Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai! | First Impressions

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It took me quite a while to get to this. I am a whole six episodes in and I think it is time to officially give you my first impressions of the anime “Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai!“.

At the start of her freshman year in college, Hana Uzaki reunites with Shinichi Sakurai, an upperclassman who was in the same club as her during her high school days. However, much to her surprise, the once active senior has ended up becoming a “lonesome” student, preferring to spend his free time in quiet peace.

Uzaki does whatever she can to keep Sakurai from being “alone,” from convincing him to go to the movies to going to his part-time workplace. While Sakurai finds her irritating and tiresome, he still goes along with Uzaki’s hijinks and shenanigans, even if he knows that her perky personality will only lead the two of them into various comical situations.

Even so, as the days pass by, their relationship only gets better, to the point where people around them misinterpret them to be a couple. At any rate, whenever Uzaki wants to hang out with her upperclassman, fun and adorable wackiness is sure to follow!

Written by MAL Rewrite of MyAnimeList.net

“Fun and adorable wackiness is sure to follow” by all means that is correct! Being genred as a: Slice of Life, Comedy, Romance, and Ecchi. You’re bound to get an assortment of riches, or an assortment of disappointments. As of right now, we’ve been given an embarrassing number of riches. While we have yet to see the “romance” side of things, something that I personally do not think will be coming this season (there will be a second season). We’ve been given tons with regards to comedy.

We’ve got Sakurai, our male protagonist. A person that I think anyone can relate to now in this day and age. As we’re all spending more time by ourselves, where we can do whatever we want, whenever we want without being bothered. Playing games to our hearts content, reading and sleeping for however long we want. To me, I see Sakurai as the typical ‘introvert’ if you will, one who is certainly not very social and only sticks to his bubble.

On the other hand we have Uzaki, our female protagonist. A person who is the literal exact opposite from Sakuari. The synopsis sums her up in a nutshell. Uzaki is someone who loves to talk, loves to joke, and loves to hang out. She’s often quick to point out the loner Sakurai, teasing him with childish humor.

Their everyday interactions with each other is what I think makes this anime successful. it’s almost like that childhood friend sort of vibe. Although your personalities do not mix, and you annoy the heck out of each other, you still value each other’s friendship because you’ve known each other since the dawn of time. That is what their relationship feels like. It also helps that this anime is a comedy, so Uzaki’s and Sakurai’s interactions are usually ones with a ton of yelling and overexaggerating of fascial expressions. I’ve commented on that many of times in my episode reviews, so I won’t get mention too much about it.

Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai! does have it’s draw backs though. One being the disproportionate features on both Uzaki and Ami; this is something I’ve touched on before. While I understand that this anime is also an ecchi, it was only a matter of time before their disproportionate figures came into play. I’m not a fan of that and never will be. Another draw back was that there were a few pretty boring and bland episodes. When you’re a comedy but also a Slice of Life anime, then, I think it’s sort of expected that each episodes should at least have it’s fair share of laughs or adventures the characters embark on. Just recently, I watched an episode where they were all at the beach together, and to be quite honest, I thought that episode wasn’t all that great. Not much happened during that episode, I personally didn’t really find anything to laugh or smile about, maybe that’s just me. There are, I think, 1 or 2 episodes like that, where it felt almost like a ‘filler’ episode.

I will comment quickly on the OP “Nadame Sukashi Negotiation (なだめスかし Negotiation)” by Kano and Uzaki-chan (Naomi Oozora), an OP sung by the voice actor of Uzaki as you can probably tell. I love it when anime studios allow their voice actors to sing the OP or ED to the anime their involved in. It adds that little bit of character to the anime. Those faster more upbeat types of OPs such as this one, are always ones that I personally enjoy; in large part because I think they’re more pleasing to the ear and are more fun to listen to. The OP reminds me a lot of Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon and their OP. It’s also very upbeat and I love it too. Not to mention, both anime’s ED is something rather calming to listen to, which is always nice after a nice 30 minutes of laughter and enjoyment.

Overall, I’ve really liked this anime so far, there are many things that have made it very enjoyable and entertaining to watch. There are still plenty of stuff that I had missed in this post, like for example, how important our supporting cast plays in propping up our main characters. They’re awesome complimentary pieces to this anime. They’re not over the top and overwhelming to the point where they overshadow the main characters, which is something that I also really like.

While this anime may have some draw backs and may not be an anime many find entertaining; to me, this anime is right up my alley. So I think it’s safe to say, this anime has given me a pretty good first impression.