The second floor of the gym. That’s our spot. Class is in session right now, but they don’t hold class in a place like this. This is where Shimamura and I became friends. What is this feeling? Yesterday, I dreamed of kissing her. I’m not like that, and I’m sure Shimamura isn’t either. But… when Shimamura thinks of the word "friend”, I want to be the first thing that comes to her mind. That’s all.
Adachi is skipping class when she first meets fellow truant Shimamura in the gym loft, and just like that, a friendship is born. Except now Adachi’s having dreams about kissing her, and she doesn’t know what that means, but she’s pretty sure it’s not something you do with a friend. What are these strange feelings she has when she thinks of Shimamura? And is it possible Shimamura feels the same way?
Adachi and Shimamura is a Japanese Yuri Light Novel series written by Hitoma Iruma (Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl, Regarding Saeki Sayaka) and illustrated by Non, which began serialization in October 2012 in ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Bunko Magazine. The light novels are licensed for English release in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment. The series has been adapted into two manga series, and an anime adaptation directed by Satoshi Kuwabara and Tezuka Production began airing in October 2020.
Provides examples of:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The fish in Shimamura's fish bowl stand out due to being 3D animated.
- Adaptation Dye-Job:Shimamura's eyes are purple in the anime, rather than brown like in the Light Novel.
- Affectionate Nickname: Plenty. Tarumi and Shimamura call each other "Taru-chan" and "Shima-chan". Yashiro calls Shimamura's little sister "Shou" ("little one" in the subs) and is called "Yachi" by her in return. Hino also used to call Nagafuji "Tae-chan", to the point her mother thought that was actually Nagafuji's first name instead of Taeko.
- Airplane Arms: Shimamura runs with her arms at her sides making airplane noises towards the end of the first episode. In the light novel her inner monologue adds a wry remark about wondering how long she can do that before getting embarrassed.
- Alternate Continuity: Volumes 05 and 07, feature segments of alternate continuities that features Adachi and Shimamura meeting under different circumstances.
- Ambiguously Bi:
- In Volume 09, shortly after Shimamura's mother meets Adachi's mother for the first time, she suggests they take a shower together at the gym.
- Also from Volume 09, Akira's mother is a married woman who is still close with her long-time friend and servant, Enome, who is of the same sex.
- Awkwardly Gay Dream: Shortly after meeting Shimamura, Adachi begins having dreams about kissing her.
- Because Destiny Says So: According to Yashiro in the Flash Forward at the start of Volume 08, Shimamura was destined to meet with Adachi in all timelines. Based on what seemed to be an Alternate Timeline version of Shimamura meeting and befriending Adachi, Yashiro might be correct.
- Beta Couple: Hino and Nagafuij. The story frequently takes breaks from following the titular character around to focus on their own budding romance. Shimamura's little sister and Yashiro form a Gamma Couple for similar reasons.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Yashiro gets weirder the more the series goes on. From the start, both Shimamura and her little sister note that she is unusually light and her skin is always cold to the touch. While squeezing her cheeks, Shimamura notices that they also seem to be softer than normal. Volume 8 really ramps up the weirdess, when Yashiro sneaks inside Shimamura's bag during her school trip. Beyond the little fact that there shouldn't be enough space inside for her to enter, Shimamura didn't feel any extra weight and she wasn't caught when the bag was scanned. She also claims that she won't make any mess while eating inside the bag because she curls her body around the food before eating. In the same volume, she tells Shou that her eyes are just decoration to help her blend in among earthlings. When Shou asks how Yashiro sees then, she just taps the center of her head.
- Book Dumb: Inverted with Nagafuji. In spite of the lack of common sense she displays in her daily life, she gets good grades at school. Shimamura wonders how she does it.
- Cast Full of Gay: It seems the only women who are not lesbians in this work are the mothers of the main characters. And not even all of them! A flashback in Volume 09 reveals that Hino's mother and their maid Enome were classmates in high school and were "very close" to each other. When a young Hino asked Enome how she feels about coming to work for her mother as a maid after she got married, she calmly answers that they considered that to be the most realistic way to remain together as adults. In the same Volume, Shimamura's mother suggests to Adachi's mother that they take a shower together.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Hino and Nagafuji have known each other since they were small. Considering the genre of the series, it shouldn't be a surprise that they have almost as much Ship Tease as the main characters. Tarumi also clearly hopes to become this with Shimamura, but she isn't so lucky.
- It is heavily implied that Hino's mother and her maid, Enome, also were engaged in this type of romance, but due to circumstances, Hino's mother needed to get married.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Adachi gets jealous of Shimamura spending time with other girls very easily. After the events of Volume 5 she realizes this behavior is no good, and starts making an effort to not let her jealousy guide her actions anymore. Through her negative feelings are still obvious for Shimamura.
- Close on Title: The anime episodes tend to show their titles at the very end.
- Closet Gay: Adachi spends the second half of Volume 01 unable to admit she has fallen in love with Shimamura in spite of her Awkwardly Gay Dream. She continues to find different ways to explain or deny her feelings in subsequent volumes. It isn't until the end of Volume 05 when Adachi finally admits she is in love with Shimamura.
- Closet Key: Shimamura is this for Adachi, who didn't realize she was into girls until her Awkwardly Gay Dream with her. Adachi ends up becoming this for Shimamura as well.
- Cloudcuckoolander:
- There is something odd about Nagafuji. Besides her self-confessed terrible memory, she seems to be seriously lacking in common sense. Many of her words and actions are pretty much non-sequiturs, such as trying to lift Hino out of nowhere just because she thought she could. In addition, her idea for helping a friend pick a gift for her little sister is to go to the mall and point to everything that could be a gift until she finds something her friend likes. She directly compares it to a brainstorming session. Then there is the fascination with boomerangs that is revealed during this "session"...
- While she is not as bad as Nagafuji, Shimamura can be a bit... weird at times. She comments in her narration in the novels that when she was smaller a teacher wrote in a report card that she was an absent-minded child, and admits this is accurate. The chapters of the novels narrated from her point of view show that her mind can easily wander into weird directions, which can be either relevant philosophical pondering, or just random stuff. She casually compliments Adachi's Lap Pillow, has no problem with or doesn't seem to pick up on any of the more suggestive things she and Adachi say or do to each other, and comes to agree with Nagafuji that a boomerang is a fun gift note .
- Coming Of Age Queer Romance: Thanks to an Awkwardly Gay Dream she has about Shimamura, Adachi goes through a long, complex, gayngst filled, and largely self-inflicted one as she tries to figure out how to share her feelings with her. When she finally spits it out (the second time), it all works out with the two dating.
- Complexity Addiction: Because of her shyness, Adachi can't just ask Shimamura to exchange chocolates with her in Valentine's day. She has to invite her to eat in the shopping, reject going to any place that doesn't have a special event for the holiday (which involves making an excuse in the spot) and after finding one that does, "casually" bring it up to Shimamura so the conversation "naturally" arrives at the chocolate exchange. Shimamura figures it out in a flash, and is shocked she went through so much trouble.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: After spending days angsting about Shimamura drifting apart from her and making new friends, Adachi realizes that she could have spared herself a lot of anguish if she'd just talked to Shimamura.
- Covert Pervert: When thinking about Shimamura, Adachi sometime finds her mind wandering to places like her thighs and her breasts.
- Cute Little Fangs: The fortuneteller who helps Adachi has a small fang.
- D-Cup Distress: Nagafuji doesn't like being such a buxom, claiming the only thing her breasts do is attract unwanted attention from guys.
- Deadpan Snarker: The fortuneteller has comments like these in response to Adachi's attempts to scream with all her might."Yeah, you really shook the mountains with that one. Nice going. How about doing it for real this time?""Okay, now do it the same, except way better."
- Decon-Recon Switch: Tarumi's debut does this to the Childhood Friends trope, especially regarding how it is often portrayed in anime. Usually in this kind of work, friendships that start at childhood are preserved for a long time, and even if the friends are separated, they will still care deeply about each other. Their reencounter is usually a dramatic moment and they quickly rekindle their relationship. In this work, it seems Tarumi was expecting things to follow this pattern after meeting Shimamura again, but her childhood friend spent their entire date feeling incredibly awkward. Shimamuras changed a lot since she was a kid and didn't know how to interact with Tarumi anymore, and in turn Tarumi was visibly disappointed to see Shimamura acting so different. The reconstruction comes at the end of the date, when Shimamura decides that in spite of all that, she doesn't want to lose her friend again, and starts making an effort to connect with Tarumi again, in spite of the difficulties. In Volume 10, Shimamura ultimately realizes that Tarumi seems to want her as more than a friend, and since Shimamura loves Adachi more, Shimamura concludes that her friendship with Tarumi will never fully recover.
- Desperately Craves Affection: Shimamura guesses that because Adachi's homelife is so cold, she longs for someone to treat her with kindness and warmth, which is why she has latched so strongly to her Only Friend. She is mostly correct, but has misread what kind of affection Adachi wants from her.
- Embarrassing Last Name: Shimamura dislikes her last name, since it reminds everyone of a fashion store, and wishes she was a Shimazaki.
- Face of a Thug: Shimamura describes Adachi as having "a classic case of 'resting bitch face'" despite being so laid-back and mellow.
- Fanservice: Downplayed. The anime has plenty of moments of Male Gaze (or Female Gaze when you think about it) aimed at the females leads and some of the side characters, such as Episode 5 when Shimamura is in the pool and the camera focuses on her legs and chest area a few times, Adachi fantasizing about Shimamura's thighs and breasts, and some scenes depicting the characters in an Out-of-Clothes Experience fashion.
- First-Name Basis: Not actually used by the main characters when addressing each other (except Yashiro, who is always called by her first name by Shimamura), but the possibility of using this trope and its implications are mentioned sometimes.
- Adachi briefly considers switching to First-Name Basis with Shimamura to get closer to her, but dismisses the idea because for her, "Shimamura is Shimamura".
- Hino and Nagafuji also used to be on First-Name Basis, calling each other "Tae-chan" and "Akira-chan," a sign that they (or at least Hino) were more honest about how much they like each other when they were kids.
- In Volume 10, Shimamura and Adachi choose to use first names temporarily on a Valentine's Day date together, albeit with some amount of awkwardness.
- Flash Forward: The first chapter of Volume 08 takes place ten years later with Adachi and Shimamura now living together, they are still a couple, and they are going on vacation overseas which causes Shimamura to think back on their school trip when they were in High School. Readers also learn that while Adachi has apparently expanded her social circle a little, she has more or less cut off contact with her family while Shimamura still visits hers.
- Friendless Background: As shown by a flashback in Volume 04, Adachi never even tried to make friends before meeting Shimamura. She is well aware of her lack of social skills, but she lacks the will to try and change it. However, in the same volume, she becomes more willful to try to make changes for the sake of her relationship with Shimamura.
- The Gadfly: Shimamura is fond of teasing Adachi by reminding her of her more embarrassing moments. Her mother is an even bigger example, which Shimamura finds to be incredibly childish for an adult woman.
- Gayngst: Not a very overt example (mostly because she worries about many other things), but Adachi suffers from this. While her Closet Gay phase only lasts for half of Volume 01, the scenes where she is planning to get close to Shimamura in the following volumes sometimes have her worry that Shimamura may hate her if she confesses. During their Christmas date, she looks around and sadly notices that all the other couples in the mall are heterosexual ones.
- Genki Girl: Intentionally invoked by Tarumi during her second date with Shimamura in an attempt to make things more fun to her.
- Hair Color Dissonance: Adachi and Nagafuji both have black hair, but the anime stylizes it as dark blue and purple respectively. Particularly notable because the one example of an exotic hair color in the series is meant to be weird, In-Universe and out.
- Hammerspace: Yashiro is seemingly able to take anything out of her pockets, including fully intact food like pieces of cake.
- Inconsistent Dub: The localization of the light novels uses honorifics most of the time, but often uses "Mr." or "Mrs." for the characters' parents.
- Iyashikei: While this work is a Romance, it avoids most dramatic tropes and plotlines associated with the genre. Instead, it features teenaged girls doing mundane things like skipping class, hanging out in the mall and visiting each other's houses. The romance is developed mostly by the cast spending some time together and trying to make it an enjoyable experience, without any dramatic changes to their daily lives.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: When Shimamura doesn't get her Sanpei reference, Hino responds:Hino: She just doesn't know what Hi-knows! Get it?
Shimamura: Oh my god, shut up. - Lap Pillow: Early in their friendship Shimamura learns that Adachi likes laying with her head on Shimamura's thighs.
- Last-Name Basis: The main characters (except Yashiro, curiously enough) are only addressed by their first names when interacting with their families. Amusingly, it turns out that Adachi and Shimamura forgot each other's first names due to spending so long under this trope. They are only reminded at the end of Volume 3/beginning of Volume 4, after which Shimamura develops an habit of calling Adachi by her first name when she wants to see her getting embarrassed. Similarly, Shimamura doesn't even know her long-time friend Tarumi's first name, and both she and Tarumi abbreviate each other's surnames rather than using given names.
- LGBT Awakening: The chapters narrated from Adachi's point-of-view in Volume 01 are mostly about her discovering and accepting her own feelings for Shimamura. It isn't until Volume 05 when she finally stops denying her feelings and realizes she has romantic feelings for Shimamura.
- Love Triangle: Tarumi's introduction changes the main romantic plot into this, since both her and Adachi have feelings for Shimamura.
- Mood Whiplash: As Adachi angsts about Shimamura drifting apart from her, she meets a shady-looking fortune teller who gives questionable advice, and inadvertently helps Adachi realize that she should have just talked to Shimamura in the first place.
- Named in the Sequel: The given names of Adachi and Shimamura’s mothers are finally revealed in Volume 09 when they meet each other for the first time.
- No Antagonist: Since this series is purely focused in following its cast as they live their mundane daily lives, there is no character that can be called an Antagonist here. Even Tarumi, who is a corner in a Love Triangle with the main couple and theoretically an "obstacle", never does anything remotely bad enough to justify being labelled an Antagonist.
- No Social Skills: There are several factors getting in the way of Adachi's attempts to socialize: she is timid, frequently overthinks her plans to get closer to Shimamura, and has a strong fear of messing up and being rejected by her. The result is a blushing mess.
- Oblivious to Love: Shimamura completely misses very obvious hints that Adachi and Tarumi want to be more than just friends with her. Partially justified by her personality: she deliberately avoids interpretating her friends' behavior in a way that could "complicate" their relationship.
- Official Couple: Adachi and Shimamura start dating at the end of volume 6.
- Only Friend: Adachi claims that Shimamura is her only friend.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- Adachi has always been an introvert who has trouble vocalizing her thoughts. Because of that, she never could properly tell her parents what she liked and disliked. After a while, her mother just gave up and resigned herself that "she couldn't understand her daughter". Nowadays, mother and daughter don't even try to communicate with each other.
- The Hino family also suffers from this problem. In Volume 09, Mr. Hino remarks that Akira isn't all that important to the family, giving Akira the impression he doesn't care about her, but he actually wants her to find her own path in life.
- Puppy Love: There is a lot of Ship Tease between Shimamura's little sister and Yashiro. Although the latter may not be as young as she looks.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: After falling in love with Shimamura, Adachi becomes the Red Oni to her Blue Oni. While Adachi easily gets flustered when spending time with her crush and has a tendency to overthink things and get very worried, Shimamura is level-headed, and always ponders things in a calm and rational way. This also ties into the struggles of their respective Character Arcs, and the reasons their relationship progresses very slowly. Adachi is overly emotional and can either be too shy or too much of a Clingy Jealous Girl. On her side, Shimamura keeps people at arm's length due to her finding relationships to be troublesome, especially because she understands, on a purely logical basis, that most friendships that start when you are a child or teenage don't last. She self-depreciatingly wonders if she is a cold-hearted person.
- Sarcasm-Blind: Much to Hino's annoyance, Nagafuji rarely understands the sarcasm of her friend.
- Secret Relationship: After volume 06, Shimamura prefers keeping her relationship with Adachi a secret, afraid to deal with the prejudice against homosexuals. However, in Volume 08, the first classmates to find out aren't bothered by it. One of them even openly supports their relationship, and she even causes Shimamura to realize she loves Adachi.
- Shout-Out:
- While out fishing with Shimamura, Hino calls herself "Sanpei the Fisher Girl." Shimamura doesn't get the reference.
- When asked to describe how Adachi is, Shimamura first mentions that she only saw her drinking water. Hino concludes Adachi is a Namekian.
- When Adachi says that she agreed to go to the karaoke with the others because she was bored, Hino comments that is a good reason for high school girls or Shinigamis.
- Volume 03 has a subplot about a special Valentine campaign where the viewers of a TV program collect the letters broadcast at the end of each episode. The letters spell DANCOUGA.
- Hino's and Nagafuji's first names are Akira and Taeko, respectively. Because Shimamura can't remember the names of her new classmates in her second year of high-school, she mentally nicknames them Sancho, Delos and Pancho. All these names come from Live A Live.
- The closest thing to an explanation Yashiro gives about her Hammerspace is declaring that she has decided to become Yashiemon.
- During the school trip in Volume 8, Shimamura finds out too late that Yashiro has been hiding inside her bag. She tells her to make sure nobody discovers she is there. Yashiro assures Shimamura that she can think of her as Nezuko.
Shimamura: Can I put a gag in your mouth then? - Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters: Very much on the Characters end of the scale. This work doesn't have anything that can be called an overarching plot besides the basic premise of developing a romance between the main characters. Thus, it fully dedicates itself to accompanying its leads as they hang out together, as well as exploring their thoughts and feelings. Character Development happens entirely due to the cast interacting with each other.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Pointedly averted with Nagafuji. Shimamura notes that she has the stereotypical "female nerd" appearance, in part because of her glasses, but she is a Cloudcuckoolander that does not seem to be very smart.
- The Stinger: Episode 7 has a post-credits scene in which Shimamura walks into the Nagafuji butcher shop and sees Tarumi again.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: In later volumes, Yashiro becomes a permanent addition to the Shimamura house, eating there with everyone else and doing pretty much everything a resident would do except sleeping there. Hogetsu is bothered by this, but her family accepted Yashiro very easily.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: The fishermen don't seem to be that taken aback by the sight of Chikama Yashiro, a small girl in a full-body spacesuit.
- Similarly, Shimamura and her mother don't seem at all really surprised when they spot Yashiro literally flying around Shimamura's little sister. Only the former even comments on it and does so in a rather laid back, unshocked manner.
- You No Take Candle: Adachi's boss at the Chinese restaurant has a poor grasp of Japanese, so her dialogue is rendered this way.
