Synopsis
Slow Loop is about Hiyori Yamakawa, since childhood, she has witnessed her father’s various eccentricities, but one activity she has always loved doing with him is fly fishing—a complicated yet rewarding method of catching fish. Even after his sudden death, Hiyori still visits the seaside in her spare time, savoring the joy that her father’s memento brings her.
Three years later, Hiyori’s mother decides to remarry and arranges a dinner with her fiancé, his daughter, and Hiyori to celebrate. Anxious and wanting to pass the time, Hiyori goes to her usual fishing spot when a rather energetic girl named Koharu Minagi suddenly appears before her. The two soon become acquainted, with Koharu taking an interest in fly fishing herself. However, their meeting is more than just a coincidence: Koharu turns out to be Hiyori’s future stepsibling, which is only the beginning of treasured memories the both of them will reel in as they foster their sisterhood.
Review
With Yuru Camp seemingly moving towards its end and the recent conclusion of Non Non Biyori, I found myself falling back and remembering how those 2 helped me throughout my life. Whether it was the relaxation nature of Yuru Camp as it helped me through a very difficult period in my life, or the way Non Non Biyori taught me that life goes on and we have to try and enjoy every moment of it.
Those 2 set the standard of how to make a Slice of Life anime, how to create good characters and how to build an expanding beautiful world though simple story telling. So with one ending and another one seemingly getting there, I needed to find something to fill the void. And MAN DID I FIND A PERFECT ONE. IT HAS EVERYTHING!
To give you a general idea of what to expect of it, Slow Loop is a story involving some very wholesome yet heavy ideas. The show is about 2 step-sisters, who just met each other following their parent’s marriage after the death of their previous spouse. The main theme of the anime is one that I love dearly and its building relationships with one another. Friendship, family-bonds or even building a healthy habit for yourself and overcoming difficult parts in your life.
The anime starts by providing a very simple idea which is fishing. We see how our 2 main characters met and how the anime used fishing as its way to drive the narrative of the story. What is good here is that the anime uses that simple idea to help you understand the inner nature and mind of each of them.
Hiyori for example goes fishing alone because she lost her father who she always went fishing with. Koharu loves acting as the older sibling which could easily be traced to her losing her younger brother. The anime uses general ideas like that to not only provide a backstory for each character, but also to show that they have emotions. They have values and they try to cope with the feeling of losing something dear to you and trying to overcome and accept that idea.
One of the best parts about the anime is the comedy. The anime doesn’t try to make you laugh every second, but somehow, it always adds very subtly jokes that legit made me laugh out loud. I’m always surprised at how the anime adds that little bit of dialog with a very well-fitting facial expression, which just gets that laugh out of me.
Slow Loop excels at presenting drama, character development and actually dealing with issues.
To discuss this part in detail, lets look at an example. There is a cute little girl called Futaba who is afraid that people might dislike her because she doesn’t have the same hobbies as the girls in her class. Instead of the anime relying on the general idea of “as long as you are having fun” and stuff like that, it showed our characters actually accepting that idea.
It wasn’t thrown under the bus for a child just thinking too much, instead it not only allowed the other characters to understand her and her struggles more, it helped add some character depth to Futaba’s sister and break the idea of stereotypes that many anime fall into. Acknowledging and dealing with the person at hand not just solving the issue which turned out to be a much more realistic approach.
And just to emphasize, I need to talk about how brilliant the cast is. Despite having a relatively small number of characters, the best thing about the anime is that there are no stereotypes. No overly shy characters or tsunderes for example. Even when the anime introduced a tomboy, it enhanced her character to the point that you feel her being more realistic that way. The wonderful cast and the development they get left me in a satisfied state and it didn’t feel like a wasted opportunity.
There are two things I must mention as well.
First one is that the anime is super informative when it comes to fishing. You get to learn about fishing techniques, types of baits, when to go fishing, how to throw your fishing rod and even the different creatures and fish living in the ocean. It also goes on about how to cook these fish and the different way to enjoy them. That was super informative and actually helped me talk with one of my friends who absolutely loves fishing.
The 2nd thing I want to talk about or I guess just mention, is that the anime is super wholesome and cute with almost no dirty moments. Aside from around 5 seconds in the first episode when Koharu is first introduced so please just skip over them.
Slow Loop has been a very fantastic anime, it has been a while since a new anime has left me waiting for the next episode and somehow always manages to deliver. It’s a wonderful story about our characters, that help each other grow, have fun and cope with their loss and any issues they have in their life. Would recommend it to anyone wanting to relax and have a laugh.
