Tsuki ga Kirei is the most realistic anime series I've ever seen. On the surface level, when you're just reading out a synopsis or checking off boxes, it sounds like a very ordinary slice of life/romance series. Boy goes to middle school, boy meets girl, boy and girl start dating.
But the devil's in the details. Tsuki ga Kirei is not your typical school life series, and it goes about this by an extraordinary commitment to depicting reality in an understated and believable way. The first episode had my jaw on the floor with how much it mirrored certain emotions and experiences of my middle school years--most of all, the sheer awkwardness of that time of my life.
Middle school is the time when you really start figuring out how to become a grown-up; for many people, it's the first time really becoming aware of the opposite sex in a romantic way. As a middle schooler, just making eye contact can be incredibly difficult, if you're a shy or introverted type, as both of the main characters here are.
Tsuki ga Kirei captures this feeling better than I've ever seen it done before.
What you won't find here is over-the-top slapstick violence; characters defying the laws of physics or all semblance of reality. You won't find cheap forced jokes or tawdry overstated drama. You won't find characters wailing at the moon when they're upset--when they cry, they cry like real people cry.
Another aspect of the series which is strikingly realistic is its sense of location. Set in a smaller city northwest of Tokyo (Kawagoe), you can tell that the production staff really went all-out in studying the locations and customs of the area. Everything is depicted in gorgeous detail. And one strength of the animation style, which I will discuss later, is that the places in the show feel so populated compared to most animated series; large crowds of extras are not something you often see in an anime, but they bring the locations to life, and present a compelling argument for using 3D animation in the context of a series like this one.
The realism of the show is both a strength and a weakness. Except for some hilarious post-credits short episodes, Tsuki ga Kirei takes itself seriously--maybe a little too seriously. And because it's so engaged with the mundane, confused mess that is real life, it doesn't offer characters with huge earth-shattering traumas to recover from or razor-sharp, pointed thematic lessons.
That isn't to say the characters aren't well-realized. They are. Both Azumi and Mizuno feel like real kids, with distinctive goals, desires, and hobbies. And unlike in many anime shows, their families are allowed to be very important facets of their lives, but without seeming like abusive jerks or hopeless losers.
The storyline is the one part of the series which allows itself to be a little bit romanticized--in both senses of the word. It centers on relationship drama between the two protagonists. But here too some conventions are broken; while many series spend almost their entire run building up to a big confession scene, here it happens quietly and realistically early on. The show is about their relationship as a couple of kids learning what it means to be in a relationship--it's not about trying to find a relationship in the first place.
And yes, there is some love triangle drama. But the way it plays out feels authentic, and not forced.
There are some scenes which inspire emotion, but they never feel manipulative or exploitative. They're emotional because the situations themselves are tough things which many people have to deal with.
The epilogue, told via still images during the credits, feels a little bit tacked on--more the realm of fanfiction than a part of the main story--but you know, I never mind these things. Their presence makes me happy, because don't we all leave with questions about what happened to the characters we care about?
The one last thing I have to talk about is a pretty big one, and that's the presentation. There's no way around it, this series is heavily 3D-animated. It's very obvious in some shots, and not so obvious in others. Some of the wider shots did bug me quite a bit, mainly because the characters moved a little too stiffly and robotically. But as I watched, I grew more accustomed to the visuals, and in the end I can understand the choice to go the route they did. Because again, the approach they used allowed them to enhance the realism in certain key ways. Classrooms and hallways never seem half-empty here; busy streets never come across as ghost towns. This is something traditional animation does struggle with, and it's maybe not a big deal in a less realistic series, but in an anime where the mandate is clearly authenticity, it's easy to see why you'd want to use every tool at your disposal to make that happen.
So while it's not the most artistically satisfying anime I've seen, I think it accomplishes its purpose well.
Now, this may sound like a glowing review, and I don't have many unambiguous negatives to apply to this series. But here's the thing. With authenticity comes, maybe, a little less interest; a little less entertainment. A little less emotional power. Because when you're so committed to reality, you can't amp those things up the way most anime series do. So although I got emotional at times watching Tsuki ga Kirei, I never teared up, or laughed until my sides hurt. It doesn't have those peaks, even though it avoids some of the lowest valleys. So I don't know if I'm going to find myself thinking about this series weeks, months, years later; I don't know if I'll ever rewatch it.
Still, I'm glad I did. It's a fine little show, self-contained and with many pleasing elements, and which accomplishes its purpose well.
Eight out of ten.
