Kaoru is unhappy about moving from Yokosuka to Kyushu, since it means living with relatives, being separated from his father, and starting at a new high school filled with students whose accent he can barely understand - and when Kaoru has a run-in with feared classroom thug Sentaro, it seems his life is about to get worse. But instead, he reluctantly starts to find out that there's more to Sentaro, like his passion for jazz...
From the same lineage that brought us Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo comes something... entirely different. Mid-twentieth-century setting, dealing with a style of music that I normally like only in small doses, Kids on the Slope takes three kids' love of jazz and makes some damn fine entertainment with it.
The lead trio are Sentaro, who never really gives the impression of being the "class thug" that he's pitched to be, to be honest - you see little flashes of it, but he's just someone who's bored with school and wants to do something else with his life; Ritusko, the class rep who's a wee honey who seems to have A History with Sentaro (not covered yet, but I'd put money on the old 'childhood friend' line) and who quickly takes Kaoru under her wing when the rest of the class seem reluctant to accept him; and Kaoru himself, who's done this "transfer student" thing enough times to thoroughly dread it.
The series drops them together very quickly, but in a way that feels natural and brings out well the points they have in common. The 25 minutes of the episode was over far too quickly, passing in no time at all, and leaving me with a clear feeling of want more. Now. Which is sadly all too rare these days. Add in absolutely top-class production values - there are segments here which are almost cinematic standard, and I'm going to be queueing up for the Blu-ray if it ever gets a UK release - and we have a case of near-perfection.
THE GOOD: Great animation, great music, great characters, great fun. Where did the time go..!?
THE BAD: Maybe bringing the trio together too quickly, Sentaro doesn't match his bad-boy description. But I'm struggling to nitpick here, and can't hold those against the series. At all.
Shame it's only 11 episodes, because I suspect that with these characters, that simply isn't going to be enough. Most impressive first episode of the season, by a long shot.
Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Apollon) is streamed by Crunchyroll.
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