It’s hard to bring back the popularity of rice!
What They Say:
Five new rice students have enrolled at Kokuritsu Inaho Academy, a school on the verge of shutting down, and they form a new group called “Love Rice” that’s practicing to beat Yeast King at the Harvest Show and win back the popularity rice once had… This heartfelt “kome”-dy featuring anthropomorphized grains is full of laughter and passion! Two grains aren’t needed at the dinner table… so which will become the true HarveStar?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a tease of a big battle to come in seven months time, Love Rice presents an idea in the here and now that the popularity of rice isn’t where it should be. To help bring it back to its former greatness, five students at Inaho Academy are intent on doing just that because of how passionate they are about rice. We get the standard quick drop of who is who for this cast of five that will bond together as the group known as Love Rice, which is required because the rice academy that they just entered is on the verge of shutting down. It’s what riles them up and sets them to do what’s needed, though they’ll have lots of hardships to endure before getting to that battle to prove who is the true HarveStar.
In Summary:
While I do like the weirdness that a lot of short-form shows work with over the course of seasons that I’ve been following them, this is definitely one that stands out. The opening episode doesn’t work a hard and fast approach – it’s surprisingly languid at times – but it puts everything together in a weird way that doesn’t quite gel. The formation of the Love Rice group is coming and we get some idea of who everyone is, even if only for the character designs because the cliches are not to be subverted here. It’s decently animated but it doesn’t have a strong hook to demand you come back. We’ll be back, however, because I’m foolishly curious to see what it really wants to be and there’s so much wordplay to work with that I want to see if they can hit enough of it.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
