Just Because!

As another school year begins drawing to a close, the third-year high school students move steadily toward the next milestone of their lives: graduation. Among them are Mio Natsume, a girl burdened with lingering feelings; Hazuki Morikawa, a member of the concert band but distant from the others; and Haruto Souma, an athlete obsessed with baseball. Meanwhile, second-year student Ena Komiya seeks to revive the photography club to its former glory, refusing to let the organization be disbanded. Though this group lacks a strong connection with one another, their lives suddenly cross paths with the arrival of a third-year transfer student.

While a transfer so close to graduation is unusual for most, it is business as usual for Eita Izumi. Due to his father's work, he has never been able to stay in one place for very long. But as luck would have it, their most recent relocation has returned Eita to his hometown for his final semester of high school. For better or worse, it also sparks the rekindling of old relationships left behind in the past.

With graduation already causing its own share of anxieties, Eita's sudden arrival brings these students' carefree days to an abrupt end. Long-forgotten memories, deeply buried emotions, and inspiring new passions—everything is brought to light in their bittersweet final semester.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Komiya, Ena Main

Lynn Japanese

Natsume, Mio Main

Isobe, Karin Japanese

Izumi, Eita Main

Ichikawa, Aoi Japanese

Morikawa, Hazuki Main

Yoshino, Yuna Japanese

Souma, Haruto Main

Murata, Taishi Japanese

Inui, Yoriko Supporting

Sakuraba, Arisa Japanese

Suzuki, Momoka Supporting

Kondou, Reina Japanese

Saruwatari, Junpei Supporting

Amasaki, Kouhei Japanese

Satou, Mayuko Supporting

Senbongi, Sayaka Japanese

Yamaguchi, Kaoru Supporting

Kobayashi, Daiki Japanese

Kaneko, Hirotaka Producer

Oomori, Shinji Producer

Mukaitouge, Kazuki Producer

Okamura, Takema Producer

Reviews

Jan 8, 2025

Celby13

Recommended

Life is not fair, maybe that's one of the points this Anime will show you. More over it's saying "Nothing ever goes as planned"

Just Because is surprisingly near to the normal life we all experience every day with a lot of failures, misunderstandings and missed opportunities.

It also have a good Charakterdevelopment, some more of it and some less and that's totally fine because why should a well Build Eita evolve the same way as his Junior kohai.

In my opinion the end is a bit fast coming and should have been built with a 13. Episode but it's like life and the Show, ... not a wishing well.

You will enjoy this show for his realness, the natural emotions and relatable characters. I like the artwork too, it's suits the setting very well.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jun 1, 2022

dars809

Mixed Feelings

(very minor spoilers)

Just Because! is one of those anime that you think is going to leave you sad or thinking about life. But unfortunately, it falls short of that by a small margin. It has all of the ingredients for a perfect drama but fails to deliver in a lot of aspects. However, for what it's worth, the show was fairly interesting in some parts and the characters were somewhat compelling.

To get some of the less important complaints and compliments out of the way, I thought the artstyle looked pretty good. All of the characters were as distinct as their personalities and the scenery looked ... all right too. One minor nitpick is Eita's face; there's just something about the nose or the general structure that looks different from all of the other characters and makes him stand out like a sore thumb. I couldn't help but notice it all the time during the show, but it was not that big of a deal. The music, although forgettable, did the job well. Overall, the audiovisuals of the anime were not terrible.

The story is where I am a little conflicted. The main character, Eita Izumi, transfers to his old school during the final semester of his senior year and tries to reconnect with his old friends. They build new connections and romances throughout these final months while also planning for college or whatever they want to do after graduation. It is a pretty good premise for a romance, and there is plenty of drama between the characters.

However, for as much drama and complicated emotions there are between the characters, none of them are very compelling. Eita Izumi is so boring and monotone to the point of having basically no redeeming qualities other than being nice, Hazuki Morikawa is just too dumb and boring to like, and Mio Natsume does not gather the courage to act on her feelings for a very long time. However, at the very least, some of the bad qualities of each character are called out by others and lead to drama. But I quickly found myself getting attached to the only two characters who speak louder than 4 decibels: Haruto Souma and Ena Komiya.

In my opinion, there aren't enough scenes of the friend group doing things together and developing more feelings between the crushes. More of these would have transformed otherwise boring characters into ones that you want to root for, but unfortunately, lacking these leaves some characters uninteresting and generic. It also would have been nice for the final conflict to not have been resolved so easily.

Just Because was an enjoyable show where romance conflicts with accepting that you might never see the people around you again after graduating, but it fell short in creating engaging characters and more interesting plotlines. Most of my issues would have been resolved had there been more character development, but the show can still be a good watch if you can ignore those faults.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 11, 2023

Aikalukko

Not Recommended

This review is purely from an anime only watcher's viewpoint.

First, I'm going to say that I mostly rate anime based on the enjoyment value, and everything else comes far in the second place. Slow, moody, and dialogue heavy shows like these are not usually my thing, and because of that I judge them harshly. If you have a more of a critical/analytical eye to entertainment, take everything I say with a grain of salt.

If I described this anime in one color, it would be "gray". In addition to the art's murky color scheme and the overall somber mood of the anime itself, the characters just ... feel lifeless and dull, especially Izumi. Everyone feels like they are constantly depressed, uninterested, and they have a lack of enthusiasm for anything.

There are no bright colors, or anything that pops, stands out at all, the soundtrack is mostly nonexistent, or it's slow, moody type of music. OP and ED songs are fine, but nothing memorable or catchy. Except for the couple of times they play baseball, all they do is sit, talk and/or walk around, so there isn't a lot of action in the animation department either.

There were actually a couple of hilarious moments, like when the Photography Club members were goofing off, or when Natsume got off on the wrong train stop. I also liked that every character were distinct from each other, so it was easy to follow the narrative and to not confuse them between each other. I want also add to that it was easy to follow the story and the plot itself, because there weren't any out of place jump cuts, sudden location changes, or any weird artsy stuff/editing. Voice acting was also good, but nothing exceptional.

On the story department, I didn't think this was anything extraordinary, or something I haven't seen before. In my opinion, you shouldn't go watching this with the intention to find a heartwarming, dramatic love story that would make you cry, or emotional. If you think about the character, and relationship progression from the beginning state, compared to the end, there were none, or a very little amount of it overall.

My score reflects what I said in the beginning, "gray". If "white" was 5 (Average), then "gray" would be one shade below it, 4 (Bad). Honestly, this was tiresome to watch from beginning to end, and I had one of the worst feelings after watching an anime that you can have, I thought it was a waste of my time. If I were realistic, I would give it a "Mixed Feelings", but I don't want to be indecisive, that's why I rate it as "Not Recommended". Thank you for reading until the end.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	what exactly is the turning point for Natsume? + ending (spoilers) griddyweeb - Dec 10, 2024	6 replies	by Gimboy »» Dec 26, 2024 11:09 AM
	Poll: Just Because! Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Dec 28, 2017	356 replies	by Thyriad-oPPailov »» Nov 28, 2024 3:42 AM
	Poll: Just Because! Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Dec 21, 2017	110 replies	by Thyriad-oPPailov »» Nov 28, 2024 2:31 AM
	Poll: Just Because! Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Dec 14, 2017	143 replies	by Thyriad-oPPailov »» Nov 28, 2024 12:21 AM
	Poll: Just Because! Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Dec 7, 2017	112 replies	by Thyriad-oPPailov »» Nov 27, 2024 11:14 PM