Story 2/10: Well, the story behind Slow Start is about a girl, Hana, has a gap year between middle and high school due to having the mumps so she spends a year studying to get into a high school far away where people won't know her. So yeah that's basically the plot (omg gap year) which they mention, on average, once per episode. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but most of the time they're just hanging out doing stuff and then Hana is basically "oh yeah I have a gap year I'm nervous to tell my friends about it." Speaking of her friends, the only reason they're together is probably the most forced reason I can think of that all centered around Eiko. Kamuri was Eiko's childhood friend....who played together once as kids. Tama was in the same middle school as Eiko but never really spoke to each other. The three of them became friends with Hana after Hana said, in class on the first day, it was her birthday so Tama wished her happy birthday then the other three girls gave her charms from a train station and they go to view the sakura trees...that's seriously the best the writers could come up with? Speaking of the characters....
Character 4/10: The characters ranged from pretty good to no opinion to straight up garbage. The "pretty good" characters were Tama (real name Tamate) aka Tama-Chan who is the genki girl who likes playing dating sims and has the fang tooth (but is a skin fang instead.) Hiroe, the younger sister of the teacher is a NEET who...surprise, currently has a gap year. Then there is Shion, the titty monster landlady and Hana's cousin. Usually when either of those three are on screen, those are where the better character moments come in. The characters I have no opinion on are Kamuri (her seiyuu is the same one who did Kanna from Ms Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, just getting that out of the way.) She is very shy and is very clingly toward Eiko. Honestly she feels just like Eiko's pet for most of the series. Then there is the teacher who...I don't really have an opinion on honestly. The worst main characters of the series? Hana and Eiko. Hana is scared or nervous or worried about EVERYTHING and it gets really annoying, really fast. Everything they come across she's like this for little to no reason at all. Then there is Eiko who, when I think about it, is probably the worst character in the series. I'm honestly not sure what they want to do with her, as one minute she's the calm mature beauty and the next minute she makes you think she's probably a lesbian (the most obvious is with her teacher and they never explain why she's attracted to her.) For an anime that has no real plot and is about characters interacting with each other regarding whatever it is they are doing, having them be one of the least enjoyable things about the anime is not a good look.
Sound 3/10: The BGM is nothing special, the OP is skipable after the first 2-3 listens and the EP is ok at best. Not much else to really say here.
Art 8/10: Now as bad as everything else has been, this is probably one of the high points for me. The characters do look cute, the reaction faces they have regarding whatever they're doing is nice, the chibi forms are adorable, and the scenery looks pretty nice. Easily the high point of the series.
Enjoyment 5/10: It has it moments, but towards the end it felt like a chore watching it. It has it's good scenes and it's crap scenes. Didn't really drag but nothing really hooked me to see what happens next.
Overall 4/10: If you were to ask me who to recommend this anime to, I honestly could not give you a straight answer. I mean the girls are cute but most anime have cute girls. The art is nice but anime for the most part has pretty nice art. This is really the kind of series you can watch YouTube clips or webm or gif links and enjoy as well as save reaction images to your computer or phone to look at and enjoy but in terms of committing time to watching it, I would pass 100%. There are plenty of cute girls doing cute things anime out there that would be a far better use of your time than watching this.
