Fastening Days

Yoji and Kei, a boy and girl, live in a town in the not-so-distant future with their foster parent, Anna. But these seemingly ordinary children have a secret hidden even from their unsuspecting mother.

Yoji and Kei are superhero defenders of their town! With a flap of their capes, the two of them and their robot bear sidekick, Oscar, protect the citizens in their town with their handmade high-tech machinery. But from what menace? And will our little heroes be able to overcome the crisis about to threaten the town's peaceful everyday serenity?

Check out this utterly electrifying near-future animation to find out!

(Source: Official website)

Kei Main

Shiraishi, Ryouko Japanese

Youji Main

Ono, Fuyuka Japanese

Anna Supporting

Sadaoka, Sayuri Japanese

Ishida, Hiroyasu Director

Matsuoka, Hiroki Sound Director

Tanaka, Junichi Script, Original Creator

Perfume Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Jun 13, 2017

MJynx251

Recommended

EPISODE 01: It was so ADORABLE.

The art style looks basically pastel colors, and since this anime short is for everyone of any age, it's also appropriate.

I've watched a lot of anime (probably not as much as some/most), but I can safely say that this was a great experience.

It's different. It's magical.

I mean, it's such a cute concept involving zippers and family!

... The short is worth approximately 10 minutes of your time if you want something a little new to your diet of anime.

EPISODE 02: So now there's an Episode 02 for this "series".

I will be keeping the score of 10 for Fastening Days.

The issues I have with the second Episode are the voices and the plot. Suddenly there's a show-offish young girl whose pronunciations are rather... awful. I mean no offense to the VA and I'm all for her type of voice, but I wish that someone let her redo her lines so that they could be understood WITHOUT aid (i.e. captions).

Plot-wise is OK for a second episode. There's not as much spice as there was for the first Fastening Days.

In all, still a score of 10. The concept of zippers is something I'm still fond of =D

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by MJynx251 (4)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

May 14, 2020

ReapersCrow

Recommended

Preliminary (4/1 eps)

Don't watch this expected a show with a deep plot or something that revolutionary. It is a simple series of short animations films presented by YKK. What is YKK? In short, they are a manufacturing group based in Japan that's known to as the world's largest zipper manufacturer. That's right, this is is a series of shorts meant to promote their zipper products. The products are even listed on their official site along with which episode the product is used in.

There are currently 7 episodes. Fastening Days 1, 2, 3, and 4. For some reason Fastening Days 3 and 4 is divided into ... 3 "episodes" for some reason on youtube but put together are roughly 10 minutes long. I guess you could say its really 4 episodes but it's just divided weirdly on YKK youtube channel and official site for Fastening Days (which just plays the youtube versions).

I'm making this review mostly cause I think the low score is unreasonable despite the positive reaction from a majority of viewers. Maybe they were expecting a full fledged series with a well developed plot. You won't find that here.

Enough the background of Fastening Days and I'll get into some light spoilers to the Fastening Days 1. You have orphaned two kids taken in by a windowed grandma. They invent a device that can shoot and attach zipper that the two kids use in creative ways to help and protect the people of their town. This can vary from zipping up a kiddie pool, helping a couple stay together by zipping their sleeves together or stopping a disaster from happening to the city. All of which are meant to promote a Zipper product.

Got to give YKK props and the directors who worked on this for the creative ideas to use zippers (specifically YKK products that they wer probably told to include). Also there's a bear that's invention left by the grandma's husband that can apparently understand human emotions. Obviously not explained by anything of the films and this is information I got from the character bios from the official website.

There's little to no explanation to the characters, the plots are simple at best, the animation can be repetitive (zipper pool scene) but at least the art and voice acting are pretty good. Non of the films are trying to be anything more than than a product placement with some child-like imagination and that's OK. Back when I saw this in 2014, I was quite fatigue on anime which is why I tend to prefer western animations but this was a breath of fresh air that I needed. It reminded me of why I still enjoy Japanese animation by letting relive that child-like awe.

Think of it as when seeing a Ghibli film. Now those typically have a more though out plot and a better budget. However, there's a consistent feeling that Disney and Ghibli films make their audience experience. I believe that's a kind of child-like nostalgia from how imaginative or creative or silly one was as a child. Fastening Days achieves that and that's why you should give it a watch. It's available on youtube and the official site in Japanese audio, Japanese audio with subtitles, and English audio.

Side Note:
The dub isn't too bad either but I know Japanese audio "purists" will refuse to listen. For dub listeners, it's pretty good and it's not like most Japnese Engrish. Some characters are voiced by either Japanese, British or American voice actors. The Japanese voice actors for the dub are more obvious from their accents but they still do a good job for the dub. A very strange dub but it gave amazing results.

It seems to voice actors change sometimes from film to film. Possibly due to the availability of the actors at the time. There are also different directors for Fastening Days 3 and 4. You may find a new character in the 2nd film annoying but I believe they got an indian voice actor for an indian character. (Based on the accent I heard). Unfortunately non of the voice actors are credited on the official site of facebook page so it's hard to tell.

Some may turn to the Japanese audio cause it's more at home or familiar in quality. Regardless of what version you watch, both are good.

Some may also enjoy that there is a very diverse range of background characters in the films which is refreshing to see from the same typical designs of some anime. It's not just skin tones, its race, accents (a little bit) and hair styles.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by ReapersCrow (2)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

May 18, 2015

ssclanker

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (1/1 eps)

Having just recently been introduced to the anime world. All I see are high school animes and more high school animes. And then some more. And after that I see shows like Zankyou No Terror which also shows high school students capable of destroying the world (mind you they were pretty old, but they still went to a high school). And then I see this show which I thought I would give a try since it was only one 11 min long episode. Considering that most of the YouTube videos that I watch are also approx. 10 mins long, I figured I might as well ... give it a shot.
And after that, lets just say it was nothing exceptional. With a rating of all ages, i'm assuming that it was meant for little kids due to the type of humor used in the show. Due to this, it wasn't really all that enjoyable since I had to lower my standards a bit to get the full enjoyment out of this. But it was ok. But still I have to admit, that there was nothing really explained at all.... Ok I'm not that good at writing reviews and stuff, but just watch it for yourself if you are that interested in this anime. I wouldn't recommend watching it unless you are studying the art work of the anime, but apart from that, I would say that it was mostly a waste of time sadly.
Again, there was nothing really explained. Basically its about two kids who go around blasting zippers on people and things that need to be zipped up. The motive for this is not shown (or maybe I wasn't paying attention) but it's there. Also we have a conflict with the two kids grandma which gets solved at the end. I don't know why I'm writing such a long review on this short anime. Just don't watch it. You probably won't regret it, but there are better ways to spend your time (unless you are an 8 year old).

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by ssclanker (1)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Digibro's 250 Anime Recommendation's (Part 5)

by Asadali0786

50 Entries · 30 Restacks

	Poll: Fastening Days Episode 1 Discussion Stark700 - Oct 30, 2014	33 replies	by matthigh »» Sep 6, 11:10 PM
	Separated entries? svefnpurka - Sep 10, 2017	10 replies	by anime-prime »» Mar 29, 2021 12:59 PM