If you look up "slice-of-life" in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of this short anime.
Setting aside the surprisingly dark joke about Steve Jobs' death embedded into the OP, Aiura is a light show focused around one or two scenes per short episode, usually revolving around the banter of the three main girls: Kanaka, Saki, and Ayuko. It's a setup that's been driven into the ground by the anime industry at this point, but it works well here because of the more limited runtime and that it isn't overly concerned with being funny every second. This is the only short anime I can think of aside from Encouragement of Climb that sees the merit in having their characters stop to smell the roses, so to speak.
To that end, the animation is beautiful. The first and last episodes are scenery trips more than anything else. The attention to detail is amazing; my favorite is probably the moving shot showing the light filtering through the trees, which no screenshot can accurately capture. It's something that you have to see yourself, and is remarkably true to life. That same care is taken towards the character designs as well, with no off-model animation that I noticed. This show wasn't dubbed "Legs: The Anime" on Twitter for nothing.
While there were times when it felt like Aiura was too short (have to make room for the OP and ED after all), I think it ensured that the series wouldn't overstay its welcome, which is a risk slower-moving slice-of-life shows take. However, I loved that the series only showed snippets of the characters' day, like a highlight reel. With no time to take a joke too far or for a character type to become annoying, this show is the perfect example of everything I love about the genre. The next time someone asks me to explain slice-of-life, I'll point them in Aiura's direction.
Images from Crunchyroll.com.
Read the rest of this entry
Entry meta
