The cute girls doing cute things subgenre of slice of anime is hardly a formal classification nor is it one with a firmly set definition but everyone has a vague idea of what it entailsa seinen featuring a small group of female main characters usually but not always in a high school setting going about their daily lives with the entertainment value coming firstly from how cute they are and secondly from situational comedy featuring mild conflicts that are normally resolved over the course of the episode. A lot of viewers particularly Western anime and manga fans dont see the appeal in this sort of thingthere are no epic fights little overarching plot and little to no drama or suspense. To this type of person Yuyushiki must be the worst of the worst as it in many ways takes this format to its logical conclusiona cute girls doing cute things 4koma adaptation where there are exactly three main characters and four recurring side characters and where the vast majority of both the manga and anime consist exclusively of these characters mundane daily conversations and interactions with any conflict coming from the characters mildly bothering or annoying one another. And thats exactly why I love it. While even similar series like KON and Hidamari Sketch add touches of drama particularly as main characters near their graduation dates Yuyushiki fully commits itself to showing its audience the joys of banality to the long stretches of adolescence where we were doing nothing in particular even eschewing stock high school anime episode premises like the cultural festival or the sports festival. The three main charactersthe gentle airhead Yukari the energetic and mildly perverted Yuzuko and the nononsense Yuitake over the empty Data Processing Club after entering high school. Whatever it was in the previous year it soon becomes a club about nothing an empty room with two computers where the girls spend a couple hours each day searching for random stuff on HooYa which is definitely not Google or Yahoo and talking about it. The first episode firmly establishes the tone of the series as Yuzuko nonchalantly brings up having taken an online quiz about BDSM and forces Yui to take it as well. From here on out the interactions between the three take a distinctly flirty yuribait tone without veering into either outright yuri romance or ecchi. This extends to one other girl outside their friend group as well as to Yuzuko and Yukaris interest in their mildmannered and wellendowed homeroom teacher and club advisor who they almost always refer to as Mom/Okaasan. https://www..com/watch?v=fAfNJzx4SPI https://www..com/watch?v=K9kHfXx2EhE That is to say even if Yuzuko is more than a little gay theyre just friends hanging out and messing around with each other. The humor comes not from wacky situations or dynamic slapstick but from the characters having fun with and riffing off of each other. To a viewer this can feel like either immersion or voyeurism but either way it succeeds in feeling authentic as if these pastel colorhaired anime girls are real people and youre getting glimpses into their ordinary lives thanks to both simple grounded writing and excellent voice acting particularly for Yukari Risa Taneda. Like real friends theyre very often obnoxious and annoying towards each other with Yuzuko deliberately pushing buttons Yukari passively tagging along and Yui snapping back. But theyre genuinely close enough that Yui is perfectly willing of putting up with her friends nonsenseotherwise why would they be together almost all the time? https://www..com/watch?v=RaPECzXKvgU Yuyushiki establishes a very narrow purview and never pushes those selfimposed boundaries. While this might prevent it from being considered among the absolute greats of slice of life anime it doesnt have to beby concocting a simple formula and executing it nearflawlessly with good animation and a generally pleasing aesthetic to boot it succeeds in being an enjoyable anime greater than the sum of its parts. https://i.ur.com/xU2NnOi.png