Runway de Waratte (Smile Down the Runway)

Being the daughter of a modeling agency owner, Chiyuki Fujito aspires to represent her father's agency in the prestigious Paris Fashion Week, shining under the spotlight as a runway model. However, although she is equipped with great looks and talent, she unfortunately lacks a key element in becoming a successful model—height. Stuck at 158 cm even after entering high school, her childhood dream seems out of reach.

Meanwhile, Ikuto Tsumura is a high school student with a knack in designing clothes; however, without the resources to pursue the necessary education, his ambition of becoming a fashion designer remains a mere dream. But as fate brings Chiyuki and Ikuto together, the dim hopes within their hearts are ignited once again. Together, the two promise to rebel against convention and carve out their own paths in the fashion world.

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Adaptation:	Runway de Waratte
Other:	Runway de Waratte Mini Anime

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Characters & Voice Actors

Fujito, Chiyuki

Main

Hanamori, Yumiri
Japanese

Tsumura, Ikuto

Main

Hanae, Natsuki
Japanese

Hasegawa, Kokoro

Supporting

Kayano, Ai
Japanese

Tsumura, Honoka

Supporting

Ishikawa, Yui
Japanese

Ayano, Too

Supporting

Kimura, Ryouhei
Japanese

Niinuma, Fumiyo

Supporting

Suwa, Ayaka
Japanese

Moriyama, Kumi

Supporting

Tanezaki, Atsumi
Japanese

Igarashi, Yuu

Supporting

Kaida, Yuki
Japanese

Tsumura, Aoi

Supporting

Yamamura, Hibiku
Japanese

Yanagida, Hajime

Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Kamei, Hiroshi

Producer

Eriguchi, Takeshi

Producer

Sawada, Airi

Producer

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Opening Theme

"LION" by Ami Sakaguchi (坂口有望)

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Ending Theme

"Ray of Light" by Jae Joong

Reviews

Jul 19, 2023

sliceofpi

Recommended

If you have ever struggled trying to succeed at your passions, this anime is for you. Now, I know that there are many anime out there about characters working hard to achieve their dreams. But in many of them, the main characters have some special talent and end up being amazing at their passion, or gaining their skills very quickly. This is NOT that type of anime and I appreciate the creators so much for creating something different. In this anime, the characters actually struggle. They get turned down. They get told they should give up. They fail. They fail again. They achieve something, and ... you root for them, and then they fail again. But what matters is that over time, as an outsider, you can see them growing and becoming better slowly. This is what progress REALLY looks like for normal people and I love that it is portrayed realistically in this anime.

Story - 8
As I have explained above, I love that this story feels real. It is not just a classic story of someone working at their passion. It is a real story of someone struggling, but dusting themselves off and going forward despite everyone telling them to give up. I really like how the story focuses on two characters working hard, not just the main model we are introduced to at the start. It gives some perspective of the different types of challenges people face when chasing their dreams. However, I do think the anime struggled to maintain this balance just a bit. It felt like the story focused on the male fashion designer for a long time, practically forgetting about the female model's storyline. Maybe there is a reason for this, and maybe in the next part of the manga, there is a longer section focusing on the female model, but as someone just watching the anime, it did feel a bit off. I wanted to keep seeing the model's story as well as the fashion designer's. I did like the general movement of the plot though and how the characters advance to new challenges, without it being episodic. The story is entertaining and isn't as predictable as you would think.

Art - 8
The general art style isn't my favorite, and it doesn't have the amazing scenery of Re:Zero or Your Name. However, the art is still pretty good and I LOVE seeing the outfits. A lot of times in animated shows, the characters are usually just seen in one signature outfit, and obviously since this is a fashion show, there is lots of different outfits shown. I love seeing the designs even though I'm not someone super interested in fashion.

Sound - 7
I really like the opening, the ending is just okay. The general soundtrack is hit or miss. I like what is titled the "Main Theme" (at least in a youtube video of the OST), but there are some random techno-beat type songs that sound a little out of place to me and get repetitive. I also wasn't a huge fan of some of the songs with lyrics.

Characters - 8
I like the two main characters, but again it felt like the female model was neglected for some of the show, so I couldn't learn as much about her as I wanted to. I liked the side characters. There was a good mix of people, not everyone was nice to out main characters, but not everyone was mean and harsh either. I liked that other characters were shown to also have struggled with chasing their dreams, some having given up on them in the past. Overall, a good cast, but I wanted to learn more about the female main character.

Enjoyment - 9
This story was so refreshing. I loved seeing a realistic story of someone trying to achieve their dreams even when they have a lot going against them and aren't a prodigy. Moreover, even though I am not super interested in fashion, I still really liked the story and the dilemmas given to the characters.

Overall - 8
This anime isn't perfect, but it does something really important by showing people chasing their dreams in a realistic way. I really wish there was a season 2, but this is an anime that I will probably chose to read the manga for, even though I rarely do that unless I need to know the rest of the story that wasn't in the anime, like for Re:Life (another great anime).

I really hope you watch this anime. And I hope it inspires you to keep working hard to achieve your dreams, even it seems like you aren't cut out for it at all. However far you have come, you didn't get that far just to stop now. :)

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Nov 30, 2023

hexashadow13

Mixed Feelings

tl;dr: An anime about pursuing dreams that’s somewhat messy but still hits some really strong emotional highs.

This anime is themed around fashion and modelling, but that’s really just the backdrop. Before I started this anime I knew essentially nothing about fashion and modelling, and to be honest after watching it I would still say that I know nothing about fashion and modelling. However, despite that, it was still really easy to appreciate the character stories of people trying to pursue their dreams as they’re pretty well written and have a unique feel to them.

Though it may not seem like it at first, the protagonist of ... this tale is Tsumura Ikuto, a high school student that has always loved making clothes and dreams of being a fashion designed. However, because he’s the eldest son in a family with a deceased father, a mother that’s constantly in and out of the hospital, and three younger sisters, he looks towards pursuing a career that’s much more immediate and realistically achievable. What pushes him into actually pursuing his dream is a classmate of his named Fujito Chiyuki. She’s someone that had always dreamed of being a supermodel and walking Paris Fashion Week, and when she was a child she seemed like a prodigy for whom it was inevitable. However, she suddenly stopped growing at 158 cm, which is far below the 175 cm that is essentially a requirement to being a super model. Despite that she remains determined to achieve her dream regardless of how impossible it may seem.

The two of them are constantly faced with rejections and difficult situations as a result of their dream, with a constant pressure to just give it up and pursue something else. They face a number of complications that put them through the ringer and make it feel like the world itself is conspiring against them with crazy coincidences piling up and bringing them down. Though at the same time, there are major lucky breaks that push them forward as well. Such writing could easily fall into the trap of feeling pretty forced or cliché, but here it manages to navigate that pretty well, delivering really strong emotional beats without getting trite.

There are other areas where the writing excels. For example, how it show cases the bonds between Ikuto and his family is incredibly well done with his sister Honoka especially coming across really well. But there are also areas where the writing failed completely. For example, everything involving Kizaki. Though I found more of an issue the areas where it didn’t quite fail but didn’t quite reach it’s full potential. The biggest example of that would be centered around Kokoro. She’s another character who’s doing her best at pursuing her dreams despite there being a lot standing in her way. And honestly, I found her to be an amazing character with a really well told story.

The problem is that she overshadows Chiyuki, which makes Chiyuki’s side of the story feel off. The way things are framed Chiyuki should be the deuteragonist of the story, but the amount of focus she gets feels equivalent to the amount that various other side characters get, or less when compared to Kokoro. The way the anime is structured in switching between the two feels strange because it feels like its emphasizing that she’s important, but doing it in a really rushed manner, which kind of makes it feel like it’s intentionally snubbing her. I’m not particularly a fan of her, but it still felt kind of strange.

Furthermore, she isn’t the only instant of this strange writing. There’s a lot of minor events here and there that one would normally expect to be shown to at least some degree that are skipped completely. For example, the second round of a competition is skipped over entirely and it just cuts directly to the protagonist listening to the rules for the following round. It’s easy enough to figure out everything that matters from context, but it still feels jarring. Another example where things are even more muddled is the end to the anime, where it feels like it jumps around a lot to try to give the anime that feels more like a proper ending. But in doing so it takes a lot of oomph out of the ending to the arc itself and leaves a much weaker final impression overall.

The art and animation are pretty solid. As mentioned, I don’t know anything about fashion, but there were a lot of interesting and nice looking clothes. The regular character designs I think also worked well in making characters stand out and fitting with their role in the story. The soundtrack was fine. There’s a lot of what would be called runway music I guess, but I’m not much of a fan of that it seems so it didn’t do much for me. The OP and ED are pretty solid in terms of audio and visuals.

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Apr 27, 2020

YandereYuuya

Not Recommended

I regret watching this series. I realised about halfway through how poor it was, but saw it through, wanting the satisfaction of the ending. The ending was not worth persevering for.

The worst aspect of the show was probably the relentless melodrama. Characters hardly ever seemed to stop shouting and crying. Every time someone said something mean to a character, you'd get the dramatic *GASP*, their eyes widening, their body freezing, as if the universe were crashing down around them. When they felt like being especially extra, they'd even drop to their knees. After a while it just became comical and I found myself laughing during ...

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Poll: Runway de Waratte Episode 8 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Feb 28, 2020	65 replies	by phantom346 »» Feb 13, 7:53 AM
Poll: Runway de Waratte Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Feb 14, 2020	56 replies	by phantom346 »» Jan 17, 7:48 PM
Poll: Runway de Waratte Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Mar 27, 2020	93 replies	by degenerate-2002 »» Sep 16, 2023 2:48 PM
Poll: Runway de Waratte Episode 11 Discussion Stark700 - Mar 20, 2020	46 replies	by 1Konochi »» Jun 6, 2023 8:06 PM
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