Every anime season, I try to find one slice-of-life show to watch in order to mellow out in between the more action-oriented shows that I picked up. While the synopsis for Just Because! wasn’t really eye-catching, it did hold a certain mystique about it. Couple that with the fact that the show’s adaptation seemed to be well-received by those who read the source material, I decided to give Just Because! a try. Did I find my chill out show of the season?
Let’s Go!
First Episode Impressions
This show centers around a boy named Eita Izumi. Due to his father constantly relocating, he had to move away from his friends in Junior High. Four years later, his father relocates again and Eita ends up transferring into a high school with his old friend Haruto. Haruto isn’t the only person from Eita’s past that attends the same high school as the first episode concludes with Haruto telling him that a girl named Natsume goes there as well.
That’s a rather short description of the first episode, but there really wasn’t much that happened. The first episode was really slow-paced and placed a lot of focus on Eita’s transfer into the school. Towards the end of the first episode, we learn that Haruto and Eita used to play baseball together and now that Haruto is in high school, he has all but given up on playing on a team. He just wants to practice so he can hit a home run, which would validate everything he had done up to his moment involving baseball.
While it isn’t stated outright, the fact that this anime has a romance tag attached to it suggests that Natsume was an old girlfriend/love interest from Junior High. I guess we’ll find out more in the next episode.
OP & ED Impressions
Unfortunately, there is no opening or ending in the first episode, but the opening theme song, “over and over”, will be performed by Nagi Yanagi. I did happen to catch a piece of the song on YouTube and it’s what you would expect from a slice-of-life anime. It starts off pretty gentle with some piano and string instruments and kicks up to a happy beat. Yanagi-san sings the song rather softly and gently which further enhances the calmness of the tune. It’s a nice soothing song that should make for a great opening!
I wasn’t so lucky with the ending theme; however, it is being sung by members of the voice cast. If you’ve read by other First Reactions, then you know I don’t particularly look forward to these song as they are hit or miss with about a 90% rating in the miss category.
Worth Watching?
MAYBE – The slow pace of the first episode didn’t really spark much interest into watching anything beyond it, but I am willing to give the show a chance because there really wasn’t anything all that bad about it. The premise was straightforward and there wasn’t a cavalcade of characters shoved in your face which allows you to slowly engross yourself in the world that they are building for you. Just Because! has all the right pieces in place to be a great slice-of-life show, but it needs to do a little more to make things a bit interesting.
