Youthful and cute, Nijiiro Days is all about exploring and reminding people of how beautiful youth is and what better way to show it than through the eyes of a high school group of friends and throw in some lovely romance in between as well? It's result? A super cute and fun to watch slice of life that just can't stop giving me these sweet moments. Since it's a slice of life the story was given less priority so it was quite understandable to see that little to no plot progression was seen as that's definitely not the focus of a slice of life. Apart from that it's plot scenarios were already seen before by many but were made even cuter by the amazing and cute characters. Since I'm repeating this a lot, I'll say it now itself and continue, Nijiiro Days is an anime that isn't the type which is serious and thick-headed. Nijiiro Days is an anime that you watch to relax and reminisce your youth if you're an adult or regret the fact that you didn't do anything in high school because you're too busy watching anime (ouch, that went personal). Nonetheless, Nijiiro Days is a cute and funny intake on the beauty of youth and is definitely worth the watch if you're looking for a nice slice of life to watch and enjoy and leave the show with a smile.
With that out of the way let's move on to the best the show has to offer: adorable characters. I've said this a lot before and I'll say it again: characters aren't just personalities, they give the show itself a personality and it's important that they are done well, which I'm happy to say was captured by Nijiiro Days perfectly. It had a Flustery non-dense MC for once which I felt was a breeze since romance anime nowadays are filled with dense MCs who don't know anything. This time the roles got pretty much reversed. Then we had a masochist (Matsunaga) and a Tsundere (Tsutsui?) who were adorable and hilarious to watch. Keichi got less focus on romance but he was a joy to watch, not to mention Nozomi who just so happens to be one of my favorite cutest characters from the show. She was adorbs! Everyone was!!! And did I forget to mention the best couple? Naoe and Yukirin were goals! I rarely use such Instagram-my language but I've got to say Nijiiro Days just brings it all out of you.
It wasn't just how amazing these characters were alone, what made them so awesome was that they all were intertwined so well in their interactions and the way they interacted was just so fun and at many times relatable to watch. I won't be surprised if my final score leads up to be my highest rated slice of life. It's just that good (said that twice now). Frankly I was surprised that Nijiiro Days had such amazing art with a low budget and so it felt doubly impressive. All the characters looked beautiful as well as vibrant. The color palette used was excellent since it was bright and fit in with the theme of youth perfectly and I'm sure the palette also fit in with your 4k monitor to you PC fans out there. Meanwhile Sonar Pocket did so well with both the OPs that its hard to imagine I still haven't downloaded their songs yet. I will definitely search for more of their songs now since their current selection for Nijiiro was so youthful and nostalgic.
After seeing all this positivity and seeing no negativity you might guess I enjoyed this show to the max and yes you're absolutely right. Such slice of life anime are hard to come by so I was glad I came across the manga which ultimately led to me watching this beauty as well so it was all good. Yet questions remain. Why wasn't this full length? Why isn't the show getting a second season? Why did we get a non-closure ending? The reason for all three might lie in the fact that the show's budget was pretty less. Lesser than usual. Why? The purpose of the anime wasn't anything like other anime, the purpose of this anime in particular was to raise awareness and boost dropping manga sales for the manga and frankly the show helped the manga set it back on track and to be honest I couldn't be happier since this meant the show achieved it's target. Yes I do feel a slight regret we didn't get to see more but since I already read the manga there's no use fretting over it. Another possible reason why they didn't give the show an anime exclusive ending might as well be for the second season itself, since if they don't give closure that would mean they'd be able to do a season 2 soon but that seems unlikely since sequel seasons are hard to come by for slice of life anime simply because they don't need them to raise sales. Which is why I'm satisfied with what I have (still, I won't be forgiving them so easily in the story section).
In the end Nijiiro Days is an excellent testament to the slice of life genre and the spirit of friendship, youth and love itself. Its only downfall being the sudden ending Nijiiro Days checks a lot of the boxes which make it great and overall it's definitely worth a watch especially if you love slice of life like I do. So? Will you give the show a try? I don't see much loss since if you're watching for the cuteness and the laughs you won't be disappointed. And you could always read the manga if you wanted ;)
