Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari

One word is all you need to change the path you lead. The detrimental choices of life is but a commodity that leads you to a whole. Here we follow a Web designer named Souta Tawara, who, after his father’s death, visits his childhood prefecture of Kagawa, the home of Udon noodles, which funnily enough doesn't play a part in the body of the story, but to an extent remains part of the overaching plot. He soon meets and houses a young “boy”, and the story begins from here. Considering this is a Slice of Life anime, story isn’t something of total necessity, however thereis a fair supernatural backdrop of Poco being a Tanuki which was something I liked during the early stages, however as I delved into the series, I don’t particularly believe that it was something of true value, as the whole scenario hardly plays a part during the series, but I assume it was something added to differentiate this series from others that are within the same regime. Regardless, I felt it could have been improved, but it didn’t hurt the series either, so don’t assume as such in order to have incentive to avoid the series. Other than that, the story is bare bones SoL, so you shouldn’t expect much here. The characters is where this genre truly shines, and I feel this series does a fairly good overall of portraying them. All characters I feel from the cast felt refreshing and unique, and most importantly memorable due to those features. Although there are some generic tropes re-used here and there with them, but I feel they still do the extra than your bare average series. Character development is also very much vocal for its positive aspects. The ones most affected, as you would expect are the main two, Souta and Poco. For Souta, he became a person that didn’t want you shoulder responsibility, to something a parent would dream for. Poco, on the other hand, becomes human in personality. I really love Nakajima’s character, and I’m not sure if this is intended, but I feel he is, what Souta couldn’t become. He inherited his father, whilst Souta couldn’t. He did it before he could regret. If this was intended, kudos! One character that stood from other background characters for me was Rinko; Souta’s sister. I enjoyed her transition from being a quirky and lazy woman to one that makes the effort, as she become pregnant, she speaks for many people in real life that change to accommodate their later family. There are other background characters, who whilst don’t develop per se, they continue to show up throughout the series, and just assist our main characters, as you would expect from an SoL. What I also really enjoyed about this series is all of the visual imagery, especially during the introductory episodes. I felt it did a good job for rural Japan. But its key purpose I feel was to reflect the emotions of the characters. There was a scene where the sky went dark to represent the darkness in the heart of Souta, but it cleared up, as he found someone he can finally cherish in his life. He and Poco are alike in that approach, as Poco has lived for 1000 years under the same loneliness. However, this series delivers a touching, bubbly bonding of the two, which makes you forget the dark connotations underlying their origin. One complaint I have however is how perfect they can be together, in a sense it can be unrealistic at times, but who cares right when you have the “kawaii”. Something I didn’t like was the structure of this series as it honestly felt out of place. To put it in retrospect, the beginning and the latter parts of the show had a serious tone, however their transition into your typical SoL or out of it, which was the body of the show felt almost incoherent. I could piece those two jigsaws of a puzzle and they would fit with each other, but they don’t fit how they are currently locked. However, tying up some loose ends of the series made it soothing to watch as I slowly got used to it. I feel like this anime, similar to many others, suffers from the lack of episodes provided to it. Had it been 24/25, it would have made for better pacing. Artwork for this series is clean and simple, as it should be, there’s nothing truly too melodramatic about a slice of life. I liked the use of the white outline as a colour of purity, which sums up this series whole. OST is also befitting the series, as they use violin/piano/acoustic guitar for light sounds which complement the scene, but never take your attention away from it. The opening, conveys a feeling of brightness, whilst the ending chooses slow tempo to again follow suit with the simplicity aspect. Overall, I feel this anime is worth giving a shot, as it exhibits the tranquilising yet loving father-son relationship between Poco and Souta, loving characters and beautiful visuals. Aside from that, it has a mild overarching plot which I believe is hardly worth mentioning, however doesn't interfere with your viewing experience.