Category: Sakura Quest

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.