“Watching the Fireworks With You”
What They Say:
fire flowers bloom / two young hearts stroll together / love is in the air
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Senryu Girl closes in on its finale and I find myself thinking about the show a bit just before settling in to watch this. It isn’t a show that has really wowed me and it’s one whose gimmick, with Nanako doing up the senryu writing, isn’t something that I think has been employed well or used to good effect. It hasn’t been a detriment because I’ve enjoyed how it lets more of her expressiveness shine in different ways and the pairing not just with Eiji that’s ongoing but in seeing how she deals with everything. I imagine it could be frustrating in reality and for a more regular thing, but in these little ten-minute weekly bites, Senryu Girl has been a lot more charming than expected.
With the summer festival in night mode and everyone all dressed up, I love that we see how Eiji has caught a ton of fish, showing some amusingly good skill there. It’s nice just watching the three friends make their way through the festival, especially when it goes into letterbox mode montage material as it does all the familiar things but just right, including turning the club president into a third wheel. As the rest of the group eventually shows up, we get a lot of standard festival stuff here as it leads up to the fireworks itself, which has Eiji racing to get back in time as Nanako is sad without him there, but it’s the right kind of low stakes reality / high stakes young relationship material that you expect to see a show like this go through. Ah, teenage love.
In Summary:
The show is cute as it progresses and the emotional stakes rise just right without going too far that it reminds you of what some of that kind of high school time of life is like. It can be easy to forget or minimize the older you get, but watching Nanako’s reactions as she waits and hopes for Eiji to find her is great, as is the way he does his best to get there. It’s well animated in general but the night setting, the color of the fireworks, and the use of the dressed up characters help to take it to another level of fun that hits all the right spots.
Grade: B
Streamed By: HIDIVE
