Shin Dousei Jidai: Hawaiian Breeze

(SPOILER FREE)
Hawaiian Breeze offers one of the more realistic depictions of a relationship I've seen in anime. It follows the long-term relationship of a couple living together in Japan. Although their love is genuine, their life goals are totally different. Peter is an illustrator who works from home with aspirations of getting married and having children. Eri has a corporate job and takes her work seriously. She aspires to climb the company ladder and become successful. Because of this, she's not interested in getting married or having children, despite living with Peter for two years. While most scenes depict a wholesome loving relationship, this difference ... in perspective occasionally causes some pretty heated arguments. While I disapprove of some of the main characters actions, I appreciated how realistically they depicted the irrational side of love because both of these characters tend to lose control of their emotions from time to time. Furthermore, it's later revealed that both of these characters are only acting this way as a response to past trauma they've repressed. While I won't spoil their intimate details regarding the nature of these traumas, I will say that I am impressed with the amount of story they could pack into 40 minutes while still managing to create an emotional experience with a complete ending. I'm even more impressed that someone added this particular image of profanity in graffiti into the end credits right after such a solid emotional scene. I'm guessing whoever did this couldn't read English. My overall score for Hawaiian Breeze is an 8/10. However, I think Hawaiian Breeze might have been the right anime for me at the right time of my life because I felt what these characters were going through. Its MAL rating is only 6.2, which I imagine has much to do with its presentation, so I wanted to review it in hopes that I could shine a new light on an emotional anime that's been lost in history.

The story itself is really enjoyable. More importantly the drama between the 2 mains is done really well and covers a subject matter rarely seen in animation. It uses it's short runtime really well and packs in more than what most accomplish in 40 min. If you like shows about people that are already together and deal with each other, their problems and things they haven't talked abôut, you will certainly enjoy this one.
The animation can be nicely described as very limited, the sound is also just pretty ok, enough to not be a bother but nothing stellar.
Their isn't a lot of music, but it ... usually is used really well and the lack of it is pretty fitting and gives it more of a sombre down to earth vibe.
The art is simple and pretty subdue, which i really enjoy, but it's certainly nothing to write home about.
The credit song is a really good thing to end on, as it fits in well with the ending in general.
So if you are not bothered by limited animation and a subdue art style go and give it a watch.