Junkers Come Here Review – 87,5/100

There have been many slice of life movies about a young boy or girl growing up and the problems they face. Junkers Come Here is Sato Junichi’s attempt at this genre, created ten years before he would come with Aria. And really: it is among the best ones of the genre.

The thing with Junkers Come Here is that even compared to the other slice of life movies, it’s realistic (if you ignore the fact that it has a talking dog and all, but you know what I mean). This comes courtesy of an excellent characterization and a consistently detailed animation that causes the characters to nearly just walk off the screen. Hiromi (The lead girl) here just feels like a real teenaged girl and her problems are wonderfully down to earth.

On top of that, it’s also much more tightly paced compared to most slice of life series. Most of them follow the formula of first half random slice of life, second half serious story. With Junkers Come Here it’s only the first half hour that will be a bit uneventful. The movie has found a perfect balance between slice of life and character building: the events of Hiromi’s childhood that it focuses on all have a major impact on her and create a wonderful picture of her, coming together in an absolutely amazing climax.

It’s a movie with many truly heartfelt moments, even though at first sight it may be nothing more than a story about a girl and her talking dog. Everything here is very calculated, though, and it’s not just wasting time for the sake of wasting time. That’s the kind of slice of life that I personally really like.

Suggestions:
– Anne no Nikki – The Diary of Anne Frank
– Aria the Animation
– Kiki’s Delivery Service