Anime: Sukitte Ii na yo.

Let me preface this review by noting that it took me over a month to fully grasp this series. Sukitte is a simple shoujo story, but one that is full of great moments and interesting relationships. The easiest reference for comparison would be Tonari no Kaibutsu, which aired at roughly the same time. Sukitte isn't for everyone; unlike Tonari, there are relatively few humorous or silly moments. Instead, the series focuses purely on relationships and how easily they are forged and broken. The central theme is friendship with multiple characters starting out as a loner, having given up on relationships for fear of getting hurt.

Be warned that Sukitte is a slow show. If you're not able to watch something driven mostly by dialogue, you will either dislike this or end up asleep very quickly. However, if you enjoy good character development definitely don't miss this one.

Animation:
Unlike Tonari, the animation is much more lush with vibrant coloring, vivid details, and good lighting and shading. As is typical in shoujo shows, the girls are slightly more ordinary in appearance while the guys get more attention. Most importantly, the facial expressions are very believable, which is essential given how character-centric this show is.

This show is a fairly realistic slice-of-life. There are no sci-fi references and the main hero does not possess Onizuka-like strength. Given this, don't expect much action or blood. As this is a shoujo show, you won't have to sit through fan service either, though you'll have a fair share of kissing.

Sound:
The OP is very calming and sounds as if it is a Japanese ripoff off a French romance piece. The singer has a very soft voice but I ended up skipping it fairly quickly as the show was already slow enough. The ED is an appropriate piece for a shoujo work, but the singer just sounded lazy. The BGM, on the other hand, was superb. A good collection of melodies is played by a fitting mixture of flutes, stringed instruments, and piano; giving just enough backing to the dialogue. It is a bit on the light side and may be sleep-inducing for some.

The VA cast is likewise superb. Ai Kayano gives a very convincing and cute performance as Mei and relative newcomer Risa Taneda was very good as Asami. All the VAs mesh well and successfully give their respective roles meaningful depth.

Story:
The story revolves around Tachibana Mei, a high school loner who was scarred by betrayal early in her life. A chance encounter with school idol Yamato changes all that. The story is about how love and friendship can overcome hardship and heal wounds. In many ways it is similar to Tonari, both start with heroines that had previously been loners. Both heroines slowly build a network of friends after meeting a peculiar male character. However, Sukitte has a substantially higher dose of drama, be it serious romantic roadblocks or misunderstandings.

There are arcs where different characters are introduced, of varying lengths, but really the main focus remains on the relationship between Yamato and Mei. The last episode is a bit of a bonus as it isn't tied into the rest of the plot, but it is definitely worth watching. I found this work to be particularly believable and, like Tonari, a wonderful break from fan service and otherwise-brainless girls.

Character:
As mentioned above, this work is very believable, and I think this comes out greatly in the story's characterization. Each of the primary characters is given sufficient background and explication. Furthermore, the primary characters are given superb development. While subtle when watched in episodic progression, Mei's personality changes substantially when considering the entire span of the series. Likewise, Yamato is supposedly the most popular guy in school, but it doesn't mean he's perfect; and they do a great job of showing this.

The central theme of friendship over solitude is repeated through multiple characters in the story, and each one comes across as convincing. What I really like is how they managed multiple developing concurrent relationships without losing focus on the main protagonists. Excellent execution.

Value:
This series is probably even more polarizing than Tonari no Kaibutsu. It isn't as accessible to the general viewer due to less comedy and lightheartedness. In its place is an increased focus on well-driven characterization. If character-based-drama is your thing, this is a must see. If Tonari came across as boring to you, most likely this will not be ideal for you. I am squarely in the former camp and greatly enjoyed this show. Given how much the characters develop, this series remains enjoyable as a rewatch. If you're tired of shows with senseless girls chasing after subpar guys, give Sukitte a try and you might end up loving it.

Been a while since a romance show reduced me to both tears and "OMG I SO GET THIS KIND OF FEELING" kind of laughter.

Let's talk about how it managed that :D

Presentation:

Weakest part of the show, but still well done.

In interest of getting the bad stuff out of the way immediately, let's just say that this anime has no distinct visual style, works off a very basic soundtrack and didn't really make any attempt at any sort of artistry. Basic quazi-realistic portrayal of slender, almost anorexic, adolescents, going about their business to the tune of clear melodies that have been present in animation since the dawn of time. You've seen and heard this in a lot of shows past and will likely see and hear the same in a lot of shows since.

However, it should be noted that the presentation by no means gets in the way of the show's atmosphere. In fact, the presentation supports this atmosphere in a really, really good way.

Adolescent-love-story shows actually require the visual artists to successfully convey both the frantic activity of peaking emotions, and stunned silence of internal uncertainty. More often than not, at the same time. Not many animators and sound engineers really know how to pull this off, but the artists behind Sukitte made it look easy.

Fluid animations and exellent scene composition truly enable the execution of said atmosphere. Exellent voice acting and perfect choices of background tunes for various situations play their part just as well. The show is really amazingly good at picking just the right angles, making the characters move exactly in the right ways and being really on-point with choosing both the background music and the moments where it needs to kick in. While the show certainly doesn't break any new ground in terms of expression mechanisms, it is really good at using everything the classic methods have to offer.

A presentation style that can only be described as a perfect shoujo cliche prevents me from giving this show more than 7/10 in both categories. However, given the fact that this cliche is executed on a really high level (among the highest i've seen to date), this much is well deserved.

Story:

The story tackles the basic conflict between the need of human beings to care and be cared for, and the need of humans being to be safe from hurt and neglect. While the story starts off with a fairly common couple (asocial girl and popular prettyboy), the cast soon expands to cover an impressive amount of different ways in which the two basic needs come in conflict and mutual contradiction.

The strength of the story lies in the fact that it succeeds in combining a large amount of side-stories in a great and complex yarn ball of constant interaction. The back and forth is so intense and involved that by the end of the series, it actually becomes somewhat hard to tell, who the protagonists are. You grow to care for all the other characters just as much as for the main couple. As all the characters work to resolve their internal strife, the story comes to a satisfying and powerful conclusion.

That being said, two minor disadvantages are present. First, the story is somewhat silly and unoriginal in the first couple of episodes. While the story does have villains in the form of people who find it more comfortable to preserve the internal conflict, it takes this much time to get them introduced.
Second, the story does occasionally become unnecessarily sappy and sweet. I blame the cliched shoujo presentation and unoriginal starting couple :(.

Despite minor flaws, I found the overall story experience in this show to be compelling, satisfying, uplifting and actually somewhat inspiring. 9/10.

Characters:

Characters in this show are exteremely well done, with the exception - oddly enough - of the main couple, which is somewhat unoriginal and a bit cheesy.

All the characters are provided good, detailed backgrounds. All the characters are brimming with individual personality, apparent in the way they talk, move and act. All the characters struggle and evolve as the story progresses (and indeed, their evolution is the core of story progression).

But what really takes the cake here is the fact that attention is given not only to development of characters themselves, but also to true development of their relationships with every single other character, and - i kid you not - to development of relationships between their relationships.

As a result, the character cast really comes across as an actual group real live people. This is the undeniable achievement of this series.

For this, i'm even willing to overlook the cliched beginnings of the first couple. 10/10, job well done!

Value:

The anime's value lies in it's perfect execution of originally somewhat unoriginal elements. It doesn't really push any new artistic ground and it doesn't really tell any new sort of the story. But when someone asks me for a recommendation on anime romance, Sukitte will be an easy first choice.

This show doesn't create room for further development of anime as an artistic medium. This show serves as an undeniable testament to level the medium already achieved. 8/10.

Enjoyment:

Gets a bit hard to watch in the "sappy and sweet" parts. Thankfully, these are reasonably few and far between.
In all other respects, a real treat. 8/10.

Overview
Sukitte ii na yo is a slow paced shoujo anime. It follows the relationship between Tachibana Mei, a somewhat anti-social girl; and Yamato Kurosawa a highly popular boy. After their eventful meeting Mei begins to open herself up a little and begins meeting people, eventually making friends. Her friends play an important role trough the story and develop their own relationships as the series progresses.

Rating
Animation
Animation is very high quality. It stays a lot in the realistic side, except for the classic shoujo "stretched" characters. It's actually very simple and not very artistic, but it helps to transmit a slow atmosphere very well.

Music
Background music is very good. It is slow and relies on a single piano heavily, which builds most of the atmosphere by itself. Voice actors make their work quite well; their style matches the characters personalities and is easily distinguishable. The opening is called “Friendship” and was made by Okazaki Ritsuko who passed away 6 years before the series began airing; it's quite a good song and a great choice for this series. Ending is not remarkable but it's not bad either.

Story
Sukitte ii na yo deals mainly with the exaggerated drama of teenage relationships. It's not fair to say that the series is overly melodramatic because teen romances are exactly that, overly melodramatic. You will find how their relationship has its ups and downs which bring both joy and agony to both of them. As they meet new people they feel insecure and are presented with many challenges that slowly strengthen their relationship. The people they meet form part of the permanent cast and are continued to be developed even after the spotlight changes from them. The "strength of their relationship" I mentioned earlier has something special in this series: it is not very strong. They are teens, and they just met, so they both have doubts about each other and are not close enough to talk things out directly. They however care for each other and for their delicate relation.

Character development
Character development is the strong point in the series. Mei's character in particular begins as very cold but slowly that coldness turns into shyness without you even noticing. The male lead is also well developed; as a popular boy, he is quite new to a serious relationship so he messes up quite a few times but eventually learns how to treat his girlfriend. The side characters are quite developed as well: in pairs, they are given an arc and after the arc they keep making appearances and keep helping the main couple move forward.

Value
Personally I don’t think this is a series I’ll keep around to watch later. It has a lot of clichés that are played nicely, but I don’t think watching it again will add any value.

Enjoyment
Sukitte is a very slow series and it is a romance; but, there is not much in the romantic side. Personally I enjoyed the pace, it is quite relaxing even in the most melodramatic scenes. I particularly liked the character development because you don’t really notice the changes until you sit down and reminisce (like when writing a review or something)

Conclusion
Did you notice the amount of times this review includes the word slow? Well Sukitte ii na yo is a SLOW series. It is eventful but most of the time the events feel very simple. That said, the series is extremely realistic and that is what makes it worth it. Characters are very real; you won’t find a character that fits a generic “Tsundere” or “Moe” role since they all have their own characteristics that together create a complex personality. That is true both for lead and for secondary characters. I have not read the manga but it is highly regarded in the shoujo world. The author is known for creating more obscure stories and there is a very slight influence of this in the anime that adds some depth to the story.

In conclusion, if you like romances and slow paced series you will surely find Sukitte worth your time. If you are new to shoujo, you may find the series unremarkable but it is only 12 episodes long and you won’t even notice the length. I recommend it to shoujo fans who are willing to escape a bit from their daily routine.