Watching 'Kids on the Slope'

Kids on the Slope is a spring 2012 anime that is based off of the manga by Kodama Yuki that ran from 2007 'til 2012. It is a co-production between MAPPA and Tezuka Productions (Dororo, Terror in Resonance and Young Black Jack, Dororo). The show is directed by the fantastic Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Terror in Resonance), while the music is composed by mabunua (Megalo Box). The show has Kimura Ryouhei (Prince of Stride Alternative, Psycho-Pass 2), Hosoya Yoshimasa (Maquia When the Promised Flower Blooms, Megalo Box), and Nanri Yuuka (Corpse Party: Missing Footage, Place Promised in our Early Days) as the three leads, voicing Kaoru, Sentarou, and Ritsuko respectively. The series is made up of a total of twelve episodes.

Narrative

The show decides to tackle some complex themes such as familial expectations, societal expectations, love, dreams, the value of family and our place in this world. While these are ambitious themes to cover in an anime, the fact that you need to achieve a thorough representation of these themes while weaving a narrative through them in twelve short episodes is a herculean task in itself.

There are times when the narrative is incredibly strong and there are moments when it seems to create drama for the sake of creating drama. Where the anime was at its strongest was when the two male leads were focusing on their music, and where the anime falls short is in the area of drama and slice of life.

The music based narrative had a great pace to it and the scenes were always charged with energy; however the slice of life side of the narrative was very much lacking this same energy and as a result was a drag to get through. It is unfortunate that much of the narrative is set around the slice of life aspect.

There was very much a Your Lie in April feel to this anime, though because Your Lie in April has a lot more time with the characters and ideas it was able to execute them in a far more effective manner. Then again it could the result of Kids on the Slope being the precursor which allowed a lot of lessons to be learned.

Characters

The story of Kids on the Slope is simple enough. It is about three friends who go to highschool together in 1960's Japan. Going even deeper than what is on a surface level, it shows the trials that the friendship between the three develop over time, and how the bond between them grows as a result of their combined love of music and each other. Along the way we are introduced to various other characters that have their own story lines that in turn affect the lives of the central trio.

Just as the narrative was hit and miss, so were the characters. There are moments in the show where they feel completely believable, and moments when their circumstances are so relatable that it actually becomes quite emotional. This is then mitigated by the fact that characters can switch the way they behave at the turn of a hat, make choices that seem to break the consistency of their character, and do things that forces there to be conflict when there is no need for there to be any at all.

While I can forgive this every so often, it occurs at such a rate that it started to affect my enjoyment of the show as it drew to a conclusion. Each of the characters started off incredibly strong and that is what makes it all the more disappointing as you can see the through line where the same characters would end up where they would ultimately end up in, however because of just how rushed the show is, covering multiple years in the space of only twelve episodes, we do not get to see the organic changes that the characters go through that makes each of their choices believable. As such the character ending up being quite disappointing when compared to the potential they carried.

Visuals/ Music

Visually the show is breathtaking to look at. The colours radiate from the screen and the characters look fantastic. The backgrounds look serene to look at whenever we get to see them in its entirety. What is especially impressive I'm the quality of the animation is just how fluid the animation is when the characters are actually playing music. In fact the animation at these points is so well done that I cannot tell if it is 3D animation or it has been rotoscoped.

Either way, it is exhilarating to watch these scenes and their first jam session all together took my breath away. The music is also well done, and compliments the series as a whole, the Jazz tracks that are present are great to listen to and Shinichiro Watanabe demonstrates just how well he can direct animation and music in anime.

In Closing

While I do have just as many issues with the show as I do praise, it is one of the very few anime that actually has an end to it. As a result I was left satisfied once the narrative came to an end. While it was satisfying, and while it is technically very impressive considering how great music based anime looks now, it still holds up. I would give it a half recommendation. It is a show that I feel has positives that outweigh the negatives, as such I would say to check out the first episode and make a judgement call. The show is available to watch on Crunchyroll.