Lasting the length of a single standard episode Nyanko Days is cute and fluffy and gets by entirely on being cute and fluffy. In fact theres so little substance that its a struggle to even talk about the show beyond its substance. Its not really that its bad per se. Its mindless and cute stuff to turn your brain off to for about a halfhour so its perfectly serviceable in that regards and serves its function in that way. Its also incredibly cute which no one can deny. Its hard to criticize because it effectively serves its function and arguing against that function just feels like it comes off as weird and nitpicky. But one can afford to be nitpicky over a series that is effectively nothing. When you really get down to it Nyanko Days is the most anime thing an anime is. Anthropomorphized cats big eyes and cute faces with characters fitting nicely into archetypes constant sugary cuteness loner girl starts to hang out with nonloner girl... it manages to be incredibly exhausting in the very short time it runs because it feels so much like other similar anime. I dont need originality but I need something thats derivative with something to offer and theres nothing here. Not even the cats are cats I can care about. Basically the visual equivalent of in one ear and out the other. Part of this is definitely due to the fact that every episode is two minutes long with only about 70 of it being actual content due to a fivesecond long opening slate and a 30second long ED approximately. Theres almost literally no time to even absorb anything is happening because everything is so rapidfire that it washes over incredibly easy. Even multipart episodes suffer from this. It would have honestly been better to split it up into fourminute episodes or even eightminute episodes because at least then you can realize an episode is happening. Even poor slifeoflife anime get by with soso paced 24minute episodes twominute episodes where a thing happens is beyond the pale. It does some things serviceable at least in a way that doesnt make this anime feel like an actual waste of time. Yuuko Konagai and Azumi Shiratori may not be great characters but theyre done fine enough with at least a bit of interest that its fine and also have cute interactions together more cute than anything else in the show. The uh arc with Ran Iketani the girl whos scared of cats is amusing while it lasts. The ED should be annoying but it ends up being catchy I still have it stuck in my head even now and at least has serviceable visuals for it. Aurally it has a bouncy and bubbly sound design but especially when the cats are the focus that it makes up for the lackluster art. Two of the four cats are distinctive. The anime is so short that even if you find it dreadful you wont have even spent halfanhour on it. The voice acting was okay. Really its hard to name what I like about it when theres so little to care about that I have to stretch myself to name positive aspects. But its enough to not make it a bad anime just really mediocre. A lot of it comes down to its awful pacing of twominute episodes but even if that were fixed itd still be really unmemorable and nothing more than a blip in my memory to remember to possibly check out the manga if I could ever find the time to do so. So it has some benefits just not many. If youre that into sliceoflife that you need to watch as much as you can from the genre or have a spare halfhour you cant spend starting/continuing another anime then you at least have this. Otherwise theres too little of value to even passingly recommend. But hey cats.
40 /100
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