For this week’s Roast or Recommend, I will be reviewing the anime Sakura Quest.
Sakura Quest came out in the spring of 2017 and is 25 episodes in length.
This anime follows a girl who is a college graduate who moved out of her rural town out to Tokyo to pursue work but is having trouble as potential employers keep turning her down.
She winds up taking a job in another rural town in Japan known as Manoyama. She thinks the job is to just be queen for a day, but she didn’t read the contract well-enough and has to work as part of the effort to re-vitalize the town. And did I mention as well that she wasn’t even the one that was supposed to get the job in the first place, but an error and a mix up leads to it happening. So now it is her job to help turn a struggling town into a tourist destination.
One thing that drew me to this anime in the first place is that it was done by PA Works, a studio that I really like given the anime I have watched by them in the past have been good. When I saw it was done by them, I knew it would at least look visually satisfying, and it was. In short, the animation and art was nice to look at. Not like top notch, but it did what it needed to do to be successful.
The weakest point of this series was likely the story. I am not saying that it was bad, but I can see where criticism would come from. The premise is pretty simple and there is really nothing fantastical about it that would seem to capture attention on the surface.
However, once you actually dive into the story, you become invested in it because, despite its simplicity, it is done very well and it works. It has a strong enough background to it and it follows a linear path that feels natural and correct. It doesn’t stray off too much.
The thing it does super well in the story is that all of the mini stories within the bigger picture are fleshed out well. The anime gives enough time to develop every storyline they introduce. Some string out over a few episodes but don’t take up all the time. They do a very good job introducing many things and actually sticking to finishing that storyline in a satisfying manner, which is something not as often seen in anime as we’d like. It doesn’t hang on a thing too long, but it gives everything enough time and attention so the audience is invested in everything about the little town.
But the characters are what makes this anime very strong in my opinion. Similar to the story, all the characters we see are given enough time to develop and we see them grow and interact with each other and nobody introduced is just introduced as a nothing character. They all have a purpose to the story and drive the story in their own way, even if it is in a small way.
But the characters are also dynamic as well. They can take on different challenges and they’ll have their disagreements that lead to a falling out, and you will find yourself wanting to agree with both sides of the argument because it is strong for both sides. The characters are often placed in tough decision-making situations where they have to either agree on something or try to work around the disagreements to make something work that benefits both sides. These deeper and more mature interactions is something often missed in anime and it creates great interactions between characters and great relationships between characters, out of both respect and out of friendship.
Our main five characters have the best interactions. They meet as complete strangers all looking for their place in the world and have different goals. However, they all wind up working together and becoming amazing friends. And while they all think differently and have different motivations to achieve what they want to, they can all come together under one goal, and even though they may disagree on how to reach that goal they always find a way to work it out. Additionally, their interactions feel natural and real instead of forced and misplaced. It feels like natural conversation and natural talk amongst friends and co-workers.
People will also criticize this anime for its pacing. And while it is true that it is slow and drags on a bit, especially given such a simple premise, I think it is kind of refreshing. In a world of fast-paced anime, it is great to watch something slower and more relaxing like that. And as I mentioned before, every character and storyline introduced gets its due. That would never happen if it were faster paced. Most anime fans would call it slow in relativity to other anime, which is true. But for this anime, it works and the pacing feels natural and real.
And the word “real” cannot be understated for this anime. This anime doesn’t do anything super special or other-worldly with its premise. It is simply an anime about five girls finding themselves while trying to help make a town get a bit better over the course of just a year. But in that simplicity comes a lot of deep and realistic concepts. This anime is supposed to feel realistic. Maybe it is a bit more idealistic than reality is, but it hits the mark on feeling like a realistic situation very well.
The characters deal with real-world troubles like finding a job, leaving home, becoming more confident, making the best of a bad situation, finding your passions, dealing with stress, staying motivated, managing time and resources and all sorts of other things. It deals with real inner and outer conflicts that real people would face. The characters feel like real people and they are very relatable as they present problems everyone deals with throughout life.
This anime might be very simplistic in nature, but it hits the bullseye when representing real issues and how to face them. And this isn’t something the anime loses sight of either. The whole story feels natural and realistic and the characters feel the same way. The story and characters never take a drastic turn towards being super fantastical where unnatural things happen. It stays on track and *with as little amount of spoilers as possible* the ending is natural as well as nothing outlandish happens.
A lot of people will have criticism that nothing really happens in this anime, but I personally do not think that was what it was going for. I think what it was going for was to portray conflicts actually people face and build its own little world based on a slice of the real world and the struggles people are facing in modern day. Most people want an ending where the goal is reached or the thing is defeated. That is not the case in Sakura Quest. But the reason that works here is because the anime wasn’t based on the end goal, it was based on the characters figuring out themselves a bit more and being ready to take that next step of their life.
This anime hits the genres it is under very well too. It is a comedy and drama and both of those are very prevalent in it. There is plenty of both in the anime, and there are many parts of profound emotion. There are funny moments, depressing moments, heartbreaking moments and heartwarming moments. It all comes off as very satisfying though, and it all feels so real.
I won’t lie, I found this anime by accident, but it seems the ones I find by accident are the best ones I see. I stumbled upon it and knew I’d at least enjoy how it looked visually. Besides, it is refreshing to see female lead characters without a male main character driving them along, so I knew that would help too. But I was not prepared for how good it actually was. For something to be so simple yet feel so real and emotionally attached was very awesome and refreshing. And as I said before, it just had a very real feeling to it and the pacing was very natural for what it was trying to do and that made it feel even more real as well. It was a very enjoyable watch for me.
Score: 76/100
Roast or Recommend: Recommend
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