Turns out it's a bit of both.
The short episodes were slightly concerning to me, since I'm used to listening to hour long ASMR videos. But it became quickly apparent, that this anime serves a different purpose than the ASMR videos on YouTube.
While each episode does contain its fair share of ASMR, it also has its characters constantly giving commentary on it. As they don't whisper when commentating and just talk as they normally would, it can drown out the ASMR part at times.
(Personally, I did find it slightly annoying at first and thought to myself, can they please shut up during the ASMR parts??)
But then I realized that if I wanted to listen to ASMR uninterrupted, I could just go to YouTube.
So what exactly is the purpose of this anime, if not to relax while listening to ASMR? To tell an entertaining story perhaps? Well, some episodes follow an ongoing narrative with reappearing characters, but others are completely detached from the rest. However, it is fun to imagine that ASMR artists might have gone through similar experiences irl as the characters in the anime
(like your mom wondering why there is a head in your room or explaining to your friends what ASMR is). But I wouldn't say the story is the main focus either.
In my opinion, the anime serves as an introduction to those who have heard of ASMR, but don't really know what it is or are curious to try it out.
Just like the characters in the anime, which are doing ASMR for the first time themselves :D It felt like a showcase of different ASMR sounds, similar to the previews at the beginning of long ASMR videos on YouTube (especially episode 9). The difference being, this preview is 12 episodes long, has cute girls talking over the ASMR parts and it's all animated!
To sum things up:
pros:
- anime contains some good quality ASMR
- anime has some funny moments with its characters
- nice animation
cons:
- characters interrupt / talk over ASMR parts
- some sounds could be closer to the mic (but that's just my personal preference)
- not many sounds on the right ear
Overall I would say, if you like ASMR or if you are interested in finding out what its about, give this a watch :)
