Anime ATM 91 Itsudatte Bokura no Koi wa 10 cm Datta

So we've moved back into the dorms and for some reason it feels more sad than when I first moved into these dorms for the year. Probably because I saw my family for such a long and uninterrupted period of time. That, plus the fact that I watched the Black Mirror movie made me both sad and scared at the same time. What better way to remedy this dual-negative feeling than to watch some shoujo?

{Spoilers, but not really because it's such a short shoujo series}

So first of all, this series is only 6 episodes with each episode being your standard 23 minutes. So that should already give you an idea of how easy it is to binge if you're like me hehe. And obviously you can't expect a whole lot in this 6 episodes, I mean you can only flesh out characters so much in this little amount of screen time, but what they do give you is pretty standard.

The basic story line goes something like this: there's a group of three boys in the Movie Club shooting their graduation film project and there's a group of three girls in the Art Club and there's mutual love between all three pairs. No love triangles here folks. All six of them are graduating soon. The story revolves mostly around one main couple: Haruki and Miou, our beautiful spring couple. As many high schoolers in shoujo are, these two are in mutual love, but are too awkward to realize. This story goes along with their gradual romantic relationship progression as well as an unexpected, but extremely foreshadowed twist. When Miou was small, she almost drowned in a river, only to be saved by someone. She can't remember who it was and she isn't allowed to meet him up until the last summer of high school. Delighted to finally meet this hero who saved her life, Miou ends up in front of the Serizawa family grave and meets the realization that the man who saved her was Haruki's older brother. This led to an immovable grief and guilt within Miou and she shut herself off from everyone. However, she is able to overcome this guilt through her friends' support and can finally face Haruki who was battling his own doubts as well.

I can't relate too much to this scenario, but if you're a younger sibling and you've got someone you really look up to, maybe this is something you're familiar with. You idolize your older sibling so much that you end up following what they do and end up cultivating a passion for something that questionable wasn't even of your own volition. Or that's how it'd be if you didn't get the whole story. And that's addressed in the series when prompted with the question "Why can't you have the same dream as your older sibling?" which is pretty valid. And I'll leave it at that because it's a solid stand-alone point.

You know though, their sibling relationship was super cute.

But once these individual characters have overcome these personal hurdles, it's time to graduate high school and embark on future endeavors. There's nothing quite as liberating and saddening as graduating high school. The tracks have been lifted and you're free to blaze new trails for yourself (in a very American exceptionalism and buying into the whole idea of moving westward because of manifest destiny ya know). And that leaves Haruki off to pursue film in America and Miou with her dreams lying in Japan. The two separate and if it wasn't your traditional shoujo you would have doubts of if they would stay together beyond these high school years. Hehe, but it is your traditional shoujo so of course after actualizing their dreams, they reunited and lived happily ever after.

asdfghjkl; this scene really got me. It's full of their dreams that have nothing to do with one another except for that small corner. But is that one feeling going to last those 7 years they're apart?

One thing I really enjoyed about the series was how serene it was. It had its ups and downs yes with the characters' emotions turning into a storm at some points, but those scenes where Miou and Haruki were sitting on the stairs and just sketching out ideas and illustrations side-by-side and other kind o mundane moments, there would be this serenity that would just be present in those moments. And it was really quite calming. I think as life gets more hectic, we tend to appreciate these moments more for their simplicity and presence rather than to be wowed by big things. Or maybe I'm just an old soul lol.

If you're looking for a short and sweet watch that isn't a waste of your time like other short series are, I think this could be a good fit. It's definitely a good fix for if you're craving that sweet shoujo feel and if you just want to reminisce on high school life and stuff like that. It's not anything super new or novel, but sometimes you just need that traditional shoujo stuff.