Life in the country isn’t small unless you think it is.
What They Say:
The closest book store sells Jump every Wednesday, the video rental shop is ten stations down. Vegetables are left out for sale, and no one’s ever even see a lock on a house. That’s the country life they live, but these five girls at Asahigaoka Branch School are enjoying it! Enjoy the leisurely, laid-back life of these unique girls!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the manga of the same name by Atto, Non Non Biyori is a twelve episode series animated by Silver Link which was broadcast during the fall of 2013. The original manga began back in 2009 and has six volumes to its name so far, giving this a fair bit of material to work with overall. Slice of life shows are ones that can be worked a bit easier anyway since they have a natural slowness to them that can lead to some creative and fun ways of stretching things out a bit. With this series, we get taken out of the usual norm for a show like this in that it puts us in the countryside village of Asahigaoka. Having spent my own time in far off places that are quite similar to this, you can definitely feel a certain truth coming from the design of a series like this.
While we’ve had countryside village stories before, often they take us to more regional schools where we get a fairly normal kind of crowd that has the standard size to it but without the whole big city aspect. What they do here instead is introduce to us the place through the arrival of Hotaru, a fifth year elementary student who has come from Tokyo due to a job transfer her father had. She’s not a worldly Tokyoite or anything but simply comes across as a normal kid. One that’s shocked to find that her new school has four students in it prior to her arriving. The school takes place in a single classroom that’s handled by a single teacher, Kazuho, who herself graduated from here several years ago. It’s more a traditional Little House on the Prairie kind of school where we get everything that’s taught at the same time in a way but it’s more about self study and working through workbooks rather than Kazuho actually teaching. Which is good since she’s more predisposed to sleeping most of the time like a cat.
The make-up of the class is heavily tilted towards the girls as there are three of them versus the single boy and the arrival of Hotaru makes it all the more tilted. The single boy is the elder brother of Natsume and Komari, which gives us three of the characters being siblings in the class of four, which is awkward enough. To make it more so, the first grade student in here, Renge, is related to Kazuho, so there’s a lot of easy familiarity among everyone because of this situation. Hotaru’s arrival is one that doesn’t exactly upset it since the girls all get together more and just hang out, especially since Suguru as the only male is barely used and barely even qualifies as window dressing since he has a handful of lines at best here. Which works well enough since this is pretty much an all-girls show anyway, but at least that make mention of one or two boys along the way so that it’s not as if boys don’t exist at all.
Thankfully, the show doesn’t focus on Hotaru as the view of the village from a big city girl, though we get some of it to start. It works well enough to introduce us to the village and some of the quirks of it, but it’s largely a normal place where you have to travel to a nearby city for a normal market and other kinds of amenities. There’s a few simple places within the village, but the only noteworthy one that really comes up is that there’s a candy shop that’s run by a former alumni of the school who is barely eking out an existence since there aren’t a lot of people here and little in the way of money. A lot of the show simply takes place at the school, but it also doesn’t spend all of its time there as it shifts around other areas that really does a good job to accent its beauty. There’s an episode that focuses nicely on this as we get Renge meeting a girl who has come to visit her grandmother for the summer and she shows her around so she can take lots of pictures. It’s a nice story in that it gives Renge someone her own age to interact with, though you know it won’t last.
The draw of a show like this is the slow moments themselves, the way they interact with each other and just hang out. Because of the big age differences at times with them, and some of the silliness of the height differences as well since second year middle school student Komari is shorter than her younger sister, and almost on a first grade level at about four foot nine, you get plenty of situations come up that deals with these differences. During the simple and mostly non-fanservice oriented beach segment, Komari goes off to get drinks for everyone but a few of the caretakers in the area worry that she’s a lost little girl and keep her with them until her friends come and pick her up. Everyone is apologetic, but there is definitely some comedy to be had with these even as you feel bad for Komari. Though you can’t help but to enjoy the way Renge even gets a few good laughs in with it.
Non Non Biyori works through plenty of familiar stories as it goes on, from a rather cute late night challenge of bravery that panics the girls to a more personal piece where Komari and Natsume deal with Komari watching a ghost movie that freaks her out more than she thought it would. Of course, siblings make everything worse and Natsume really torments her in a big way. Cooking figures into the show as well of course and there’s also a good episode where they try to put on a culture festival with a cafe while drawing in a few other alumni in order to make it profitable. Not that anyone in the class can even read a recipe and follow it – Kazuho included – which makes it a comical bit to watch. Still, having some of the older students come back makes it fun to watch since there’s some family relations in there as well. You can see the echos of that generation coming through upon revisiting.
Silver Link’s work on the show here is important because the quality of the animation in terms of design really is critical. It may be a bit more green natural than some might expect in a way, but it has a big naturalistic look to it and a bit too clean, but it paints an appealing picture of saying that there is much to like out here and that there are many happy people in that area. The background designs are just beautiful throughout when it comes to the outdoors and they do just as solid inside, though that’s a bit more traditional. Similarly, the character designs have a lot of appeal as there are some real differences in the characters but they each have their quirks that make them stand out. It’s not a series with high fluid animation because it’s simply not necessary as it’s all dialogue driven with simple movements, but what they do offer really comes across well and leaves you with a very good impression of the project as a whole.
In Summary:
As the show covers almost a years worth of time as it moves through the seasons, we get a nice little look at the work of Non Non Biyori. You could get a good sense of this show prior to its broadcast from the promos that came out and the way it was being portrayed and I found no real surprises with it. It’s kept simple and nice with some sweet moments along the way as you’re brought to care about the characters as much as you can. While we do get to know them, none of the characters here actually face any adversity or challenges of note, even at the ages they’re at, so there’s nothing to really draw you in further. It’s pleasant and nice and you can easily like the characters, but it’s also something that’s fairly superficial as it tries to get you to fall for them. I can see the appeal and the way that it did garner itself a good group of fans, but for me it was just a pleasant diversion that I suspect won’t leave much of an impact or memory.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
