Adači to Šimamura

If someone had told me back in September that the biggest surprise and one of the best anime series of the anime season Fall 2020 would be a yuri anime, I would not have believed it! I have nothing against Girl Love anime, it is just that I have a fundamental problem with the way GL is presented. Either it is shown as just a simple fap-service (and I mean a typically accessible series, not yuri hentai which is kind of what it is trying to be) without an interesting story. Then there is the show where the female protagonists kiss in the very first episode and then struggle with the consequences, and rather than focusing on the protagonists developing a deeper relationship, they throw in some clichéd romantic drama involving rivals and the whole anime series becomes about that instead. Then we have anime where the girls' romance is a meaningless peripheral issue, and finally, some are just soap operas where the girls are just fooling around with each other and I wonder if it is really about love, or if it is just a simple friendship. In other words, I thought that yuri anime starring normal characters in a run-of-the-mill, believable, well-written GL romance did not exist until recently, or rather I guess I had never come across it, and I was convinced that my ideal romantic GL anime was probably closest to the relationship of the main female protagonists in Sound! Euphonium, and to my disappointment that show is not based on such subject matter after all (that is how good the chemistry between the girls was). Then Adachi and Shimamura came along! In the beginning, it did not seem like it was anything new or surprising, and during the first few episodes, I was thinking about which of the above formulas this anime series would follow. However, as time went on it became much more interesting, more heartfelt, and deeper. In other words, it became a very good romantic GL anime series starring two very different young girls who each have their own problems that brought them together, and I could easily imagine they were probably eventually going to end up together (apart from the fact that the author wanted it that way) because it really made sense. Plus, the development of this relationship is gradual, enjoyable, and endearing. Each of the girls views their relationship differently, yet it is completely believable (and appropriate concerning the age of the characters). We are even convinced of the most basic truths here, such as the fact that when a person is in love they can become obsessed with the object of their desire and remember them even in the strangest situations. We are reminded that love is selfish, we crave the closeness of the person we love, and ideally want them all to ourselves. Love can come suddenly with the realization that we have developed an unhealthy fixation on someone, or slowly when we realize that we actually care about the other person much more than we thought. Love changes us, gives us courage... All of this and much more is brilliantly crafted in this show, and thanks to the inner monologues of the two female protagonists, it feels really deep and heartfelt! This is what a romantic anime series should be about, and everything else is secondary... Therefore, I do not even mind the appearance of the strange alien woman, whose significance I am still thinking about, wondering if she is going to have a major role in future developments, or if she is just there as a reference to the author's previous anime series Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl (I thought the spacesuit was familiar...). Nothing else matters - because I found an excellent and quality romantic GL anime series that is really well produced. Sure, there are some titillating scenes, however, in context, they make sense because when we love someone we dream about them and want to touch them - this is normal! In other words, this is a well-written, deep, slow-burning romance between two young girls (which is not a bad thing, after all) that would stand on its own merits, even if there were a girl and a boy or two boys instead of two girls... That is what a good romantic anime series should look like to me, and this one just happens to be about girls! 9/10. (24.12.2020) (menos) (más)