Reviews

Yuyushiki is a simple, fun, formulaic, and cute show where you can just enjoy the 'cute girls do cute things' trope without having to think about any of it. The story is exceedingly simple, and throws no real surprises one's way. A typical episode is simply following in the lives of Yui, Yuzuko, and Yukari as they go about their daily lives and engage in various hijinks. You have the themed setting, like summer break or new year's, the themed activity, like going to the beach or having a sleepover, and the one-episode arc of minor conflict, which can be as simple as it raining outside, or that they want to be friends with someone but they're embarrassed about it. There's also a running theme of sexual humor throughout, much of it directed at other girls, which is par for the course given the modest fanservice. There are rare exceptions where the story stands out, particularly that one incident with the 3D animated snowflake, but that seems to be a one-time thing. The most striking aspect of the writing for me was the constant wordplay, a good 70% of the show's humor relying on various chains of verbal word games. The art direction for Yuyushiki is, again, at least as good as it should be. Being from 2013 it has a fun, quasi-nostalgic style and character design, though you can absolutely tell they spent all their money on the pool scene, beach scene, and that one snowflake. Shots of the sky are also rather pretty, and seemed to be a cut above the rest of the art in the show. Beyond that all the art met the baseline for quality, the only major drawback being the totally-expected reuse of various shots. The sound design, much like the rest of the show, met the basic standards of quality. The music was alright, as was the voice acting, and the few 'sounds of life' that were present were of fine quality. The character designs for the three main girls are distinctive enough to leave an impression, though as a result of their use of bright colors therein the show suffers from a case of 'gee, guess who the main characters are', which is fine. The characters themselves had only as much depth as was necessary to tell the story at all, and their surface-level personalities weren't so shallow as to have them feel inhuman. In fact, this was one of the stronger points of the show. The studio, Kinema Citrus, in making an unadulterated slice of life anime, brought to life 3 characters who play off each other particularly well, and were perfect vessels through which to deliver the story. Yui, with her firm exterior veiling a genuine love for her friends, felt the most 'real' to me, and I feel like she anchored the show in a way her carefree compatriots couldn't. At the end of the day, while this anime isn't anything to write home about, I still watched the whole thing, including the OVA, which was a good addition, and the Blu-Ray extras, which were bland and a poor excuse for extra content. I thank Yuyushiki for the simple and uncomplicated contentedness of watching a Slice of Life anime, even if it isn't perfect. "Sh'pon!"