Overview:
Shy girl on track team meets shy boy who wants to write after being assigned to the same committee.
Review:
This one is pretty much a nothing start. The character designs (well more the colour scheme) is a little bit obnoxious, but otherwise there really isn’t anything to complain about. There also isn’t a lot to praise either.
The main character reminds me a lot of Naho from Orange (and I remember how much I liked watching her) but there’s nothing so far that’s really a problem. Mostly this episode seems to be setting things up. It’s slow but pretty standard fare. I’ll give it another episode though this one is not a high priority for continuing at this point.
Tsukigakirei is available on Crunchyroll.
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Karandi James.
From reading your thoughts on Tsuki ga Kirei’s first episode I can already tell we look for very different things in our shows. However, I think that your review of the first episode here misses out on the features of this show that not only hooked me into its world but also made this episode my 2nd-favourite first episode of the season so far.
(Just for the sake of better understanding my perspective, K-On is one of my favourite shows ever and I love anime about kids being adorable because I’m paternal as heck, ok moving on)
Ever since I watched the Anime Mirai 2014 short Harmonie, I’ve had an especially keen ear for scenes in anime that accurately portray the hectic and sound-cluttered setting of a bustling school. I love hearing conversations overlap and fade in and out of the foreground. Tsuki ga Kirei, from its first episode, was already showing me that it understands environmental sound-crafting, and I found myself so impressed with how it not only was able to create a loud and cluttered soundscape but also pick out and accentuate the conversations it wanted you to listen to. Similarly, I was impressed by the show’s restrained approach to its soundtrack- I love shows that let their scenes play without background music, it helps me get immersed in a show’s world when there’s no extra music there to take me out of the experience.
The characters in Tsuki ga Kirei are all people I want to hug and feed cookies, I love their character designs, I think they’re all adorable as heck, and their personalities are all really loveable to me too. At so many points during that first episode I found myself saying “Oh my god yes, I have had EXACTLY that thought before!”, especially during the scene where main girl (I think?) found out that yes, unflavoured iced tea is bitter XD Relating to likeable characters is hugely important to me, K-On succeeded in making me relate to everyone in that show and that’s why it worked for me and Tsuki ga Kirei is working for me too.
I understand this episode didn’t engage you, but as an engaged viewer myself, the thing that finally sold me on loving this series is its references to actual obscure books and music. If you take a couple minutes every time the show mentions something and look it up, you’ll find that all the media in Tsuki ga Kirei is real-life stuff! I like when a show does this, I think it helps you get an idea of what mindset the showrunners are approaching their work from, and again grounding a show in real things like this makes it even more easy for me to get immersed into it.
Ooh, I’ve also been enjoying that the relationships between characters seems like they’re not being written as melodramatically strong, but rather as the weak but polite friendships that you’d expect a bunch of polite middle schoolers to form. Everything about the show is adorable realism, and that just so happens to TOTALLY be my thing, so yah, that’s all I had to say 😀
Thanks for the detailed comment. I love the fact that anime can appeal to so many different people in different ways and its great that enough different shows come out that most of us can find something each season that works for us.
I got most of the references or at least enough to know they were referencing something, but that didn’t make the actual story of this anymore appealing to me. Having watched the second episode before deciding to drop this I more or less stand by my initial opinion. There isn’t anything here for me. While the characters might be cute they don’t feel real to me.It kind of feels like a stylised version of what school rather than feeling like a school setting (though that is just my view).
While the aesthetic the show has gone for with both appearance and sound works well and will definitely appeal to some, it isn’t grabbing me. Then again, I didn’t make it through the first episode of K-On so clearly looking for something a bit different when picking a show.
From what I’ve seen, I’d recommend this show to others to watch if they are into the genre or similar shows, but given I’m not, I am moving on. I really hope you enjoy the rest of the season and I’ll look forward to seeing your final thoughts.
And here I thought this was worth watching
I don’t think I can talk about this one but I do like how it was being set up. That said, you are right nothing happens. The color scheme is only annoying because it isn’t very accurate. The shine on their hair is supposed to represent where the light is shining from but they also use that even when their in a place where light is hitting them from all angles so artistically it doesn’t make sense.
This one is on my list to check out for Spring season. I’m sitting down now to start watching some of the new stuff to see what I wanna keep up with. 🙂 I’m really excited to be able to read your reviews as I actually the episodes now! Your posts are awesome. Thank you!