Sakamichi no Apollon


Kids on the Slope

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Sakamichi no Aporon, Apollo on the Slope
Japanese: 坂道のアポロン
English: Kids on the Slope
German: Kids on the Slope
Spanish: Kids on the Slope
French: Kids on the Slope
More titles

Information

Type: TV
Episodes: 12
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Apr 13, 2012 to Jun 29, 2012
Premiered: Spring 2012
Broadcast: Fridays at 00:45 (JST)
Licensors: Sentai Filmworks
Source: Manga
Genres: DramaDrama, RomanceRomance
Themes: HistoricalHistorical, Love PolygonLove Polygon, MusicMusic, SchoolSchool
Demographic: JoseiJosei
Duration: 22 min. per ep.
Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 8.301 (scored by 172434172,434 users)
1 indicates a weighted score.
Ranked: #2612
2 based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity: #600
Members: 385,967
Favorites: 7,035

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Filtered Results: 186 / 191
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Preliminary Spoiler
Jun 28, 2012
Let's do a trivia here! Are you someone who wants to know what it is like back in the 1960's? Ever wanted to build an escapism from the harsh reality of today's world? Want to just sit back and enjoy some old school music after a stressful day? Well, perhaps you've found a series worthy to invest your time into because Kids on the Slope is there and sure to give you something to think about.

Kids on the Slope (also known as Sakamichi no Apollon) is a story taking place in the beginning of summer, 1966. It stars the protagonist Kaoru Nishimi, an honor student ...
May 22, 2015
Mixed Feelings
I love jazz. Some of my favorite memories of my time living in Florida have to be going downtown to listen to the local jazz festival. Sitting in front of that gazebo and getting into the spirit of the musicians is something you can only experience if you listen to jazz. It’s so different from any other musical genre and I was excited as hell to get to watch an anime centered around this amazing style of music.

The problem is Sakamichi no Apollon isn’t as much about jazz as it is about lame characters. There’s jazz in the series, and it definitely plays a part, ...
Apr 12, 2012
Preliminary (1/12 eps)
Okay, the first episode of this wonderful show with tons of potential popped up about an hour ago, and I just had to write a review. (This is my first so cut me some slack, pl0x.)

First of all, I'd like to say that I have been anticipating the airing of this show for a while now, and so far, it has surpassed my expectations. The story begins with our main dude Kaoru who apparently moves around a lot due to his father's job, but I won't get too into that to avoid any accidental spoilers. Instead, let me fill the gaps what you can be ...
Feb 20, 2015
First of all, I must say it's been a while since I've enjoyed a series as much as I enjoyed Sakamichi no Apollon.

The story itself has an amazing pace, and in my opinion, has the perfect combination of romance, drama and music. The developments feel very natural and there are no fillers. The only "complain" I can have from the story is that the ending might feel a little unsatisfying. Luckily, if you end up feeling unsatisfied like me, you can read the extra volume from the manga and I can assure you that you'll feel a lot better after reading it.

The art is okay, ...
Aug 30, 2017
Sakamichi no Apollon is a school drama from 2012. The original manga was written by Kodama Yuki. The anime version was brought to us by MAPPA & Tezuka, neither of which I've seen a lot from. I don't know what to expect from this one at all. So, let's just get right into it.

Story:

Our focus is on Nishimi Kaoru, a bright young student who plays the piano and moves a lot. He's also a complete drama queen, but we'll talk about that later. Nishimi suffers from social anxiety issues and feels the need to get some air on the roof after things take a ...
Jun 16, 2012
Preliminary (10/12 eps)
I usually don't watch josei but I decided to give this one a shot. Got tired of all that shounen crap some time ago.

Well, what can I say, there is a certain beauty about this anime.

The story: Certainly the cliched motifs of love triangles and rectangles and all the overused dynamics are in there BUT I was shocked to find that I actually enjoyed everything quite well.
For one, the relationships have much verisimilitude and show a more inexplicable human aspect rather than the KISS THAT SOLVES IT ALL type stuff. The thing with Sentaro, Yurika, and Jun-ni is definitely a BIG PLUS to the Ritsuko ...
Dec 22, 2013
As someone who hasn't good much background on both Jazz music and Japan during the 1960s, I was wary of watching it at first.

And yet it succeeds in its combination of josei, drama and high school slice of life. The show features Kaoru, the socially-anxious new kid in a quiet, rather remote town, who has been blessed with piano-playing skills. Through jazz, he finds the greatest of comrades, a family and even romance.

The story, as most josei goes, isn't anything too intense. It just shows the life of a jazz-playing boy as he goes through high school with his friends. I love, though, its ...
May 19, 2020
Treasure your Friends, Unlike Love Affairs, Friendship is for Life.

Kids on the Slope follow the story of Nishimi, Kaoru as he started a new life in the far countryside of japan. Kaoru has been struggling to form meaningful relationships with peers of his age, due to his constant switching school because of family circumstances. This unfortunate lifestyle is the sole reason why he felt alienated when encountering new people. He develops “Anxiety Nausea” as a coping mechanism whenever he becomes socially stress or nervous when people approach him. But everything changes once he forms an unlikely friendship with Mukae, Ritsuko, and Kawabuchi, Sentarou.

The story ...
Nov 8, 2013
Are you ready for a bromance so strong, you’ll feel friendship tingles down the shaft of your peen? For romance elements so complex, they are no longer love triangles--but instead, terrifying, ever-growing love polygons of doom? For jam sessions so boppin’ they could make the late, great, Sun Ra tap his foot in his grave? Then my friend, you are prepared for Kids on the Slope.

At a glance Kids on the Slope is nothing more than a high school drama, akin to the hundreds which flood contemporary media. While I’ll admit that I do enjoy a show that makes me feel my proverbial ovaries rubbing ...
Feb 8, 2014
This was an anime that popped up in my recommendations for a while based off various other's I watched. I simply didn't believe it would be anything close to what I wanted and became frustrated seeing the same cover page over and over of which I wasn't to fond of. I refused to watch it time and time again based on my own superficial reasons until I finally said to myself "it's 20 minutes of my life, I'll watch just one episode." It wasn't just 20 minutes, it ended up being a good portion of the season before I had to finally ...
Aug 28, 2013
How much you enjoy Sakamichi no Apollon is largely dependent on your level of emotional maturity.

SPOILER-FREE™

Sakamichi no Apollon translates to “Apollo of the slope,” not “Kids on the Slope,” so whatever translation you want to use really doesn’t matter. Kids on a Slope may look on the surface like a typical clichéd romance anime with lots of misunderstandings, too much drama, love polygons and people sort-of-but-not-really changing who they love. You may be tempted to think that’s all Adolescents on an Incline is, and you should give in to that temptation because that’s exactly what it is.

Juveniles on a Slant, by the way, is totally ...
Aug 17, 2020
Mixed Feelings
Do you like jazz? Would you like to see a show where jazz is the focus? Where the characters have fun playing some good ol' jazz pieces with each other and talking about jazz pieces? Then this anime is NOT for you. Do you like normal cliché romance with poorly constructed drama with a far too fast and disappointing ending? Then this anime is for you!
This anime let me down in all respects, even though the first five episodes are pretty darn good and have the right pace and you get well introduced to the characters' backstories.

Story: 5
The story has a good layout. A rich, ...
May 16, 2014
The story consists of a lot of romance tropes, and really tends to play up it's character drama. I didn't enjoy the romance stuff very much, but I feel like the show worked remarkably well in portraying the tension of the relationship between characters through music. When the characters are playing music together, you really can feel their emotions come through, and I thought that was really impressive. The characters, and their interactions with each other were really the best part of the story, despite the otherwise pretty boilerplate storyline.

The art was very nice as well. Everything had a very detailed, realistic look to it ...
Jul 28, 2014
Once again we are encountering a great anime. Kids on the slope is another combo between Shinichiro Watanabe and Yoko Kanno. I can't imagine now if someone else did a screen version of Kids on the slope. But lets get to the point.

The story focuses around Kaoru, who is your normal geek, straight up alone and unexperienced when it comes to real life. He loves studying and playing on instruments. Because of that he apparently can't fight and stand by himself, and this is where another character is introduced to help Kaoru. Sentarou on the other hand is your typical badass character, who doesn't give ...
Jun 29, 2012
This is my first time writing a review here and I tried my hardest to leave out any real spoilers. So, here we go:

Sakamichi no Apollon started out with a powerful episode and ended with a powerful episode, but seemed to get lost in a tangle of badly handled and clichéd romance and some unneeded melodrama. The series also suffered from bad pacing, though that only really started to show itself toward the middle-end of the run, this was when the fast pacing became a double edged sword and affected not only the plot, but the characters as well.

So now, let me look at the ...
Sep 3, 2014
Set in 1966, Sakamichi no Apollon is centered on Kaoru Nishimi as he moves to Sasebo to live with relatives due to his father’s job. Naturally, he’s a loner, a great student, and completely isolated from people since he’s always been moving around; he doesn't try to get attached to people in case he must leave them again. But there’s something in the air in Sasebo, and it’s not just love or friendship, it’s a new sound (to Japan at least) known as jazz. Music isn't new to Kaoru as he’s a classically trained pianist, but jazz is certainly new and interesting to him, as ...
Feb 12, 2016
OK, so before I say what makes Kids on the Slope good, I'm going tell you the reason why you might want to watch something else.

It's a highschool-romance-X-music-anime, set in a time period you probably don't care about, featuring a music genre you probably don't care about. The only conflict in the show develops from the characters not being able to fucking say what they are actually fucking thinking to each other.

There's three kinds of people in this world, Type A; the kind of person that thinks "yeah, this probably isn't for me". That's totally cool, there's heaps of good shows out there, go watch ...
Sep 6, 2013
It’s not gay if it’s a three way.

As always, my reviews are spoiler free.

Jokes aside, looking at the surface of Kids on the Slope, one might think that it is a just another music SOL anime such as K-On! or Tari Tari. After all, each of these series is about a number of high school students living out their normal lives, all brought together by music. Look a bit deeper however, and you will see that Kids on the Slope, directed by the famous Shinichiro Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, is a totally different entity entirely.

Story - ...
Oct 12, 2013
Preliminary (9/12 eps)
Sakamichi no Apollon (or Kids on The Slope) is like a breath of fresh air from recent anime developments and definitely stands out from the rest. I don't think a show could have impressed me this much just by watching the first episode, and it left me with a better feeling than any anime I've ever watched ever has.

The animation is super unique as well, and far different from the cutsie pop-art style that's used so often to the point where you can't tell one anime from another. To summarize it briefly, it's the summer of 1966, and a really reserved kid named Kaoru Nishimi ...
Jun 29, 2012
Jazz.
I'm not quite a fan of it but, it's an "okay" music for me.

Josei?
Rarely read any manga of it, especially watch any of it.

These two factors gave me a very strong reason not to like this series, and yet here i am, writing this very sentence in front of my computer. Why is that? Let me escort you to the very "Realistically Enjoyable" series called Sakamichi no Apollon.

The story was set in the 60's when people would remember one of the biggest musician of all time, The Beatles. Their captivating staging while doing their concert, their youth, their wide musical genre which is known from ...