10 Second Anime - Amanchu! - Episode 1

Futaba moves to a seaside community to start high school, missing her friends and old life. Meeting happy-go-lucky Hikari gives her a chance to embrace the new and the ocean in ways she never expected. Season Premier.

Episode 1 - "The Story of the Girl and the Ocean"

First Thoughts.

When I saw that this anime was from the creators of ARIA, I didn't even give it a second thought that I would enjoy this. They had reintroduced their animation style of sentimental and nostalgic atmospheres set through music and sound editing with the recent OVA's of ARIA the Avvenire, so I was ready to dive into their brand of slice-of-life. All it took was the first few seconds of the episode, with the sound of the ocean, some windswept hair and two notes from a guitar, and I was transported. Even the school uniforms look the same as the Undine uniforms! And so do the cats! But the important elements of the background art, the soundtrack, the lush animation of the characters and how the background noises set the scenes were all there. I am reassured and impressed with the next ARIA. The words that come to mind after seeing this first episode are charming and endearing. This is what Healing Anime is all about.

Heh.

I knew this show was going to be gorgeous, but I'm also glad the girls are going to be gorgeous too.

If you haven't guessed, most of the premise centers around the Hikari and her family's dive shop and the school's scuba diving club. The opening credits let us know that we'll see the girls in their suits, but as they move around the ocean, we'll default to seeing their expressions and their swimsuits. Good choice!

The whole plot, besides introducing the setting and the characters, was about Futaba's hair.

Really! Hikari saw Futaba as she rode away on her vintage scooter and she spent the first day of school just being so happy that she met the girl with that hair. Hikari is just that kind of girl.

The name of the show comes from the name of the diving shop Hikari's grandma runs. I hope we get some kind of explanation behind what it means. For now, I'm guessing that it comes from 甘んじる (amanjiru - to content oneself, to be satisfied). We'll see if that bears out.

But let's talk about the cats!

The cats in ARIA played a special role for the gondolier companies, but I don't think that will be the case for the diving club. However, Hikari making quick friends with the local cat bodes well that we'll see plenty of the cats. The end credits appear to promise that too.

Mission accomplished! Hikari met the girl with the great hair. Plus - cat hat!

But then there was the second mission.

Compliment that beautiful girl's hair! Yay!

The two girls made a great contrast in personalities when they had to give their homeroom class introductions.

Futaba is very shy and self-conscious. When we first saw her, she kept looking at her phone hoping to see new messages from her friends she left behind (one girl looked quite a bit like Akari from ARIA). Poor girl. She never got any. Probably because she was the only one to have left her group of friends, so they were busy doing all the first day of school stuff with each other.

Hikari, on the far other hand, is the super genki girl. I presume that whistle comes from her diving activities and she's just used to carrying it around. She and the teacher get along so well already... She admitted that she's overly "peppy" and got the nickname of Pikari (peppy and Hikari) because she just can't calm down.

Yuri route confirmed... No. Hikari was just noticing how thin Futaba's eyebrows were. She wanted to make Futaba feel better, so she took it upon herself to give her a nickname. "Teko," or "one-tenth girl," because her eyebrows are one-tenth as thick as the average. Ah, we'll see if "Teko" keeps that nickname.

They're already well on their way to becoming good friends, if they can share trivialities like which textbook smells the best.

Before homeroom started, Futaba got a personal taste of the genki-ness that Hikari embodies when she dragged her up to their homeroom. They had such elaborate welcome notes and a map from the homeroom teacher, and then they saw that chalkboard with the seating chart. Katori-sensei seems like a dedicated teacher.

Her rousing speech at the end pretty much set the tone for the whole show. "Fun is the most! Fun is justice! And fun is without limits!" That's right. Sensei said something cool!

The opening credits hinted at all the new friends Futaba would make in the diving club, including their homeroom teacher. All that time spent in the ocean, a huge new world, compared to the little one seen through the screen of her phone is sure to be "fun without limits."