Kids on the Slope is focused on 3 specific main characters, who each fill their anime tropes they're intended to follow. Our lead Kaoru, is at the top of his class, and is a social outcast at his new school. He meets a young lady Ritsuko, who is the nice but timid class president, and she is also close with the rebellious troublemaker named Sentarou. Both Sentarou and Kaoru bond over their love of going up on the school rooftop, and through interacting with one another bit by bit they discover that both of them are fond of playing music. While Kaoru is a classical pianist, Sentarou is a jazz drummer, and pushes Kaoru enough to interest him into a famous jazz standard "Moanin' ". Through this, while not necessarily getting along at first, start to play jazz together and form a tight bond, while each of them falling in love with a different female.
What's great about this show is that all the getting to know aspects of the characters only occurs in the first episode, and as each episode continues more and more and more time passes through their time in high school. The real story isn't focused on the jazz aspect of the show, the show is primarily focused on these three characters, and two other characters, one being Sentarou's crush Yurika, and the other being a fellow jazz musician and role model of sorts to Sentarou, Junichi. These five individual characters are what makes the show, and how we learn through each point of view stuff that they have gone through, and stuff that they deal with in this current time.
This show, while sounding like lots of fun following the lives of jazz and friendship in love of multiple high schoolers, is really deep down a drama. Each character deals with baggage in their lives, and each struggle that they go through on a day to day basis is what the root of the show is about. In the end, it's not the jazz that the show focuses on, but just merely that a group of individuals who are close with one another appreciate jazz for their own reasons and deal with growing up. That's what I truly enjoyed about this show, is that while the first two episodes seem more like a comedy, with truly gut hurting moments, it molds itself into this very deep drama following heartbreak, death, family outcastings, and many more. It's what really took me aback, and made this show a very easy marathoning, because these characters are people you become invested in through each episode and root for no matter the hardship.
Being a musical show, what comes first is the music. The jazz standards that were used throughout the show, a few examples being "Moanin' ", "But Not For Me" and a jazz-arranged "My Favorite Things", are all very much known through jazz connoisseurs. That being said, a lot of these songs are also known to jazz casuals, and the focus on standards in the show is what I greatly appreciated throughout the show. While there were not a bunch of jazz-inspired songs within the OST, all the music within the show was extremely well done and put in at key moments correctly providing the right amount of satisfaction for the viewer. What really surprised me though is just how much I grew to love the anime opening and ending of the show. While both start off being your generic anime tune, the opening turns into an extremely gripping and high-energy visual spectacle that provides nice key notes to really satisfy the ears. The ending however, grows into an extremely heartfelt tune, one that is extremely touching while watching the pieces of animation that is shown. The best example I can provide for each is Angel Beat's "My Soul, Yours Beats!" and Wolf Children's "Okaasan no Uta", both exceptional tunes in their own ways.
What really surprised me the most about this anime, is the animation for the show. While the art style seems more generic in a sense, it honestly never falters in quality. The animation for the show is absolutely stunning, the entire show. There's no obvious dips that have stills or make things cartoon-y in shows that have tight animation budgets, which just goes to show how much was put in to the process of creating Kids on the Slope. The animation is gorgeous, especially within the opening credits. The voice actors for the show were all cast perfectly, but I greatly suggest doing a sub-only viewing of the show. While I have only seen clips of the dub, only two characters are viable to make the show watching, while the rest have cringe-worthy performances, with even worse dialogue. The dub tries to use lots of 1950's lingo within the show because of the jazz within the show, but the fatal flaw within the dub, is that no one talks like that whatsoever in today's world. So watching a show that has dialogue stolen from eras ago, in what is supposed to be a serious drama is a superb buzzkill, and is almost a parody of the original source material.
That being said, watching this subbed you will not be filled with complains, and the dub I am pretending does not exist so I am not counting it into my rankings whatsoever. In the end, Kids on the Slope is a powerful drama, filled with fun, laughter, tears, and overall enjoyment. Everything about this show is, in the end, satisfying. That should be the goal for every anime, and this one is almost the perfect model of how to create a satisfying series. While there are a couple characters or moments in storylines that are a bit bothersome, in the end the show succeeds in creating an engaging plot with characters you come to love. With fantastic production and a fresh new take on shows within the music genre, I cannot recommend this show enough. So go onto Crunchyroll and give this thing I shot, you will not be disappointed.
