Houkago Teibou Nisshi

Even though Houkago Teibou Nisshi is categorized as a fishing anime, I like to think of him more as a sports cooking anime. When the characters manage to catch a fish, the anime celebrates the moment in a very conquering and rewarding way. He also praises the realization of the characters at the time of their meals, in addition to an organic preparation, the foods are always framed with an extra shine, there is an avidity built that stimulates a thirst for continuity in these actions. This method is very similar to that used in Dr. Stone, who also exalted his achievements well and was ... even more stimulating.

But even so, the anime is not interesting in all the minutes of its episodes, in fact I think it cannot escape the generic formula of this type of fixed-gender anime. Maybe this comes from the fact that he cannot relate any drama presented by the characters to the anime theme, so it turns out that when the story is not talking about fishing, it is absolutely nothing. He takes on a calmer and less unruly tone to try to extend the fishing theme throughout the minutes of the episodes until the end of the series, which is made worse by the fact that the direction makes dubious choices, with almost contemplative and slow plans, it's literally like he wants me to sleep in a few moments.

Houkago Teibou Nisshi manages to be interesting like most fixed-gender animes, but unfortunately, he also cannot escape the same repeated formulas.

There are two fundamentally essential main points that can be understood about this anime.

1) Name: "Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater", it's an anime about fishing.
2) It's a CGDCT (cute girls doing cute* things)

Now if you take these two main points and apply it into the most simple, straight-forward, and elementary way possible - this anime is exactly what you get:
Ordinary high school girls.
At a breakwater
Fishing

... I may not be saying it's a good thing and I sure ain't saying it's a bad thing.
I'm just saying it's exactly what it is described per its label.
Love it, hate it, feel however you want - it's exactly what it says it is.

Any emotional melodrama and misunderstood feelings?:
Any ecchi panty fanservice and groping?
Any romance between characters, straight or otherwise?
Any fast-paced comedy or bizarre craziness?
Any deeper themes and meanings hidden behind a seemingly simple narrative?:

No, it's just girls fishing.


The characters function as a cast and there are a couple funny and/or cute moments. I personally wouldn't say there's any special chemistry radiating from them, they're just sorta typical distinct characters.

The quality of animation, art, and sounds are all perfectly adequate from what I can tell. You can kind of hear some sounds of the water. When the girls talk you hear their voices...the fish themselves tend to be quiet...

There's some special focus & attention in regards to the details of fishing.
This is because this anime, as you've noticed, is about girls fishing.

Nothing deep for the narrative of the anime. PETA doesn't attack.They just fish.

TLDR Review at the bottom. Hopefully, that helped, thank you for reading it in advance.

After getting delayed due to covid-19, Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater finally makes a finish for fans of the CGDCT theme, not even just those fans, regular watchers or people getting into CGDCT alike can share the same pleasure that comes with the anime. What a successful comeback.

On first a look, mixing fishing and CGDCT may seem a bit odd at first, but after looking into what the theme has accomplished, it begins to become clear that just about anything can become better when you throw the correct amount ... of cuteness within each girl. The same applies to Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater. It has the correct balance of cuteness, and, well, doing things.


Story - 6:
The story is average, other than its niche fishing theme, the story brings nothing new to the table. Stories like so aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but there is no room for bettering the show. You could argue that not everything has to have a super complex storyline and sometimes simplicity is the best. But from a show made up of plots taking a duration of half an episode. I find that there is no attempt to embrace the simplicity of the story. It is just, the lives of student fisherwomen, that is all there is to it. Nothing too deep. Though I can’t say the same for the sea… Going back to the show’s layout, taking half-episodes to make for 1 plot at the time, it can be quite hard to pull off when intentionally trying to make for a particularly good or interesting story. As seen with other anime with the same layout, they tend to suffer from an overabundance due to, well, nothing else but the premise of the show that will never change. Not surprisingly, it is the same for the show though what I will point out is that unlike other anime with incredible consistent plots, it is “lives of student fisherwomen” where, living life in a world as given, isn’t just fishing 24/7, there are other aspects such as the normal outings every now and then, in saying this though, even these aspects aren't focused upon too much.

For a slice of life CGDCT, it does a good job at presenting what it wants to be, but even so, there was room for improvement for stoires as so, if only the story had more of a vairety to what was up with the club members it could have been better to sit through.

Art/Visuals - 6:
Really basic visuals, nothing too intriguing and it is probably something you have come across assuming you have seen a fair bit of anime in your lifetime. It had the normal effects such as black lines dropping from one’s head to convey the dead inside/depressed feeling, and the angle brackets for facial expressions. Essentially the norm.

The same goes for the animation, there were a few inconsistencies in frames here and there but it isn’t so much that it is unwatchable.


Sound/Audio - 6:
Really basic OSTs, even the OP is in the same category, what I will say however is that I enjoyed the ED better than the OP, it had a catchy tune to it and is quite memorable.

The VCs were okay, they did a good job at conveying character personalities, no problems to point out there.


Character - 7:
The characters were good, they all had nice chemistry between them, from the easily disgusted Hina, playful Natsumi, knowledgeable Oono and sly fox lady Kuroiwa. These characters sure did well together at bringing out the most of each other.

Starting with Hina, she does have some character development to her and is probably the only character who gets this treatment, she goes from easily disgusted about scary ad slimy fish but over time she begins to learn that things aren’t as bad as they seem to be with a few exceptions, the same goes with her fishing skills, she learns more and more about the new skills you can use in fishing, in which she shows her intrigue in. She isn’t the most special of characters to exist but she has been made to a good standard nonetheless.

Other characters such as Natsumi, Oono and Kuroiwa don’t get the development like Hina got, which is expected with the background to the club as well as the formatting of the episodes, but they do have their own little insights of when they were fishing, it is not expanded on so much, but it still exists there. It is a shame that these characters were kinda just left out to have nothing to add to their name other than a little history, but it was expected. Even if they didn’t have the same treatments as Hina did, they are still good characters that you can find an interest out of.


Enjoyment - 7:
I somehow ended up watching this religiously, it wasn’t so much that it was the most enjoyable thing in the world, but it was really good at what it was presenting so much so that I had to keep up with it whenever I could. In addition to this, you can also learn about fishing whilst watching, yeah, it went in one ear and out the next for me, but it was still enjoyable to see the different techniques people who fish use. Good quality and learning stuff on the side. Who knew the lives of students fishing could be so enjoyable.

Overall - 6.4 (6)



TLDR Review
Story - 6: Very basic story of the daily lives of student fishers in the format of 1 plot in every half-episode, but it does well for a s.o.l, if it had more vairety it would have been better.
Art/Visuals - 6: Very basic visuals you will have most likely come across
Sound/Audio - 6: Very basic OST and OP with the exception of a catchy ED
Character - 7: Good character chemistry, though only Hina is developed with others having a little insight into them
Enjoyment - 7: Ended up watching this religiously, you can also learn fishing stuff.
Overall - 6.4 (6)


As someone who found this unintentionally, I can say that the choice I made in watching this was a good one, so much so that I am also reading it’s source material due to its postponement of the anime. Honestly, this and a few other postponed stuff made for a good time to go for the source material that was still up and running depending on the different workers behind them. Anyways I guess that jumping in headfirst into things you haven’t seen yet isn’t always a bad idea, you never know what you might find.

So what is today's haiku?
Girls that do fishing.
May not give the best story.
But is a good watch.
- NextUniverse.