You just have to take life one step at a time.
Excellent student Iwakura Mitsumi has always dreamt about leaving her small town, going to a prestigious university, and making positive change in the world. But she’s so focused on reaching her goals that she’s not prepared for the very different (and overwhelming) city life that awaits her in a Tokyo high school. Luckily, she makes fast friends with Shima Sousuke, a handsome classmate who’s as laid-back as she is over-prepared. With Sousuke by her side, the naive country bumpkin slowly begins to adjust to city life, forming her own bonds and discovering her own strengths along the way.
Skip and Loafer is a Slice of Life Seinen manga written by Misaki Takamatsu which began publishing in 2018, and was licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment in 2020. In 2021, an anime series was announced to be in production. The anime is being produced by P. A. Works and started airing in April 2023.
This manga provides examples of:
- An Aesop: Takamine has one at the end of episode 4, "Tingling and Scraping". You should spend your time doing what you feel is the right thing, since you won't know what you may regret until years later. Also, it's fine to focus on things you consider important, but sometimes, it's also nice to stop and smell the flowers.
- Bait-and-Switch: Chapter 50 seems to be building up to a love confession from Ujiie to Mitsumi: she suddenly has a montage of moments that could be interpreted as him having an interest in her, and they're alone in the classroom at sunset... only for him to say that it's Yasaka he likes. She's surprised, but relieved that she doesn't have to turn down her friend.
- Better as Friends: After much teasing, Mitsumi and Shima finally give dating a try... and it makes both of them uncomfortable. Shima especially is not having a good time on his first real date with her even though he was the one who suggested they go out (and only because he thought it's what Mitsumi wanted), so they hold off on it and go back to being friends.
- Bland-Name Product: Mitsumi, Shima and Kurume visit a "Sutama" together for drinks, a parody of the Japanese name for Starbucks, "Sutaba".
- Childhood Friends:
- Mitsumi and Fumino are best friends, and Fumino is Mitsumi's main point of contact with her hometown during the school year, aside from her family.
- Shima is old friends with his fellow child performers Chris and Ririka, though had a falling-out with the latter at some point. Looking at them, Mitsumi compares the unique dynamic between them to her and her own childhood friend Fumi.
- Christmas Episode: Chapter 28. The characters go Christmas shopping, and some members of Class 1-3 go bowling to celebrate the end of term.
- Crazy-Prepared: Student council treausurer Takamine Tokiko, who schedules out every single minute of her day. Mitsumi is inspired by her dedication, but is too easily distracted to adopt her strategy.
- Date Peepers: Mika and Nao-chan independently decide to spy on Mitsumi and Shima's zoo outing, and decide to cooperate when they run into each other there.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Yamada is this towards most girls but especially Yuzuki. He repeatedly tries to pursue her, though Yuzuki is turned off by how he isn't interested in her specifically (besides her beauty) but in the idea of a relationship.
- Gender-Concealing Writing: Averted in the manga with Nao, who explicitly mentions she's biologically male and is introduced as the "younger brother" of Mitsumi's father, while the story maintains that she's Mitsumi's transgender aunt. The anime meanwhile introduces her as Mitsumi's father's sibling (kyoudai, which covers a range of older-brother/younger-siblings and is written in hiragana in the Japanese subtitles to preserve ambiguity). The anime episode that adapts the sleepover does keep in Nao's lines about being biologically male, though.
- Informed Attractiveness: Shima and Yuzuki are repeatedly said to be two of the best-looking people in their grade.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Mika befriends her classmate's aunt Nao due to Nao seeing a lot of her younger self in Mika.
- New Year Has Come: In Chapter 29, Mitsumi returns home to celebrate the new year with her family; they stay up to wait for the turnover. It also focuses on Nao and sheds some light on why she doesn't like coming back home as much.
- Oblivious to Love: Yamada doesn't pick up on the fact that his classmate, Tomoe-chan, has a crush on him. At first, anyway. He eventually realizes it and the two begin dating. Takamine as well seems oblivious to the fact that Segawa, a boy from the soccer team, is crushing hard on her.
- Odd Friendship:
- The central friendship, uptight country bumpkin Mitsumi and carefree and popular urbanite Shima, are mentioned to be an odd duo.
- Makoto and Yuzuki couldn't be any more opposite with one being quiet, plain and introverted and the other being an beautiful and popular. However, the two of them grow into being best friends who care greatly for each other.
- Power of Friendship: This series utilizes a low-key version where despite Mitsumi's running into obstacles when trying to befriend people, she still tends to get through to the people she wants to befriend. Notably, Tokiko learns to relax around her and has a dream sequence reflecting real life where she misses the bus and begins to cry, but a cat-Mitsumi is there for her.
- School Festival: Volume 4 features Tsubame Nishi High School's extravagant cultural festival.
- School Play: Mitsumi's class puts on The Sound of Music for the cultural festival, although Mitsumi isn't able to contribute much due to her obligations to the student council.
- Shout-Out:
- The movie the main characters get together to watch in episode 3 is Gone with the Wind, albeit the characters have their names tweaked (Rhett Butter instead of Rhett Butler; Scarlet Ohana instead of Scarlet O'Hara).
- One AU chapter has the cast in a delinquent setting, themed after the High&Low movie series.
- Shima has posters of Bohemian Rhapsody and The Blues Brothers in his room. In the anime, this is slightly changed into "Pomeranian Rhapsody" and "The International Game Brothers", the latter being the Blues Brothers poster but with Mario and Luigi instead.
- The class puts on a compressed version of The Sound of Music, renamed to The Family Singers.
- Sobriquet Sex Switch: Mitsumi's aunt used to be called "Naoki", a masculine name, which she shortens to the gender-neutral "Nao".
- Sunk Cost Fallacy: Mentioned by Shima in "Tingling and Scraping". Mitsumi comes up with a method to reduce her time wasting, but then is told by her senpai that it's probably not a good idea, since she herself realized that her method is flawed and it's hard to say what is and isn't a regret until later. Mitsumi wants to give her method a try after having wasted a night getting it together, but Shima points out that such a thing would be an even greater waste of time. Mitsumi is surprised at his brutally cold, but reasonable logic.
- Stylistic Suck: The singing scenes in the play is slightly off-key in the anime in some parts. As some students who participate in the chorus don't go through formal training, nor is there any autotune, this is deliberately done to potray their inexperience more realistic.
- Valentine's Day Episode: There's a Valentine's Day two-parter, featuring the girls making chocolate for their male classmates and a love confession between two of the characters.
- Will They or Won't They?: Mitsumi slowly develops a crush on Shima, and while he cares for her, he isn't sure if he does so romantically or platonically. They briefly date before Mitsumi offers to break it off, sensing that the feelings she has for him aren't the same as the ones he has for her. But then Shima is implied to be jealous when his classmates gossip that she and Ujiie are a thing...
