The anime adaptation had the extreme misfortune to come out the same season as two other shows about girls making music, with considerably more resources put into them. Girls Band Cry really nails the band / band drama part, and Jellyfish Can't Swim in the Night seems to be delivering the yuri goods. This is… fine? so far, but without Eku-sensei's killer art, it feels unfortunately generic, especially when set next to those other shows (it doesn't help with me that Girls Band Cry is on track to be my anime of the year).
After watching Yuri is My Job, I kinda wish that Passione had gotten the nod to do this adaptation – they seems to understand yuri visual language pretty well (it's kinda weird how much this adaptation is borrowing from Sasaki & Miyano), they're good at adapting distinctive manga designs for anime, and their art and animation aren't flashy but look super good. About the best thing this adaptation has going for it is the voice acting, which has been very good throughout. And, I guess, they've done a pretty good job of capturing Aki's complexity – maybe it's just that this is like my third or fourth time through the story, but I feel like the anime does a good job of giving her a prominent role without stealing the focus from Himari or Yori.
Yeah I love this manga a ton, but sadly the anime genuinely feels lacking to me. I thought at least the music element would be brought to life in spectacular fashion with animation and sound, and while the VA work is solid the animation and direction is sadly greatly lacking. I was also thinking about how there's other music focused anime this season that I'm enjoying a lot more, series that feel like they have a lot more energy and dynamic flow. I wish I was enjoying Whispering's adaption as much, because again I do love the manga.
The only issue is the production values so far.
I deleted my previous response as I didn't want to sound too harsh on the anime, but yeah sadly the production values for the adaption leave so much to be desired.
last edited at May 6, 2024 4:50PM