All of my reviews contain spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning. If SHAFT are a weird studio who consequently make shows that are a bit hard to review and comedy by its very nature is hard to review And Yet The Town Moves may set some kind of landspeed record as far as TV anime that seem purposebuilt to throw a monkey wrench into critical analysis. Theres just not much thats like And Yet The Town Moves. Yet here we are. Series Director Akiyuki Shinbo has a reputation as the man who made SHAFT what it is. We can sit here and pingpong back and forth all day about whether or not thats true but what is inarguable is that hes a very idiosyncratic director. One with a style you can spot a mile away yes but the clockwork that makes that style tick is a bit hard to lay out in plain English or one imagines plain Japanese. 880https://i.ur.com/PgUwNaJ.png The simplest way to put it in this specific case is that And Yet The Town Moves which sits closer to the more obscure end of Shinbos mainstream works is a school life comedy thats constructed like Bakemonogatari. This ignores several obvious wrinkles point the first: it takes place at a school only about half the time and makes some admittedly oversimple comparisons point the second: Bakemonogatari is Like That because Shinbo directed it not the other way around but its the simplest way to get your head around the series. Not to imply that Town is particularly complicatednot many anime that take place in a maid cafe are. In truth Towns core source of humor is first and foremost its characters chiefly its protagonist the dolty Hotori a high schooler with a whiny voice and a love of detective novels and her friends. The direction uses visual cues like extreme closeups pointedlydeployed and welldone character animation meaningful match cuts and oddball asides to sell her antics and those of the rest of the cast. The point of those antics in turn is to highlight the absurdity of the mundane and sometimes its surprising beauty as well. One episode sees Hotoris math teacher driven to the brink of madness by her sheer lack of affinity for the subject. Another sees her younger brother subjected to the confusing and arbitrary rules of dating in middle school. Others see Town temporarily transform into a sports shonen or condense an entire school festival arc into 12 minutes. The directorial approach threads the needle here lending a delightful air of zany loopiness to what are when you strip all this away fairly simple stories. Sometimes the show dares to get a bit more ambitious and its here that Town really shines. Episode 7 is a great example for our purposes. It features not one but two classic staples of the mundane made fantastic ethos. The first half of the episode revolves around Hotori and Sanada a boy who has a crush on her nodding off on the bus on the way to school and ending up in a farafield town. 880https://i.ur.com/xRmKkDn.png The second half sees Hotori take her younger brother out on his firstever late night stroll. In both cases these simple fairly grounded changes of scenery shift the entire mood of the show. The former is played as a fantastic romantic adventure. The latter conjures an aura of dusky wideeyed wonder. Both and really many of the shows best segments have a real sense of liminality to them. Yet at no point does Town sacrifice its sense of humor. The jokes remain onpoint throughout and the main focus. 880https://i.ur.com/G20HCPe.png 880https://i.ur.com/6DKXLTK.png These are Towns strengths in miniature. From the simple the absurd and the sublime. Either by turns or at once. Occasionally it flips this formula on its head. Milking this absurdity not from the mundane but from the genuinely paranormal. For another example the rainbow snacks subplot in episode 9 one of the few to barely feature Hotori at all is one of these. In it pawn shop proprietress Shizuka gets her hands on a baked treat from her grandfather who in turn got it from a man wandering the streets of Tokyo. She becomes obsessed with finding more only to find that the mysterious Mori Confectionary listed on the back of the package doesnt seem to exist. A half episode of dead ends clues that lead nowhere and some of the shows best visuals follow. 880https://i.ur.com/gmZheYn.png 880https://i.ur.com/stbPbNr.png 880https://i.ur.com/goC5S9a.png The answer? The man wandering Tokyo and giving them out was a time traveler. In a similar vein to Ground Control To Psychoelectric Girl another Shinbodirected series coincidentally enough the series has just enough of actual weird stuff crackling underneath its surface to add the slightest edge of intrigue to things even as its focus largely remains on comedy. As the series winds down the final few episodes unscrew the cap completely decoupling Towns world from our own and diving into full lighthearted urban fantasy and sometimes delving into more serious territory. Not many anime of this sort ever make that kind of jump and its fascinating to see here. This is to say nothing of its absolutely breathtaking finale which I cannot in good conscience let myself spoil. Itd be criminal. If theres anything Town lacks its perhaps the truly thunderous insanity of something like Nichijou or the also Shinbodirected PaniPoni Dash but these things are relative and Towns marginally more subdued frankly the word feels a little inappropriate here comedy is just as worthwhile as that of those anime. For all of its silliness Town is a surprisingly sincere show. There is probably no critical cliche older than youll laugh youll cry but as it just so happens And Yet The Town Move is good enough to warrant unearthing old cliches. Ultimately and perhaps surprisingly this is a series that reminds us as we live our lives the world spins beneath our feet. We can try and stay in place all we like. The town still turns.