Koufuku Graffiti

Well, I can safely say this series is good at making you hungry.

Did anyone else notice the grandmother's picture kept changing?

End of Shaft food porn. Still as sweet as it always is. Nice way to round up the memories. But you'd think they would talk to Ryou first when discussing moving plans. The series was cute and good at making you hungry. Not the greatest show out there, but it accomplished its goal of being a nice feel-good show. It was enjoyable.

What a nice way to conclude the series. Everyone will meet again in High School, Kirin moves in full time, everyone eats together and Ryou finally moves past her melancholy.

This was such a lovely series, with nice visuals, relaxing atmosphere and great humor and characters. Really glad I watched it.

Mmm yes! This show's quite delicious. In foodstuff and themes.

I sure did. It's as if the picture had a mind of its own.

(Anime / Manga deviance: The part after Kirin and Akira knelled to apologize is anime original.)

I'm not into point form this episode, but stuff that can probably go into Analysis.

I was surprised that this series (both media) actually averted Single-Issue Psychology, and in this episode gets Epiphany Therapy altogether. I interpreted the several tasting of the yellowfin as such:

1. Episode 1: Affected by Parental Abandonment, Death Is a Sad Thing, Hates Being Alone. Potentially depressive. So food is tasteless.
2. First tasting (alone) this episode: Death Is a Sad Thing somehow recovered through Memento MacGuffin, so she isn't generally depressed, but happened to be alone. So, tastes much better, but not quite there.
3. Second tasting with Kirin: No longer alone. Food is Orgasmically Delicious.

So there're several levels of her issues, and in fact she in a later chapter (23) stated, in any rate, she had more energy pre-Parental Abandonment, and in Chapter 24 Shiina implied that Ryou still has issues to resolve.

In episode 1 we noticed now much Kirin hates her mom's fried veggies. Looks like she started to hate it less this episode, and obviously not hating it this episode.

I took notice of Manga Time Kirara in the late 2000s due to the fact that Hidamari Sketch and GA Geiju Tsuka Art Design Class came out of it in short succession. But as series that got anime adaptations are concerned, Kirara's track record is even worse than GanGan Online.

Koufuku Graffiti has several things that I would say I prefer over the vast majority of Kirara series:

• The characters are not obvious moeblobs and act more like real people. I don't mind having some moeblobs, but having the entire cast as this is too much.
• Enough sentimental so that it's not shallow, but not too sentimental to trigger Angst Aversion.
• While keeping it a Slice of Life, there's an overarching plot and Character Development.
• (I know a lot of readers doesn't like this) This series's yuri-teasing is still within Plausible Deniability. (I know a lot of people ship Kirin X Ryou; latter chapters seem to indicate Ryou sees Kirin as a child.)

I don't know if I should put on the par of Hidamari, but obviously second of third among the animated Kirara.

On the other hand: Saying Makoto Kawai hasn't experienced loneliness and grief is like saying Sakurasou's Hajime Kamoshida hasn't studied a word about autism. I won't believe at all.

(Note: the above also implies I do personally have a dim view on Kin-iro Mosaic S2, if it isn't obvious enough. I will still watch it a bit, but won't be surprised if I eventually dropped it.)

edited 2nd Apr '15 1:25:39 AM by SamCurt

Episode 12: That ED sequence. <drool> Only thing missing is that catchy jingle they use in the next episode previews.

Very good points. Koufuku Graffiti is definitely not your typical CGDCT show, especially in regards to the character development.

I noticed an interesting note with Gourmet Girl Graffiti: a recent edit pointed to a thoughtful article which challenges and then disproves that Ryou had major depression because a decreased sense of taste is not sufficient to show otherwise. I know that the assertions made here are almost three years old, but the idea of trying to psychoanalyze fictional characters remains a bit of an objectionable one. In the case of Koufuku Graffiti, diagnosing Ryou with major depressive disorder would have been appropriate if 1) the series had a stronger focus on mental health, 2) clear symptoms in the absence of documentation that presented Ryou as such and 3) if the individual making the diagnosis were qualified to do so. None of these are satisfied, so it is superfluous to diagnose fictional characters without the right information.

The points above on major depressive disorder are clearly not part of the good points and should not treated as such. It's worth reiterating that none of us here are qualified experts here and so, should not be making diagnosis on fictional characters.