Hello there, one and two and hopefully more. A pleasure to have you along with me, in watching and appreciating all these new anime Fall has ushered our way. I shall be your host this coming season and bring you coverage of a rather niche show which deserves an audience far greater than it’ll probably receive – Adashima!
To whoever it may concern, this show had the best premiere of the season for me and even though I saw somewhat greater potential in Kamisama ni Natta Hi (more on that later in the weekend), Adashima was the show that resonated with me on a stronger level. So, how did it follow up such an outstanding premiere? Let’s find out!
After a dreamlike epiphany, the show opens with a conversation between Shimamura and the Spacesuit-wearing child who tells her that he is from another planet in the future and has come to make contact with his compatriot. While a safe bet is that it’s a case of chuunibyo, the show really seems to be play this plotline off with a straight face and just like last episode, this whole side-plot sort of feels redundant. There is also a possibility that this might end up going the sci-fi route which I don’t think would fit into the narrative organically. But well, for now, it’s fine. A little jarring but nowhere near a deal-breaker.
With that one complaint out the way, we go onto the positives, of which there are a lot. First of them all, no more boob grabs! Also, camera positioning that’s way more tasteful! Two for two Adashima, nice. These were my only gripes with the premiere so it’s great to see them both rectified in the second episode itself. Let’s hope this becomes more of a norm going forward.
Other than that, we get more longing, more subtext, more Adachi being adorably awkward and more Shimamura going “Hehhhh”. Yup, good stuff. Adachi finds herself slowly growing more attached to Shimamura while simultaneously being hesitant to fully accept that her feelings might be of a romantic kind. She finds great joys in the tiniest of gestures, in holding hands, in lying on Shimamura’s lap, in being so close to her that she could even smell her (which she actually does) and in walking back home together. Just like last episode, she feels a quiet envy burrow inside her chest when Shimamura is with her friends and sort of ignores that Adachi is there at all. Adachi realizes that her feeling towards Shimamura are of a somewhat possessive nature but aren’t we all like that when it comes to the people we really care for? Don’t we all want to be put first by the people we prioritize ourselves?
Though there was one thing this episode changed from the premiere. We didn’t get much insight about how Shmamura feels about Adachi in return which made the final moments of the episode all the more difficult to watch. Though I believe she must at least sense that Adachi’s feelings towards her are definitely deeper than those between usual class-hopping school friends. I am eager to see how their relationship develops over the course of the next few episodes.
Lastly, I just wanted to point out that we also got introduced to Shimamura’s sister who likes gaming at home by herself and runs off to her room without a word upon meeting a stranger and I have not related with an anime character more, all year.
I’m not completely convinced by the show yet. It has been pretty decent so far – it seems like it’ll be a character-riven romance, which is my favorite kind of romance, it’s well-produced, and the leads are likeable and fairly interesting – but it also hasn’t been anything more than just “decent”. The main problem in my eyes is that the show does far too much telling and too little showing: in the first episode, we’re pretty much told what the characters’ issues are instead of being introduced to them naturally; and instead of being shown why Adachi has fallen for Shimamura, we’re simply told that she has fallen in love with her after their shared truancy. And as a result of that, the leads don’t have much chemistry, and their issues and relationship feel rather superficial. The cutesy events in the episode are still quite fun to watch, but they don’t have any impact beyond that, and I’m hoping the show will do better than that.
Hi, Animosh! Long time no see. 🙃
While I do agree with your assessment that the show tends to take the telling-via-showing approach at times, mostly when dealing with Adachi’s internal emotional struggle, that doesn’t mean that there is no visual storytelling in play at all. Most of this is actually achieved through subtle cinematography tricks like Adachi being shown behind a net or the bars of a railing, representing her cagey demeanor when she had just said something awkward.
In fact, my favorite moment of the premiere was a wordless one. It was the one when Shimamura was with her friends and she just silently passed Adachi by because she thought it would be difficult to explain to her friends why and how she knows her. And as for the lack of chemistry between them, that is something I might have to disagree with. I think they’re adorable together! They have contrasting personalities which aren’t polar opposites but they rather complement each other. And though one minor gripe I had with this episode was the lack of screen time spent on getting Shimamura’s emotions across, like you said, I do believe the show will rectify that very soon.
It’s been a while, yes! Good to see you back here after your busy period. 🙂
I hadn’t noticed the examples of visual storytelling you mentioned! I’ll try to keep an eye out for it from now on. But I meant “telling” mostly as opposed to “showing through events” rather than “showing through visual clues”: for me, at least, the show would have been more compelling if the characters, and their relationship, had been developed through the story instead of established through monologue.
As for the lack of chemistry, I suppose these kinds of things are always partly a matter of taste: their dynamic so far is kind of similar to that between Mizore and Nozomi from Liz and the Blue Bird (with an introverted girl – Adachi/Mizore – who clings to a more outgoing girl), and I wasn’t very invested emotionally in that either (though I appreciated the two as characters). So maybe it’s partly just a matter of which kinds of pairings we like. That being said, I do still think the show could have at least done a better job of building up the relationship, of showing why these two (and Adachi in particular) like each other so much (I’m not sure how Shimamura feels at this point): now we’re told that Adachi fell for Shimamura when they hung out, but the sparks that made her heart flutter aren’t really shown to us, so it’s kind of out of the blue. To be clear, I agree they’re pretty cute together, but I’ve never been a big fan of CGDCT shows, so ideally I’d like the show to be more than just cute, you know? The show has plenty of time to add weight to its fluff, of course: I was just trying to add some critical notes to your words of praise. 😉
Yes, yes. Bubbly excitement after the high of watching the latest episode of an anime you are fond of, must always be tempered. We don’t want it competing with sliced bread after all. 🤷♀️
The little sister is a sony player….
…not a Nintendo player…
what sort of horrid education has this child received =P