[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Bokura Ga Ita episode 1: The beginnings of first love
As much as I emphasise my love for the gritty, the angsty and the epic I occasionally find myself hooked on the gentle and whimsical dramas. Fresh from their work on the superb Mushishi, Studio Artland have brought us Bokura Ga Ita: a pure and simple high school romance that has left me pretty impressed.
I know I tend to avoid episode summaries these days but in this case it’s not too much of a problem because very little happens anyway. This is the straightforward boy-meets-girl setup with the main events being of the everyday variety but it’s the writing and the artwork that make it so charming.
The art and music is best described as minimalist: from the character designs to the backgrounds a ‘less is more’ approach is used and the end result attains beauty through simplicity. The characters in the backround are drawn as static, abstract figures in order to draw attention to the animated central ones, in a similar way to Azumanga Daioh. It comes across as being produced on a shoestring for this reason (even the VAs for Nanami and Yano, the two central characters, are unknowns) but quite frankly the subject matter doesn’t need anything flashy or complex.
I know I’ll find myself comparing Bokura Ga Ita to Gainax’s Kare Kano sooner or later so I might as well point out the similarities now. Girl meets boy, girl dislikes boy, girl and boy get to know each other better, both begin to like each other. All done with low-key, low budget visuals, pleasant and uplifting music and greatest care being devoted to the characterisation. It’s too early to say how this will develop but right now I see Bokura Ga Ita as something of a Kare Kano-lite, not that it’s a bad thing of course. If you enjoyed the general themes of that no doubt you’d like this too; Mushishi fans may spot some similarities in terms of artwork, although it has to be said that this has a very light and bright atmosphere so far.
Overall I found Bokura Ga Ita to be undemanding and enjoyable to watch, even though the premise is well-trodden ground for anyone who’s familiar with slice-of-life romantic dramas. Personally my experience of this sort of show is limited but this episode still made me raise a smile on numerous occasions.
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