Reviews

While the characters manage to avoid being completely stereotypical and Doukyuusei is a more 'wholesome' take on the genre, the relationship between our protagonists (Kusakabe and Sajou) didn’t feel like it developed naturally to me. I wouldn’t describe their relationship as being shoehorned into the story, and we do get some pretty typical ‘will they or won’t they’ drama, but I didn’t get the impression that I really knew any of the characters during the run time of this short film.

Now, I understand that this is a plot point as the characters are shown to have difficulties committing; the problem was that as soon as the relationship and the characters themselves started to show something resembling progression the film was already over. I think the opportunity was there for the filmmakers to develop the relationship in a more satisfying manner, but just 60 minutes wasn’t enough to do so. Considering this is a romance, if the actual relationship between the characters isn’t right then that’s too big of a problem to gloss over.

Besides the characters, I did like the other parts of Doukyuusei. The artwork is presented in an undetailed abstract manner, but had its own charm and personality. The sound design is naturalistic so there’s not much in the music department, but what was there helped add to the relaxed atmosphere. Those good parts aside, taken as a whole Doukyuusei is too underdeveloped as a love story for me to give it a recommendation.