Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

This episode of Sakura Quest… Did I just miss an episode or two in between? Remind me again when exactly did all those movie productions come from? The show just drops its woodcarving storyline to this film production storyline and that switch is jarring. Now Sakura Quest heads into one of direction that I’m quite nervous about: a sitcom anime – a type that don’t need much continuity. On top of that I can’t say I’m fond with this film production scenario. I don’t get the idea of the movie they’re making either: A slice of life story set in Manoyama (see self-reference here) that… have a blue-faced zombie outbreak? How’s that supposed to be a slice of life then? Okay, now to what we have this week, we have our girls run along with the film crew, trying to find good locations, calling up extras and finding old houses to blow up. It’s good to see the functions of small film productions in action, and the old man Kadota and oba-san Chitose provide many good laughs on screen (the comedy in this show remains very good). I love Kadota’s commitment to the role he played, and just by few scenes both Chitose and the tsun café girl Erika’s unpredictable reactions really tell us the person they are (oh, and Ririko’s cute little victory). Lovely character works all around. The director is a bit of a douchebag though, I can see him piss a lot of local people off by the next episode.

Out of all the main girls, it’s Shiori that I’m initially worried the most. For other girls, I can see how they develop their potential conflicts. Yoshino with her adaptation to the rural village, and her quest to gain more tourists for the town will serve as the main driving force for the story. For Sanae, we already had her being insecure about running away, and the potential love-triangle with the wood-carvers. For Maki, it’s her job insecurity and her conflict with papa. Ririko will have to deal with the difficult oba-chan and maybe her love for video-recording. But as for Shiori, there’s not much to develop. She’s a stable character with a stable job and a stable family, and so far, she serves mainly as the supporting voice for Yoshino and the girls. Prior to this episode, the only development angle I could imagine for Shiori is her closeness to Ririko, which whenever Ririko has an issue, she’d be the closest to help out her friend – But that, as well, is a supporting role. Thanks Sakura Quest for given her something to work with this episode without distracting the main storyline. It’s obvious that she feels connected to the abandoned, worn-out house and for now, my guess is that she was close with the person who used to live in that house. Her close friend maybe. Whatever the case, it’s good to see that she takes a main stage once in a while, and I really hope that Sakura Quest gives her something of an arc to develop her further in later events.

But the main beef in this episode is all about developing Maki. Aside from Ririko, Maki is my favorite girl and this episode both flesh out her current situation with her family, as well with her acting career. When she remarks that “Loving (the job) is also exactly what makes it so hard” and “Your twenties are a special time, and I wasted them”; I feel the sensations. Her underclasswomen appeared as a main female lead just puts the salt in that open wound, made she feel frustrated. But Maki, remember that Moe’s getting more acting roles ain’t because of eating cicadas, and besides, cicada isn’t that bad (take my word for it). Sanae seems to knock some sense out of Maki and all eyes now are looking for her to take the acting part. I know she’d be exceptional there. These concerns about adult-insecurities are really relatable and grounded and those character’s moments are what raise this show above the bar of your average anime.

But I finished this episode feeling unsatisfied. While, like I said, the characters’ works and the comedy are the show’s greatest strengths; the main storyline feel abrupted, unbalanced that feel more like a wasted opportunity. This episode, judging as a whole, is a solid episode, but that is precisely why I have a feeling that the series will be just sitcom-y like this from now on. At this moment, my interest in continuing cover this show has dropped dramatically; I will give this show another episode to see if it can redeem itself. Sakura Quest is not bad per se. I just feel underwhelmed by the potential it could’ve had and the actual presentation right now. Otherwise, with 2 other shows that I find myself more invested in, I would just pick one and cover instead.

And with this episode the main overarching plot starts to form, or so it seems (there’s still a big possibility that the town dismisses the whole idea but by the end it seems less and less likely). The main project these girls come up with this time is about making a palace full of sculptures that inspired by Sagrada Família, itself famously known for its still-under construction for over hundred years. Now, I had actually lived in Barcelona for almost 2 years; so I know one or two things about Sagrada Família. Many people, like the cast of Sakura Quest, admire it as the representation of multi-generation body of works, as a symbol of passing the torch and live on the spirits for generations. The thing is, the cathedral was never meant to be that way. They were simply out of fund. Yes, the death of Gaudi hurt the project too but it hadn’t finished for over hundred years because it couldn’t. We’re talking about the cathedral here which have both the approvals from the religious crowd as well as the artistic crowd, yet somehow the constructions have always been delayed and funded by private funds. Now flip back to Sakura Quest, do I think that ambitious project will see the light of day? Nope. The Sagrada Família is made out of the desire to make it the ultimate cathedral, the Sakura Pond Familia is made to attract people to the small town. Already a wrong approach, and that doesn’t take funding (how someone wants to put heaps of money for this) or the sheer implementation into consideration.

But that, I guess, is exciting in its own way just to see how the cast manages to deal with those issues. For this episode we see them making their own efforts to actually go out there and study about the woodcarving art: Yoshino goes to various houses to have a look at the mantra, Shiori and Ririko study about the history of the art in their hometown, Maki gets her hand on making one, and Sanea… well, she just wanders off alone but those are positive signs for fleshing out our characters; which is a clear step up from last week’s episode. I like the way there was no tension from the group when Sanae bailed out, because come on, we all know she will be back sooner or later. So the show frames her action as a necessary step back to know what she really wants. The decision to build a palace from Yoshino comes rather out of the blue but well, she’s a fool so it should be expected, and I mean it in a positive light. I’m not so sure how to feel about Sandal-chan character, he’s given a more active role in this episode and the sequence where he gets busted by the police was hitchhiking a police car certainly among my favorite moments this week. However, I still feel the guy’s so out of place with this Manoyama town and I have a feeling the show creates him as a vehicle for Vinay Murthy’s first voice acting, he’s himself an American actor (MASQUERADE). Seriously, I love the humors in Sakura Quest, they have a keen sense of comedic timing, witty dialogues and slapstick situations that bring joy and heart to the story.

At the same time, the other half of the episode focuses on Sanae and her little crisis, as she realized she has been half-hearted about the project. She has a brief talk with the woodcarver Tatsuo while staying alone in front of train station that inspired him to create a lovely wooden shoe. As much as my hesitation to the Sakura Pond Familia project, making wood-carved products to promote the industry is actually a very neat idea. It’s true that every industry needs to adapt as time changes, for wood-carving, it’s starting as Buddha statue, to the house’s plate, to the mantra… making wood-carves products and furniture seem like a natural progression for me. Yoshino gives Sanae a great view about Sanea’s issues: although it’s true that everyone, everything can be replaced, it’s each individual’s personal touch that distinct one person to another, and therefore everyone will always have different results. I also find Sanae’s idea of building the palace next to train station a solid idea, as from my own experience (especially towards Japan), the train station is where it gets the most crowded, insanely crowded. Hmm, I hope there won’t be a love triangle between Tatsuo and Kazuki and that IT girl because it’d be a one-way fight anyways since Kazuki cares for nothing but carving little piece of wood and Sanae is clearly drawn to that tsundere guy. At long last, the girls end the episode with their first taste of success, even if it’s only a modest one. But things look brightly ahead, now that the girls and the villagers are looking at the same direction for the big project (I guess exoskeletion suit will come very handy), and THAT is what really matters.

Hmm, I don’t really like the direction Sakura Quest is going for. To be more precise, this episode brings up some questionable variables that I don’t think blended well with the show. The actual story for this week though, is still enjoyable and grounded enough to overcome those concerns. At least for now. This week the Queen and co take up a new approach of boosting tourism: promoting woodcarving industry that is indeed a traditional government-protected industry in Manoyama, albeit many earlier attempts of gaining tourist flows using woodcarving industry have been failed. This time brings the same unsuccessful outcomes, as expected, mainly because of the girl’s lack of knowledge to the town, and to the art of woodcarving itself. How can they expect to successfully draw people in if they don’t really know about what they’re promoting? The plot is going to get worse for Yoshino and her friends before they can learn from those mistakes and get better. So this episode is functional enough at its core, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

The first issue is its weird addition of modern technology in this otherwise mundane and down-to-earth world. The girls meet the oddball local mechanic who is your typical silly inventor-type that usually brings more trouble than success, or both at the same time (think about “Doc” in Back to the Future). In this episode, his inventions come a bit too handy that they would be right at home at Phineas and Ferb’s daily summer break: an iron box that transforms into a jukebox, the mechanic suits that help farmers carry their loads easier. I get the point of merging the traditional woodcarving and the modern technology (old and new) from the outsiders with the assistance from the locals (in and out); but if the show meant to be a grounded, realistic portrayal of tourism job in rural town then those weird robotic arms and suits throw that realism out of a window. It’s so out of place and weird that for once I’m not on board with their plan and agree to that grumpy woodcarver and Mama merchant instead (come on, Buddha vending machine is BLASPHEME!!!)

The second flaw of this current approach lies in the main cast themselves. Take their spiritual predecessor, Shirobako, for example. The main cast in Shirabako have different jobs within the anime industry and even in different stages of their careers; they each have to deal with their own problems because each of them have different issues in their lives. Sakura Quest groups them together too early, so that all of them now work for the same goals, share the same house, eat the same food and that don’t work well in their favor. I have fun following them for the first 3 weeks because each of them still has different interesting traits, but their personalities start to blur in this episode. Give me more drama, tear the group apart so they have to overcome their issues by themselves is for me a much more appropriate approach (but seeing that we have 20+ episodes in our hands here, I don’t worry much about not having enough time to develop them). This episode sadly doesn’t work well character-wise.

Furthermore, I have a mixed feeling towards hinting at the romance of Sanae and the new guy woodcarver. Romance isn’t bad by all means but Sakura Quest is about mature people and their tourism jobs, so I hope the romance will only serve as a character’s development for Sanae and not taking too much concentration. The new guy nails it when he mentioned about the insecurity of Sanae: running away to the small town because she feels replaceable, like her existence isn’t that important to the busy Tokyo life. I had that experience myself sometimes so this might cut a little too close for myself. Overall, this week is a slightly misstep episode as the core material is still running strong here, but this episode is bogged down by some unconvincing details. These issues won’t deal any permanent damage, but Sakura Quest needs to work harder than this to become a real sleeper hit.

“The one who can change the town is the young fool outsider”
Which kind of makes sense, since the outsider’s perspective will give a fresh take to improve the town. That makes our Queen Yoshino the perfect candidate, but as the interview goes on, she learns the truth: she hardly knows anything about the town, except from perhaps its scenery and expired manjus. So her first step as Manoyama’s Queen is to find what the locals like (to no result) and what makes the town unique. Here Yoshino learns the main conflict between Tourism board and the Merchants Group, the UMA boom resulted in Kadota-sensei switched from homemade carrot Kabura-kun to the silly Kabura-chupa mascots. As we knew last week, the Kabura-chupa has nothing to do with the Mexican mythical creatures and does seem to cause more mixed response from the local and neither attracting much tourist attention. After the hilarious runs from both our girls and the Tourism board to achieve the mascots’ heads, the final parade where Yoshino decides to ditch both the town’s previous mascots (making Kadota-sensei appear in a mix of Chupa with Carrot head, but that mainly for practical reason) and her promotion speech is a touching, if not a bit too honest for her own good (now I have an idea why she failed 32 interviews). She decides to spend her time as a Queen to pick a mascots that could stand the test of time. And now our real Quest finally begins.

One thing of note that I find particularly true to life is the way the villagers are indifferent about what they want to make the town better. They’re just a bunch of locals who born and live within the town to the point they don’t really question about the town’s condition anymore. Usually in other series that take place in a small rural area, they tend to feature many local custom (like welcoming the sunshine in Love Live Sunshine), and the local’s unabashed love for their town. Not here. The old people in the town don’t want anything to change; while the young ones pretty think it’s a dead town anyways, why bother trying. Manoyama feels really like some random small town we might come across. It’s not like they don’t love their town, but more of they are born here, taking a job that passed through generations and taking the town for granted. Whatever going to happen, they’d still live there, so why bother on the change at all? I’m kinda curious to see how the girls can fire up those people in coming events.

Finally, I’m glad that Sakura Quest is a more adult-oriented show that don’t feature high school settings with juvenile humor, because the humor in this show is deadpan and much more attuned to my own taste. Lines like “just the cold indifference of time’s unending march” both sound true, but with a more sarcasm tone. Also I really enjoy the various costumes that the main cast’s wearing. There is a great attention that focus on these costumes here as oppose to say, high school uniforms. As it announced, the show will be 26 episode long and so far Sakura Quest more than earned its spot in my watching list.