#Chisaijosei speaks

[fairylynel]

Adachi to Shimamura - Anime Review

Contains Spoilers

This show is a romance, slice of life anime between two high school girls, Adachi and Shimamura. They met while skipping classes and spending their newly found free time playing games and talking, or sometimes, just sitting together in silence too. However, the longer they stay together, the closer they get and their feelings get more and more complicated.

I would like to first talk about Shimamura Hogetsu (voiced by Miku Itou, who also worked on BanG Dream! and Anitore! EX), one of our main characters. She was, to be quite honest, a real mystery to me, in the beginning. This girl has built a wall around herself, barely allowing others to know her true feelings and thoughts. She prefers to be alone and mentions this quite often too, wishing it until the end of the show. Despite showing a quite extroverted personality, it’s clear that she seems to dread to be needed by others and doesn’t really pursue the company of other people. It’s usually others that come to her. She will seem quite cold throughout the show and she is the main reason why I find it hard to say that this show fits the shoujo ai genre.

She never truly sees Adachi as a possible lover, even comparing herself as her new friend’s big sister and, at some point, even mother. She never truly rejects Adachi, she actually learns to accept her more and more and becomes more open to her affections as time goes by, but she fails to see just how deep Adachi feelings are for her. Adding to this, Shimamura overthinks quite a lot about her relationships, even if she seems to not care about them, but even more about herself as a person, overanalyzing her traits and behaviors, closing herself a bit more and more. She sees relationships as fleeting things and doesn’t see the need to make them last or to strengthen them. As soon as she becomes a second year, for example, she gets a new group of friends that she doesn’t even bother herself to know the names of.

Now, to the second protagonist of this show, Adachi Sakura (voiced by Akari Kitou, who has also worked on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and Umamusume: Pretty Derby). She is the reason why I, finally, considered this show a shoujo ai and why I absolutely adored the series. Adachi is the perfect representation of a young girl slowly, but surely, coming to terms with new romantic feelings, that don’t fit the societal norms, and struggling to understand what they mean and how to express them. I saw myself quite a lot in her, in her good and bad moments, to be honest. Adachi is characterized as very introverted girl who, already, struggles quite a lot to speak her mind and avoids people altogether (that being her reason to skip class). However, she starts seeing Shimamura as someone who is worth and different of others, enjoying the time she spends with her and actually allowing herself to be more open about her feelings with her (even if it’s still… to a minimum).

Adachi is scared of her feelings for Shimamura, being a bit jealous and possessive of her (for example, believing that Shimamura only talked to her on the phone and being sad about it, but never acting angry towards her friend), thinking that wanting to be best friends is as far as they can go, when in reality she clearly wants more, frequently fantasizing about kissing her friend. She is so desperate for her feelings to be validated by Shimamura that she ends up compared as to a puppy that follows her everywhere and would do anything for her. Adachi is so confused with her emotions and identity, not understanding with Shimamura is even aware of her feelings as well. The show is mostly focused on Adachi coming to terms with how she wants her relationship to be with Shimamura, her struggles and attempts to become closer to her crush. Her perspective is so innocent and genuine that I believe that anyone wlw that had romantic feelings for another girl in their teenage years might relate to this character.

There are also a few other characters on the show, two of them are Shimamura’s friends that she actually bothered herself to know, Nagafuji Taeko (voiced by Reina Ueda, who has also worked on 3D Kanojo: Real Girl and Dr. Stone) and Hino Akira (voiced by Manami Numakura, who has also worked on Aikatsu Stars! and Konohana Kitan). These two are a bit of stereotypes and honestly only there to be cute together. And then there’s… Chikama Yashiro (voiced by Iori Saeki, who has also worked on Shoujo☆Conto All Starlight and Lapis Re:LiGHTs). I don’t understand what’s the point of this character at all, they are supposed to be an alien from another planet looking for their brethren on Earth, but they barely add anything to the story and are only there to annoy Shimamura and Adachi from time to time. It makes the story less serious, which I can understand some would like, but for me, it definitely made me pay less attention to what was going on.

Other than what I mentioned before, I think this is a show that, while might not be for everyone and could even frustrate quite a few people since it has an open ending, it is definitely a fun watch! I think this is a quite good representation of a girl struggling with her romantic feelings for another and how that confusion can make you feel flustered and sometimes, quite idiotic too.

Rating: 7/10

[fairylynel]

what's so weird to me is that these anti semitic jokes were being made since...2016? was this ever truly addressed? did gfriend kfans not care? did ifans not care? gfriend isn't exactly a small group.

[fairylynel]

nothing enrages me more than the fact that there was a higher probability of Irene from Red Velvet leaving the group from being rude than Sowon leaving Gfriend from being a Nazi sympathizer.

[fairylynel]

the buddies on twt are disgusting for “forgiving” someone who literally called herself hitler

[fairylynel]

[ Story of Seasons : Friends of Mineral Town ] Bachelorettes' pink icons!

[fairylynel]

Shane Dawson is such a fucking hypocrite oh my goooooood jsnsbdbdb please can't wait to see his fans to be like "he is such a good person, he wants to help other people 🥺🥺🥺 he just wants others to feel good" SHUT UP BITCJ SHSJDND A whole grown man bullying a nineteen-twenty year old guy, being bffs with racists, transtrenders and ableist people like Jeffree Star and Trisha Paytas 🤡🤡🤡 He's a fucking clown and deserves the backlash lmao

[fairylynel]

omori is such a cool game i just hope it’s fandom doesn’t become like what happened to undertale’s 

[fairylynel]

do you really think she's a nazi sympathizer bc she didnt see the thing on the top of the hat 😶 get help honestly

Hi.

Get help for supporting someone who calls herself K1tl3r 😃

She knew what she was doing, stop treating her like a child who knows nothing.

[fairylynel]

damn, never again

[fairylynel]

The thing about Timothy is that I literally believed her, because I wanted to support the victim, but now it's so obvious she lied.

[fairylynel]

buddies are embarassing

[fairylynel]

omori soundtrack is so good

[fairylynel]

what the fuck? how did sowon from gfriend take a picture hugging a nazi officer figurine??? how could she possibly do that??

[fairylynel]

Assault Lily: Bouquet // Episode 1 - Hitotsuyanagi Riri header and icon

[fairylynel]

Oh so Timothy Heller thought that posting that horrible accusation against Melanie was a funny thing to do? What a piece of shit.

[fairylynel]

Assault Lily: Bouquet // Episode 1- Shirai Yuyu icon and header.