Okinawa de Suki ni Natta Ko ga Hougen Sugite Tsurasugiru

Okitsura is perhaps the most innovative travel ad of all time. Why make YouTube videos or commercials promoting your island when you can make an anime with cute girls and romance? The island of Okinawa is one of the most interesting places on earth, but I knew relatively little about it coming into this other than the US military presence on the island. For 3 months this show served as a crash course in Okinawan culture and history and I can honestly say the propaganda worked on me, I want to visit! But equally impressive is how good the show is. It started out pretty ... slow to me, I didn’t really connect with the characters, but after 3-4 episodes and weekly doses of Kana I was hooked. It’s educational, wholesome and a genuinely fun time. It’s a bit frustrating to watch at times because the main girl is NOT the best girl, but even with that it’s a very enjoyable experience and I highly recommend it to anyone curious about Okinawa travel lovers.

This show’s pretty simple. Every week we learn 3-4 things about Okinawan culture and language and then there’s a romantic subplot with the MC having a crush on a local Okinawan girl. Now I love the educational stuff, there’s so much packed into this show and it does a great job of highlighting the differences between Okinawa and mainland Japan which I think many foreigners won’t have known about! Where it loses me is with the romance, at least as it relates to the main ship here. The MC is from mainland Japan and can’t understand the local Okinawan girl which is sort of the plot device used to teach the audience about Okinawan culture. For me, I hated their dynamic because it makes zero sense for the MC to be head over heels for a girl he can’t even have a proper convo with! It reminded me of Doug Censor Martin dating the Mexican weather lady back in the day. Like there’s only so much that you can actually learn about a person when y’all can’t communicate intimately and natively. The side character, Kana, ended up being the best girl in this series. She and the MC have the best chemistry, she speaks standard Japanese fluently and serves as his translator to Kyan(main girl) and Okinawan culture instructor. It’s just hard to really get behind a romcom plotline like this when the main girl is so obviously worst girl.

Romance aside, the main trio are fun to watch. The comedy landed for me in the show and seeing them get up to local Okinawan activities every week was cool. Their relationship almost felt like watching a travel vlog or something. For such a small place, there’s so much to do on Okinawa and the show gives you a nice idea of the variety of activities. The MC definitely acts like a dense idiot, but Kana is so good that I sort of overlooked it.

Projection wise, nothing to write home about. Show looks solid, the voice acting is top notch especially with how they showcase the dialectal/linguistic differences between Okinawan and standard Japanese.

This isn’t the best show in the world, but there’s just something about it that drew me in and kept me hooked. After a while I really enjoyed every episode and it seemed like they went by so quickly. It’s certainly informative and even with the MC being annoying as hell at times, the cast are fun to watch. I feel confident recommending this to anyone interested in learning about Japan/Okinawa or looking for a light hearted romcom!

Okitsura gets 7/10.

I came for the romance, got fooled, but stayed for the Okinawan culture and the good vibes.

OkiTsura has no real plot, and the romantic premise is just an excuse to justify character interactions, but it's never developed. The series is episodic in nature, mostly a collection of trivia and fun facts about Okinawa and the Ryūkyū Islands (which sometimes might be slightly oversimplified, so be aware). Don't expect character growth or any progression in general, because there's none. We get just a glimpse in the last episode, but that's it.
The show for the most part is very formulaic: the MC gets involved in an everyday ... scenario with Hina, or Kana, or both, there's a misunderstanding due to the cultural gap since he is a main-island Japanese, that's cleared by one of the female leads and a narrator. Many times during these scenarios the protagonists will experience some sort of romantic/awkward situation.
This formula makes the anime quite repetitive, although the atmosphere is always laid back and enjoyable.
The only saving grace is the friendship of Kana and Hina, the two real main characters of the show, which the audience gets to know through a bunch of sweet flashbacks. It's really too little to save the writing, though.

From a visual perspective, I'd say that direction, scene composition and photography are nice. The animation looks quite cheap, but the staff used all the tricks in the book to make it as dynamic as possible (close-ups, zoom-ins/outs, etc.), and the end result is pleasant. Background are usually just OK, with some exceptions that really stand out, but to be fair I had higher expectations (you're in Okinawa and you show me just the usual, generic anime beach?). There's some CGI here and there, mainly for cars and the sea. It blends in just fine, with some highlights, e.g. the seashore effect is great. What is really worth mentioning in the visuals is the character design: bubbly and cute, with great coloring and ESPECIALLY wonderful lineart. It's so rare to see weighted lines for characters in today's seasonal animes: they give so much depth but are also a pain to animate. Here they were used sparingly but effectively, and I really appreciated this touch.

From the sound production perspective, the OST was fitting, featuring many local instruments and typical Okinawan melodies. The OP is hella catchy and the various EDs, sung by Hina and Kana's voice actors, are really sweet. Talking about VAs, Fairouz (Kana) really killed it. She has become one of my favourites in the last few years.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Definitely not a show for the ages, but if you like laid back series with feel-good vibes, then this might be for you.
Just remember that there's a big fat zero under the label "story progression and character growth".

'Okitsura: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Know What She's Saying' or Okitsura for short is a 7 out of 10 anime IF AND ONLY IF 1) you're Japanese or at least a foreigner who is highly proficient in Japanese and might want to learn the Okinawan dialect, 2) a tourist or a would-be resident of Okinawa who wants to learn about Okinawan culture. If you're not either of these, this is ONE OF THE WORST ANIME you can ever watch.


§ Overview

The anime follows Nakamura Teruaki or Teru for short who goes to Okinawa and finds himself falling in ... love with Kyan Hina or Kyan-san. Higa Suzu or Higa-san helps in translating Kyan-san's words into standard Japanese and vice versa.


§ Dialect v language

A dialect is a subset of a language so to speak. It has its distinct quirks but it's otherwise intelligible to non-dialect speakers of that language. This is an important distinction to keep in mind because it is debatable if Okinawan is a dialect or its own distinct language. See this: https://www.quora.com/Is-Okinawan-a-Japanese-dialect.

I'll just use the term 'Okinawan dialect' for the sake of our discussion. But if it's true that it's a different language, then the challenges facing Teru are great. It's not just differences in pitch accent patterns or different terms being used. Words are entirely different.

Herein lies the reason why I think a person who knows Japanese might appreciate the anime better. He or she can compare the similarities and differences among the words being used, and some jokes rely on this. For example, the word that means 'to go' in standard Japanese is 'iku' but I can hear Kyan-san uttering 'ichu' in place of that. Also, the term for uncle 'oji-san' means something different in the Okinawan dialect, which proves embarrassing for Teru.


§ as tourism material

Unfortunately, the anime doesn't primarily feature a girl who happens to speak the Okinawan dialect. (It can be argued that if her speaking Okinawan is just a small aspect of the story, this anime would have been better.) It's about Okinawa and Okinawan culture that's front and centre of this anime. This is why I also mentioned that one must be interested in Okinawa. Otherwise, this is going to be a torture watch. As far as I'm concerned, the information goes in one ear and comes out the other. It's a horrendous experience. It's a waste of time. Never have I felt before this strong urge to smash the TV screen whenever the Okinawa Memo comes out or do cruelty to animals, more specifically the character Okimemo Shiisa (https://myanimelist.net/character/252906/Okimemo_Shiisaa) — the anime's mascot.

It's obvious that the cultural trivia was written first and then the so-so romance is slapped over, meaning it's just there as a convenient excuse for a Kyan-san and others to recite cultural trivia that one can better learn in an almanac or a travel brochure or just an article or video from Lonely Planet.

Speaking of the romance...


§ The Romance IS SHIT

There are some people who like the cultural stuff (or at least pretend to) who enjoy watching the romance. What are they talking about? The Okinawan culture stuff, again if you're not into it, makes it an appalling experience. The romance should be a solace, but even that aspect, this anime fails to deliver. The tourism stuff takes time away from properly developing the romance, which by itself is pathetic, but it's disappointing that they don't actually care to develop it. There was no good-faith attempt AT ALL.


§ Conclusion

I hate this anime from the bottom of my being. This anime should have never been licensed outside Japan. If you're even contemplating watching this, I feel sorry for you. This is an UTTER PIECE OF SHIT!