This anime is also flawed. Well, "flawed" isn't maybe the best word for it. It's ambiguously fanservicey in a way that's ambiguously inappropriate.
Akebi is a middle school girl who wants to wear her sailor uniform to school and make lots of friends. She's an outgoing, friendly, lovely, and beautiful young girl who spends all her time at school making friends with her classmates, learning more about them, and helping them to overcome issues. She doesn't do that by heavy-handedly trying to psychoanalyze them, she just... is their friend, and it's her friendship that's healing to them. Her world is bright and beautiful, the music is amazing, everything about this anime is beautiful and lovely and cheerful, and if it weren't for one thing, it would be absolutely perfect.
It's an anime about friendship, and the healing power of friendship.
It's also got an amazing amount of highly specific fanservice.
The thing about this anime is that the fanservice is ambiguous. There's nothing about it that pops out at you, and you'll say "that was awful, I'm not watching this!". No, it's far more subtle than that. Two people can look at the same fanservice and take two completely different interpretations from it, one a lot more wholesome than the other. This wouldn't be a problem except this appears to be absolutely deliberate. It pulls right up to the line, and only just *barely* crosses it, if at all. In fact, it's almost masterful how well they sidle right up to that line. Even after watching all twelve episodes and enjoying the *heck* out of it, I wasn't exactly sure how to feel about it. Did I just watch a wholesome anime that celebrates friendship, adolescence and femininity, or did I watch a fetishistic, fanservicey mess that focuses on thirteen or fourteen year old middle school girls? The truth is, I *still* am not quite sure which of those I watched. Because it's so ambiguous, I decided to choose the more wholesome interpretation, but I don't blame anyone for, well, not.
It's actually rather a shame, because without these elements it would be a far better anime. It also wouldn't have the same beautiful atmosphere as it currently does because some of these quasi-innocent elements are core to the personality of this anime.
This was an amazing anime. It really was. It's beautiful, it's well made, the world it creates and pulls you into is bright, happy, and cheerful. And it left me feeling this really weird combination of "iyashikeied" and a bit unsettled.
To this day, I still don't know if it's Yuri. And that, right there, encapsulates the ambiguity that pretty much defines this anime.
So, for that reason, even though I personally rated it highly, I'm rating this "mixed feelings", because it's polarizing. Either you see it as containing implied quasi-innocent adolescent exploration, or as fetishizing early teenage girls. I can't predict which you'll take away from it. So... watch at your own risk, but if you can set all that aside, this is an absolutely beautiful anime that you won't regret watching.
