The words by Higehiro’s author, written in response to an alarming rise in copycat crimes since the beginning of the anime while true, do not prevent the enjoyment of said story. I’ve said it a thousand times, but I will say it again. You can enjoy a story and not agree with the things that occur in said story. I love playing Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. I don’t believe shooting and robbing random people is ok, yet I still enjoy playing video games. Why? Because my brain is developed enough to distinguish between fantasy and reality. I hope yours is too. For that reason, I found Higehiro to be a really enjoyable experience.
I had some knowledge of the light novel coming into the anime, but didn’t get a chance to check it out before the anime aired. Admittedly, I too was thrown off by the premise, but once I got into it, I realised not only were people overreacting, they were missing out on a genuinely heartwarming story. Before I go further, I will add that as far as the anime goes, there are NO romantic goings on between an adult and a child. The light novel on the other hand… well that’s another story. So if you found that to be a deterrent, don’t worry, you’re good. Instead, what we do have in Higehiro is two broken people at different stages in life, crossing each other’s paths at the perfect time. Sayu and Yoshida are exactly what the other needs and are able to help each other move on from the past as well as look forward a new future. While the show at times does make a meal of the whole young high school girl living with an older guy thing, its purely an innocent relationship in nature and I respect that. While I personally would not have minded romantic undertones, I appreciated that the story(anime) gives us a genuine platonic relationship between a girl and guy. We don’t get many of those, so this was a refreshing experience.
I enjoyed not only Sayu and Yoshida’s dynamic, but I think the side characters were great in this as well. There’s not a huge cast, but the 5-6 other characters that we see on a consistent basis in the story are really fun. While pacing wise, I felt things were a bit slow at times, that’s to be expected with this type of story. I loved the art style of the show. It’s the same studio and team behind last season’s Tomozaki-Kun, so similar glimmery style art and bright colour palettes. As with most slice of life, character designs were really well done too.
Look, Higehiro is not for everyone. It’s slice of life, a bit slow at times and technically does depict illegal activity. If you’re sensitive or unable to separate reality from fiction, leave it alone. If you are able to enjoy things and not equate them to real humans, this is a very fun and heartwarming story. There’s some genuinely positive themes such as accepting and moving on from the past, as well as dealing with dysfunctional families that can be taken from the show if you’re willing to listen.
Higehiro was one of the four best shows of this Spring 2021 season and I am sad to see it go. Higehiro gets 9 out of 10.
