I first found out about Sakamichi no Apollon through a friend. He posted a trailer of the spring anime series on Facebook and was kind enough to tag me, knowing that I would find it interesting that it was from director Watanabe Shinichiro, who worked on Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.
Admittedly, my anime lineup every season is mostly made up of the shonen category. But of late, I'm getting in a healthy mix of genres, including supernatural/horror, comedy and sports variety (romance is usually just coincidental). I am never one, however, to pass up on slice of life anime, especially one as beautifully told as Sakamichi no Apollon.
The story of Sakamichi no Apollon or Kids on the Slope began in the summer of 1966, when Nishimi Kaoru moved to Kyushu to live with his relatives while his father was working abroad. Studious and quiet, Kaoru was extremely introverted and shunned the company of others because of his constant experience of moving from one place to another through the years. While he felt friendly towards his new crush Mukae Ritsuko, Kaoru still felt like an outsider. Seeking solace at the school's roof, he encountered Kawabuchi Sentaro, the school's delinquent and Ritsuko's childhood friend. Kaoru, through Sentaro and Ritsuko, soon found himself thrust into a world of jazz music, friendship and love.
It was jazz that brought forth the friendship between Kaoru and Sentaro, who would later spend hours jamming together at the basement of Welcome Records, the record shop owned by Ritsuko's father Mukae Tsutomu. And despite the fact that I've never been much of a jazz music fan, those jamming sessions in the series were very infectious and highly appreciated, because they became an integral method of communicating feelings, especially when two teenagers found it hard to express their emotions through words. The best musical moments in the series were the impromptu sessions that increased in intensity as the players get more and more caught up in playing, showing the audiences that jazz's great moments does not mean following the sheet music to the letter, but were instead borne from musicians feeding off of each other's energy. The anime adaptation was able to utilize the music that readers of the same titled manga could only have imagined. Whether it's just Kaoru and Sentaro, or whether they are joined by Tsutomu and Katsuragi Junichi aka Brother Jun, you can always expect to be entertained or get to understand the characters a little bit more.
While the series successfully evokes the dated look and feel of a bygone era, Sakamichi no Apollon's most successful achievement is in telling the different stories that will be relevant to viewers in the present. You get a keen understanding of how teenagers lived in the 1960s, where the age of student rebellion was at an all time high and the country they lived in still had lingering memories of the previous World War, but finding foreign influences in the form of jazz and rock music. While the former is only experienced first hand by Brother Jun, the latter is a prevalent theme in the teenagers who lived in Kyushu. With very little to keep them occupied, they are apt to be more passionate about things that they enjoy or in pursuing their dreams.
Sakamichi no Apollon, at its core, is a story of growing up and the experiences that come along with it. Every character has his or her own circumstances and insecurities to deal with, while learning valuable lessons from their own experiences and in learning more about the lives of others. While not entirely the focus of the series, romance is an integral part in getting the characters to mature. Love triangles abound, with Kaoru in love with Ritsuko who is in love with Sentaro, and Sentaro in love with Fukahori Yurika who in turn is in love with Brother Jun. Yet, each story of burgeoning or unrequited romance does not eclipse the important core of the series and instead lends more emotional depth to the characters.
The series places importance on personal struggles, but it's the relationships that matter the most. This is especially true in the case of the originally unlikely friendship between Katsuo and Sentaro, and the two boys' connection with Ritsuko. Their little unit has many experiences, from happy to sad, and from uplifting to heartbreaking. There are partings, too, which can be sudden and bittersweet. But with friendship as strong as theirs, the parting is also tempered by reunions, reckless playing of instruments and happily running down a slope together.
You will not likely forget Sakamichi no Apollon easily. Nor the characters' version of "Moanin" by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, which is the first and, aptly, the last song that Katsuo and Sentaro played together in the series.
Happy viewing!!Labels: Adaptation, Anime, Drama, Music, Must-Watch, Romance, Sakamichi no Apollon, Slice of Life, TV
