As I said, Place to Place is a romantic comedy that follows the lives of Tsumiki Miniwa and Io Otonashi. Despite the startling difference in height between them, they are the same age and thus, they are in the same grade in school. Tsumiki obviously has a huge crush on Io, but she cannot bring herself to tell him directly. Since this is a slice of life anime, the entire show is centered on the two participating in all sorts of activities together along with their fellow classmates and friends. There are no antagonists to serve as a threat to the main characters. It's all about Tsumiki and Io making progress in their relationship.
I will say the art seems to be good for what it is. The main cast looks good, the settings look good, all the people-
OH MY GOSH!!!
WHO DID THIS?! Who thought it was okay to gray out and white polka-dot all the surrounding people in this?! Every other anime has everybody look like normal people. If this is what the illustrator of the manga did, then screw them. Unless you're doing an anime adaptation of To the Moon, there is no reason to do this sort of thing.
Tsumiki is really strong for a character who is really short, though it's probably just a thing the writer put in for comedic purposes. There are several moments where the anime shows Tsumiki's superhuman strength such as being able to pick up and throw giant snowballs or cracking eggs with just a mere tap of a finger. However, this strength never comes to be something important to keep in mind. If anything, sometimes I wish Tsumiki is a protagonist of an action adventure anime because watching a little girl Bruce Lee her way through her enemies would be funny.
Io might be the only character who stands out to me. Since he is Tsumiki's crush, any time he gives the girl a pat on the head, cat ears pop out. No, Tsumiki doesn't have any cat DNA in her. It's just a comedic visual. To add on to that visual, cats are easily attracted to Io. Io is shown to be able to spin a pen really fast, which comes off as impressive to other characters. The one thing I can easily relate with Io is his hatred for mosquitoes. I mean, I'm sure we all have experienced some bad summer nights because when it's time for bed and you're trying to get some sleep, those little pests just love to buzz right next to your ears. It made me happy to see Io snipe every mosquito that showed up. Other than that, he's just there to give Tsumiki his support whenever he can.
One of Tsumiki and Io's friends is Hime Haruno. I'll be blunt. "Hime" is definitely an unfitting name for her. Remember that I mentioned girls getting nosebleeds earlier in this review? Yeah, Hime gets them extremely frequently each and every time she witnesses a cute and/or romantic moment between the main duo. They even show it in the opening sequence. It's not just her. There are times where Tsumiki experiences a nosebleed as well. There is even one moment where Io made every girl in school get nosebleeds, and at that point, I got really sick of that gag.
The next character is Mayoi Katase and she's a very mischievious girl. She likes to play pranks on her friends such as giving them chocolate with frog legs inside on Valentine's Day... YUCK! It was so traumatizing that the characters remembered it the next time they gave each other chocolate. You know, if there's one thing a slice of life anime shouldn't do, it's to forget events from earlier episodes. The chocolate shenanigans is one of the very few things the characters remember. Most of the time, after an event or activity, it never gets referenced ever again as if it never happened. I think that's a major negative I have with Place to Place. Though in Mayoi's case, the anime does show to reference events from an earlier episode in a later one. For instance, Mayoi likes to tease Tsumiki over her crush on Io, sometimes to the point it gets on Tsumiki's last nerve. This leads to Tsumiki using her immense strength to beat up Mayoi. In the very first episode, Mayoi made Tsumiki mad and the latter sent the former right into a wall. In a later episode, Mayoi makes Tsumiki mad again in the same area and is thrown into the wall again. It's shown that the hole from the first time is still there. I feel so sorry for the owner.
The last character is Sakaki Inui, the only other male character in this friendship circle. Sakaki is Io's best friend as the two of them are seen working part-time together in a cake shop and they like to go to the arcade to play games. Sakaki is also Mayoi's partner in pranking the other characters. Like Mayoi, Sakaki frequently is a victim to getting smacked, although it happens accidentally. Remember the giant snowballs back on my paragraph about Tsumiki? Well, Tsumiki tried to get her snowman's head on top of its body, but ended up dropping it right on Sakaki.
Now, this anime's music... I don't like the songs. The beginning of the opening song is totally annoying. The ending part of it is fine, but gosh, trying to listen to it from start to finish was not a fun experience. The only thing going for it is that the voice actors of the five main characters sing it. The ending song is only sung by Tsumiki's voice actress. Don't get me wrong, I think Rumi Okubo did a great job, but the song itself isn't catchy at all to me. Also, the ending sequence is literally an advertisement for figures of the characters. It literally shows off all of them while they're rotating.
Place to Place may be a cute little slice of life anime, but it definitely has not aged the best. The grayed out and white polka-dotted citizens and students look completely ugly. The music wasn't my cup of tea and the voice acting wasn't anything special. The characters themselves are fun in their own ways, but most of the things they do together don't stand out and as a result, I'm just left unimpressed by the end of the anime.
If you enjoyed Place to Place, I wish I could too. I feel like as a slice of life anime, it's been completely outclassed by some series that came after it. The things that the other slice of life shows have actively come into play making them much more better options than this. Place to Place would not be a good introduction to the genre, and I'm glad I didn't pick this as my first slice of life anime. I just want to get this one out of the way before I bring myself to talk about the slice of life shows that I do like.
