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Sakura Quest (TV)

Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life
Themes: Work

Plot Summary: Five girls work in the tourism bureau of their small provincial town. The town revives its "micro-nation" tourism program, which originated from a nationwide movement during Japan's bubble economy period, and hires the five girls as "monarchs" (tourism ambassadors).
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P.A. Works original anime similar to Hanasaku Iroha and Shirobako apparently. It's one of their two shows for Spring and I definitely look forward to this after seeing the preview and premise.

Last edited by Stark700 on Wed Apr 05, 2017 11:39 am; edited 1 time in total

Episode 1:

The OP song is kinda cute.

Koharu is a pretty normal girl looking to fulfill her dreams. Her job hunting begins with a rocky start until luck changes and her life becomes much more interesting. I must say, the first episode did a decent job at establishing the story. It didn't waste much time and got right into the point. Koharu's character is pretty determined so I'm rather interested to see how this show develops her life.

The part with the green monster in costume gave me a good laugh. The quality is definitely well done for a PA Works show.

Looks like it will be a pretty fun show. Kind of an unsual "workplace" comedy, I guess.

I rather enjoyed the first episode and think it will be a pretty good replacement for Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. I was particularly happy to see that this show centers around young adults in the working world instead of being high school students (not that I have anything against those shows since I do watch quite a few of them).

Episode 1

I know that sting way too much, the feeling of putting yourself out there for jobs, and then getting that message that you were not accepted and they wish you best for your future. I am sure people think getting something back is kind, and perhaps being told it did not work out is, but it hurts and makes you feel worthless. In my personal case I have been trying for ages to get any job inside of an office, but as of yet no one cares about my Bachelor of Business, maybe because they expect me to have some sort of experience but I would not be able to survive in retail, and not suited to more labour intensive. So I can really empathise with the main character, Yoshino.

So far it feels quite charming. I get a super feel of Shirobako, which I guess it is P.A. Works. I totally laughed when seeing what the old guy's plan was to keep her. From the OP I was thinking that it was pretty cute, and I like the tone so far, so I think that I will likely be in.

This thing is frickin weird.

I think I like it though. I found a lot of the stuff to be funny,a dn a lot of the aspects of the setting are strange in an interesting way.

I largely liked Shirobako because it was about anime production, but the execution of the idea was good as well. This seems similar in tone but isn't about something that deeply interests me personally. It definitely makes up for that by being strange. How much it makes up remains to be seen.

I specifically liked how the main character views things in a "am I needed" way. That big-town anxiety and depression being explored in a rural area, where people are necessarily closer to each other can be very interesting.

Episode 2:

Interesting episode.

Koharu is adapting more with her new life while she's coming up with more ideas to help tourism by trying to develop a website. She and the others are working decently together including Maki (really hope we get to know her more)

I think this show has a slow yet tolerable pacing so far. Also really starting to like Koharu more with her role this episode. However, they need to improve their product and marketing as it isn't attracting much customers. Pacing-wise, it feels slow but tolerable.

There is a sense of humour here that I am quite enjoying, I think it was the quiet girl directing as something in particular. We have our cast of girls and I think that they are pretty good, and I think it was totally fair that there was no way they could accomplish the task they were given. You can't just put something on the internet and expect it to bring attention and sell what they want. There are things like building a brand and all that which she kind of jumped on quickly, and the fancy occult could maybe contrast against the hero thing they already have, they would need to build an audience. As it was, the more genuine response to saying how good they were was possibly have been a better choice.

As it was it might be the theme that if people want all the fancy stuff they have the city already, and that there are things smaller towns can offer.

Wow, I am really enjoying this. I love that the show didn't strain credibility and have all the boxes of manju magically sold by the end of the week. I really like the cast, too. This is a very well-written show and quite funny. Well done, anime!

Episode 3:

I admire Koharu's determination. Even though their group didn't get off to a good start with sales, they are still trying to make the best of what they can.

It's weird to see an older guy in that Chupacabra outfit though lol...
Koharu's personality shows more confidence since she's been in this new town. I like it. I think she even has leadership talent in her personality.

Btw, this show got announced for 25 episodes today (half year) so there's plenty of time to develop the story and characters; pacing feels slightly sluggish at the moment imo.

I thought that it was a good episode to show what exactly is causing the stalemate of the town. People are surviving and only got it from their hard work and sticking with it, and the head of the committee does have some charisma that he can set projects into action. The problem is that none of the people in town are keen to do much to change because it won't be their problem, and the chief is kind of forcing his own aspirations onto others maybe taking some feedback that things are not working. Both sides are stubborn, where one set is just not fit for modern times and will disappear after the current heralds, and the other stinks as a flavour of the month that went out of fashion.

I think that the first is rather interesting as it goes into the problem that youth put into the situation get especially frustrated by, that the older people are looking for comfort that they can live the rest of their days out to, but they are kind of abandoning that youth which has nothing to look forward tor their future. And yet it can also be that simply trying to forge a new path that just goes (or went) by what is hot at a time while ignoring the past can come across as disingenuous, that anyone can do that and is not true to the location and history. At this point, it may be a true compromise of learning what the common pride people have for their home, that at face value it could be that there are bigger and brighter things elsewhere, so just the people with no dream stay. But the fact that people lost whatever pride they had in their hometown was a problem with the method tried before.

At this point no magic formulae has been presented with how this town might get renewed, in general it has been a kind of realistic line of flops, and really if there was some magical formulae then every small town would have probably used it already. So I wonder what the plan is here, like what the vision is that some small community could maybe improve. Also, really liking the sort fantasy episode titles to rather mundane events, by which I assume that the cross of chupacabra and kabura was a mandrake.

Episode 5

Oh, that was a nice first step for the town to show off its signature woodcarving tradition, by displaying some in the place that anyone who goes through the centre place of the town, the station. They were kind of running into the problem of why would anyone want to go to the woodcarving place in the first place without any interest, but putting some in where everyone would go could actually work to build the interest, people who happen to go through will see it. I think that it is a good step in the people won't tend to go out of their way to see something they are not already interested in.

Totally laughed with crazy guy, for no reason playing his ocarina and then being picked up by the police. Well, we found out that he is an artist.

Episode 6

For someone being so upset of apparently no lines, that old man sure did a good job as a zombie. The main thing I am getting from the director of that movie though is that he is a bit of a hack, he keeps changing things on the fly and has little care about the trouble he is putting his foot men through. The similarities this show has in feeling like Shirobaki maybe makes the director thing stand out, and he feels a bit Tarou. Well Shirobako was all about production issues, maybe expecting the worst.

I am intererested by the dual stories going on, one girl feels like she is a faiure in the field she tried and thus does not want to be in involved in it at all out of some sense of embarrassment, I like that she was kind of told to apologise. The other, she protective of the old house, out of character lying out of wanting to protect it.

Episode 7

I am not really the type to really like sudden intrusive OST, like we had here with there being a sung song as part of the music, and I would not say there is much precedent to do it with this sort of thing. But I think it was really well done to emphasise the story with Maki, that it actually provided an emotional punch that could extend into the other half of the story.

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