Sakura Trick

 When I saw the first episode of Sakura Trick I couldn't continue watching. For reference, I had just come off of watching Bloom Into You, which is a thoughtful and relatively slow-paced, atmospheric anime. Sakura Trick is... decidedly not. It is high-strung emotions, rapid changes, dynamic and a bit chaotic. Small things are experienced by its cast as highly dramatic with lots of shouting and crying and over-blown reactions. Tones shift suddenly and dramatically and scene and style cuts come quickly. For example, when repositioning characters relative to each other becomes important, rather than animate them moving it will cut to a view of several symbols, each girl represented by their hair ornament, move those around quickly and then cut back to showing the characters.

I was completely not ready, or in the mood, for that at the time.

But I came back to it as I felt that there might be something special there regardless. And I am very glad that I did.

Sakura Kiss can probably be described as the most yuri of yuri anime that I have seen. Without going into hentai territory, thankfully, it is probably the most intimate an anime can be. Aggressively so. There are no boys in this series, there are barely even any adult men, and all of the girls seem to be attracted to other girls. There are a lot of girl-girl pairings that get developed throughout the series. I would say even to its detriment. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The story revolves around two high school girls, Haruka and Yuu, who have been best friends since middle school. Now, in the face of starting a new school and making new friends, they decide to cement their special friendship by doing something that they wouldn't do with anyone else, by sharing a kiss. They might have intended this to be a one-time thing, but pretty soon they're kissing each other anywhere, any time that they feel they can get away with it. Hoo boy there's a lot of kissing. They're trying to hide their more intimate relationship here, but they're not being particularly careful about it. It is in fact a miracle that they're managing to keep it secret as long as they do.

Thus they slowly, very slowly, develop their relationship with each other. And they're not the only ones. At the start they make four new friends, two of which also quickly turn out to be in a relationship with each other (despite them being related?). The final two are on a bit of a slower path, even in the manga it's not until nearly the end that they become a couple. And then there's Yuu older sister who starts to suspect something and decides to keep a close eye on them, ostensibly to protect her sister, but secretly because she has feelings for Haruka herself.

Each episode is split into two short stories and on the face of it they all might seem disconnected. But there are subtle changes that carry across from one to the next, subtle changes in personality and situations of the characters. Unlike perhaps other series these mini stories do not happen in isolation. The world and the characters do not stay static. And it does refer back to things that happened before, as well as set things up for the future. I found in particular upon reaching the end of the manga that certain things which are given a surface explanation early on, such as why Kotone moved in with Shizuku, have a deeper explanation that is slowly and naturally revealed over time.

Because yes, this anime is also based on a manga. Out of the eight volumes the manga consists of the anime only covers the first three. But it does so pretty much word for word. And unlike other anime it manages to have a reasonably satisfying conclusion. This is perhaps because the two main characters are already acting in most every way as if they are a couple, despite they themselves not having fully realised their feelings for each other. And while them finally officially becoming a couple doesn't happen until the end of the manga (not really much of a spoiler there), how different is that truly to how they have already been. And the anime at least ends with them taking a clear step closer to that.

That said, I would love for the rest of the manga to be adapted into anime as well. There is enough material there for another two seasons.

The series have any highly dramatic moments. In many ways this is just normal girls living normal lives. They just have a tendency to blow things up to dramatic proportions. And while the series has been said to be fan-service heavy I'm not sure I see it like that. There is some of it, sure, with the occasional focus on bouncing breasts and breast grabbing. But when mentioning fan service I suspect most are referring to the frequent kissing. But to me that felt not only very appropriate, that is the means through which the relationship between these two main characters is examined after all and each time the kisses do seem to come full with unspoken meaning. And I found it very refreshing to see a series that is so ready to show such intimacy between characters, without it devolving into hentai.

For me much more problematic was how every single character seems to end up in a relationship, with another girl, at pretty much the same time. Perhaps I am being petty and I am happy for these fictional characters. But it seems a bit too much, a bit too perfect. In a way I wish that it had focused a little bit more on just the two main characters. By the end of the manga it started to feel like it was manoeuvring all the characters around just so that they could all end up with each other and not all relationships felt entirely natural. Yuzu and Kaede I feel didn't necessarily need to be anything more than friends by the end of the series. And it felt like Mitsuki was almost given a girlfriend to take away the sting of her feelings for Haruka not being returned.

In the end I liked the series. None of the characters came across as that bright, but that more often than not added to their charm. That led to little moments such as Haruka's father (in the rare appearance of a male character) proclaiming that he'd never let his daughter marry a guy he didn't know, which Haruka then silently interpreted as "so a girl is ok then". It is not the best anime, not the best yuri anime. It remained a bit too high energy for me even if it mellowed out in that a bit over time (or maybe I just got used to it). I do really appreciate it for its sweetness and sincerity and its unabashed and unapologetic doubling down on yuri.