Manga First episode review
This review is copypasta'd from a writeup I did for Animation Revelation
Adapted from a 4-koma comedy manga, Sakura Trick follows friends Haruka and Yuu as they enter their first year of highschool. As they make more friends on their first day, the pair decide to do something to make their relationship seem more special- by kissing each other. Episodes seem to consist of two segments, the A segment whose plot I described above, and the B segment, which has Haruka and Yuu get trapped in a classroom while making out when they were supposed to be getting lunch for a friend, and concerns their attempts to get out. I felt this was the better of the two segments, since it was focused more on humour and less on character introductions. Plus, the ending got a genuine laugh out of me, it’s very rare an anime does that.
This show was a lot more hyper than I was expecting, with a lot of SHAFT-like imagery and direction, combined with a good amount of slapstick this is one show anime full of energy. It also has more kissing than most other anime with romance I’ve ever seen. It honestly feels rather refreshing. Haruka and Yuu may not be winning any “most well-written couple” award anytime soon, but at least they aren’t afraid to show their affection for one another. Character-wise Haruka seems like your general “clingy and ditsy” character, which are usually annoying and unbearable, but she has yet to make me reach for the knife and practice self-harm, so that’s a relief. Yuu is the more “mature” of the two, and plays off Haruka decently. Other than our main couple, there’s 4 other characters that I’m going to assume will eventually hook up. Their personalities are pretty generic, but so far likable. The characters are the most important part in any comedy, arguably more so than any other genre, and ST’s cast is decent and enjoyable enough to follow.
At the end of the day I was pleasantly surprised. Never having read the manga, I was expecting a melodrama typical of most high-school yuri that get an anime adaptation. While there are other yuri manga I would rather see get an anime, Sakura Trick doesn’t seem too bad and has a lot of cuteness and charm to it, despite the studio’s track record. Maybe DEEN can do something other than bad adaptations of good Visual Novels and creepy vore incest shit after all?
Manga The super-gay lovechild of Azumanga Daioh and Minami-ke
As the title says, Sakura Trick is sort of a combination of Azumanga Daioh and Minami-ke. It has a similar cast dynamic and setting to the former (six girls in a school), but instead of being cut into a bunch of short sections, each episode is divided into slightly longer sections that are paced a bit more deliberately, much like the latter. And of course, there's a ton of yuri, being that the show is basically about kissing. Of the seven main characters, four are paired up pretty much from the get-go, one has a crush on one of the others, and there's plenty of subtext between the remaining two.
The show's strongest point is that it aims solidly for "cute and funny" and for the most part hits the nail on the head. There's no Gayngst to be found, and there are plenty of amusing and touching moments. The plots are all fairly simple, but that's really the whole point; watching the girls deal with everyday issues in an amusing fashion. There isn't going to be a whole lot of relationship drama; the closest it comes is in the last episode, and that's still pretty light. It's a bit of a breath of fresh air to see relationships played for cuteness and heartwarming moments rather than for drama or heartstring-tugging.
If there's any criticism to be made, the main issue that could stand to be addressed is that while the show is ostensibly an ensemble, the character dynamics aren't all that well explored. When I said that the girls were paired off at the beginning, it means that roughly 80% of each girl's interaction will be with the girl they're paired up with. Which means that Yuu and Haruka, Kaede and Yuzu, and Shizuku and Kotone end up tend to generally be limited to talking to each other, with other character combinations being the exception rather than the rule. (Mitsuki avoids it, mostly because she's not part of a pair). Add in the fact that Yuu and Haruka get the lion's share of attention, and it means most of the cast doesn't get a great deal of focus.
The short version is the Sakura Trick basically runs off of WAFF, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. There isn't a ton of depth, but in this case, there doesn't need to be.