opening song has fast tempos, conveying excitement and happiness, while the ending song has slow tempos, conveying serenity. Still, both these songs are your standard J-Pop, and not as noteworthy as the voice acting, insert songs, and background sounds.

The voice acting is notable for its faithful depiction of a shy middle-schooler. You will hear sighs, mumbles and grunts, and whispers and, while this may annoy and distract some viewers, it adds to the dialogue some realism. More importantly is how the voice actors are able to convey many emotions without being overly dramatic. The insert songs include varies piano or orchestral pieces, which are calm and relaxing. The background sounds, like its background art, possesses many tiny details, such as the chatter of people, the sound of falling rain, birds chirping, etc, make the show feel alive.

CHARACTER:

Our main characters, Akane and Kotarou, are both charming and compelling, and are the crux of this show. The remaining cast are there either to influence them, or 'to be influenced’. Now, there’s no denying that our main leads have more screen time, thus having the most character development, while our remaining cast appear infrequently, thus having the least character development. Still, their appearances provide some insight into their personalities, many human exchanges and reactions, and the occasional plot advancement. They are, for the most part, an excellent supporting cast.

Akane and Kotarou possess complex and distinctive personalities with pragmatic ambitions. Akane is in the track and field club, and hopes to continue her passion for running in college. She is easygoing, studious, and prone to ‘anxiety’, sneezing her potato sack to relax herself, and yet has a sociable demeanor. Kotarou is in the literature club, and hopes to becomes a novelist. He is carefree, composed, and likes to spout serious poetic line, yet acts silly when using LINE or when he’s pretending to box his lamp cord.

The character development for Akane and Kotarou is very noticeable. In the beginning, Kotarou was very reserved and shy, only speaking to his male friends. However, once Akane entered his life, he became more outgoing and confident. Some scenes that demonstrate his confidence include his confession, his attempts to hold Akane’s hand and asking her out on a date, and much more. The same could seen in Akane, such as when she asked for Kotarou’s number, or brought a birthday present for him. Overall, the main characters are great, and posses a surprising amount of personality and development.

ENJOYMENT:

I thoroughly enjoyed this anime from its interesting characters to its realistic narrative. It managed to make me smile, tug at my heart, and overall, turned my bad days into good ones. I recommend everyone to watch this show.