Sakamichi no Apollon

Introverted classical pianist and top student Kaoru Nishimi has just arrived in Kyushu for his first year of high school. Having constantly moved from place to place since his childhood, he abandons all hope of fitting in, preparing himself for another lonely, meaningless year. That is, until he encounters the notorious delinquent Sentarou Kawabuchi.

Sentarou's immeasurable love for jazz music inspires Kaoru to learn more about the genre, and as a result, he slowly starts to break out of his shell, making his very first friend. Kaoru begins playing the piano at after-school jazz sessions, located in the basement of fellow student Ritsuko Mukae's family-owned record shop. As he discovers the immense joy of using his musical talents to bring enjoyment to himself and others, Kaoru's summer might just crescendo into one that he will remember forever.

Sakamichi no Apollon is a heartwarming story of friendship, music, and love that follows three unique individuals brought together by their mutual appreciation for jazz.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kawabuchi, Sentarou Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Nishimi, Kaoru Main

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Mukae, Ritsuko Main

Nanri, Yuuka Japanese

Katsuragi, Junichi Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Fukahori, Yurika Supporting

Endou, Aya Japanese

Mukae, Tsutomu Supporting

Kitajima, Zenki Japanese

Matsuoka, Seiji Supporting

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Taichi Supporting

Iwasaki, Megumi Japanese

Kaoru's Aunt Supporting

Jou, Masako Japanese

Sachiko Supporting

Miyamoto, Yume Japanese

Maruyama, Masao Producer

Ootsuka, Manabu Producer

Udagawa, Sumio Producer

Ozaki, Noriko Producer

Reviews

Jul 14, 2024

OG_Otaku

Recommended

The persons involved in the English dub of this precious anime should be lined up against a wall and shot. It is a crime against humanity. Avoid it at all cost.
This anime can only be appreciated in the original Japanese.

Sakamichi no Apollon is a love story between two orphaned young men. Raised by relatives, no contact with their mothers or their absentee fathers, they become antisocial rebels, until they are brought together by music. Specifically, mid-twentieth century American jazz.

Originally a josei manga published by a young women's magazine, our female lead Ritsuko serves as the love interest for young Nishimi. But in truth, ... she represents the young women readers, supporting our male protagonists, cheering them on as they channel their passions into music and a friendship that will be "lifelong". The boys are too innocent for their love to manifest sexually. But this is no ordinary friendship. Ritsuko ultimately loves the relationship between Nishimi and Kawabuchi more than she loves Nishimi Kaoru. Her most precious photo is a picture of the two boys embracing.

Volumes have been written about the homoeroticism of the story, but it is really so innocent and wholesome that it is a waste of time to ponder such things. The devout Christianity of Mukae Ritsuko and Kawabuchi Sentarou sets the tone for our story. This tale is one of pure Platonic love, even if we are shipping Risuko and Kaoru like crazy.

For lovers of romance, slice of life, and old school jazz, this is an almost-perfect anime. It's only flaw is its brevity. It really deserved two seasons.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jun 17, 2024

Gamer_Moment58

Mixed Feelings

As a current high-schooler in a jazz Band, when I saw clips from this show I was immediately intrigued. I saw a video of Charles Cornell analyzing some of the music scenes in it, and was amazed by the quality of the arranging and animation. I then learned that Yoko Kanno did the soundtrack for it.

I feel like many people don't understand how amazing this animation is. It's the most accurate representation of all the instruments shown I've seen so far in all of anime.

I especially love the festival scene when Kaoru plays "My Favorite things" and then "Moanin". The level of musicality between ... the players was demonstrated very well, and again, the animation for both instruments was spot-on.

My main critique of the show is that with such an amazing show of music, they chose to cut all music scenes after around episode 5 and "develop" the budding romance. It would've been fine if it was done well, but none of the characters meshed well together, and it took so long for them to move it along that I quickly lost interest. The only reason I finished this show was because of the final music scene in the church.

Also, with Yoko Kanno doing the soundtrack, you would expect the rest of the time when the characters aren't actively performing to still have jazz behind it, like Cowboy Bebop,l. But no, it was a mix of lofi sounds and pop.

All in all, the only thing I see in this show is wasted potential, with amazing music scenes and great animation, choosing to focus on a bad romance was a shot in the foot. 6/10, I hope to find other music-based anime that do better than this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 30, 2021

RESOLVING_POWER

Not Recommended

I watched Sakamichi no Apollon, also known as Kids on the Slope. Here are my thoughts:

A music-themed josei drama is right up my alley, so I expected that I would enjoy this. Unfortunately, despite my optimism, I was disappointed by this anime.

The anime has pretty good direction. It feels movie-like, both in terms of direction and production quality. Very polished.

Decent character designs for the male characters (can't say the same for the women). Although the art style is bland, the animation is fluid and looks nice. The colour palette is quite dull and muted, but admittedly it does suit the retro-Japan time period.

I really like ... YUKI's vocals, so it's not surprising that I enjoyed the OP song. The ED song grew on me over time as well. The OST itself was unremarkable from my perspective, but jazz fans may feel differently. Voice acting was alright; I thought the VAs for Sentarou and Yurika did a good job.

The characters each have unique personalities but one thing they all have in common is how immature they behave. This immaturity is frustrating, not endearing. Particularly so, given that this is a serious drama show. The main character is about as likable as Holden Caulfield (read: insufferable). In fact, I did not empathize with any of the characters in any way, despite the drama-heavy nature of the story.

Although the story takes place in the 1960s, this has fairly little relevance to the content of the show itself, aside from the prominence of jazz as a popular music genre. Give everyone a cell phone and it would easily pass as a highschool anime set in the modern day. It all felt very generic, regardless of the high production value. Basically just a jazz spin on a typical highschool drama anime. This generic feeling is compounded by the stereotypical mechanisms through which drama is created in the story.

I really dislike 'love at first sight' in fiction. It feels so shallow, forced and lazy on the writer's part. "These two characters just saw each other and never even spoke and now they're arbitrarily in 'love' with one another" ugh. This anime is guilty of doing this multiple times. Groan. Generally speaking, I also dislike love triangles (or n-dimensional polygons, in this case). That kind of writing was stale literally four centuries ago, and it certainly isn't creative now. The love 'geometry' in this anime feels like lazy, uncreative, and eyeroll-inducing writing. If romance is going to be the central focus of a story, then it needs to be implemented better than the fictional equivalent of playing dollhouse and randomly pressing your dollies' heads together and yelling "now kiss!". This kind of thing can be very frustrating to watch. Similarly, the way that characters react when this so-called 'love' is not reciprocated is equally groan-worthy and feels like a chore to watch. Simply put, the characters (specifically, their behaviour and interaction) are written terribly. For this reason, the high production value of the show is just lipstick on a pig, unfortunately.

One thing I will praise is the absence of humour in this anime. I can imagine a different version of this show where unfunny comic relief is laid on heavily. Thankfully this was not the case and the anime kept a consistently serious tone. This is in contrast to, say for example, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, which I recall having dreadfully inappropriate comic relief.


My overall rating: 3/10
Although it is skillfully produced, this anime fundamentally has a very poor story. I often felt frustrated while watching due to the bad writing. Very disappointing. I am quite surprised by how praised this show is. It felt like an anime adaptation of a really bad soap opera.

Although I am capable of enjoying many different kinds of music, I unfortunately have never been able to get into jazz, despite multiple attempts to do so. Someone who likes jazz might enjoy this anime more than I did. In any case though, music is not an important aspect of the show. The majority of the episodes are crammed full of awful fanfic-tier teenage drama which overwhelms any potential for a significant focus on music. Lastly, just for clarification, I have no problem with drama in anime at all, in fact it is one of my favourite genres. Like I've already said, the fundamental problem is the writing, not simply the drama-heavy nature of the show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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