With the passing of every year one can't help but feel nostalgic at times. As you get older, you might find yourself asking, "Where did all the time go?" or "When did I get so old?" In those moments, we often find ourselves looking back towards the past. There were moments that you felt happy and sad, content and depressed, ecstatic and lazy, full of love and full of regret. There were the soaring highs and there were the abysmal lows. There were moments when you wondered what if. Would things have turned out differently? Did I make the wrong choices? The possibilities are so vast that they can make your mind wander endlessly. However, the past is the past and what's done is done. After all, what good is a life that starts with an "if"? You are right here.
Otona Joshi no Anime Time is a set of four short stories that peer into the lives of Japanese women. This isn't a series that's full of bliss, but rather a crude, unpolished look at what life really is, and can be like. For some, it may be extremely touching and heartfelt. For others, it might seem uninteresting and boring. Having completed all four of the episodes myself, I would say that this series is deliberately intended for a more mature audience. It's a series that makes you look over your shoulder, wondering if you made the right choices. It's a series that makes you afraid of getting old. It's a series that makes you want to go home and tell your mom that you love her.
Each episode has their own varying degree of earnestness and subtleties; some of the stories come off as very disheartening, and others empowering. However, within each episode lies a lesson. Using well-crafted symbolism, dialogue, and direction, it's as if you've been bestowed with a little bit of life's wisdom after each twenty minute segment. It's empowering and it's beautiful. The art, animation, and sound were good, all being somewhat different, yet fitting. But that's not what's really important here. It's not something you watch to be wowed by visuals. It's something you watch to be wowed by realism.
At some point or another in your anime-watching lifetime, you should watch these episodes. It's not because they're episodes full of cutesy girls doing cute things, mindless shounen asspull entertainment, pixelated crotch teasers, or 2deep4u plot twists. You should watch these episodes because they showcase what it means to live.
