Adachi to Shimamura | Episode 3 and 4 Review

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My thoughts on Episode Three

The art style is something I really enjoy. I love how whenever there is usually a deep thought or moment the background changes into something that feels like resembles what the characters are feeling at that particular moment. That type of thing reminds me a lot about 3-Gatsu no Lion, as it’s something used often and extremely well. Another comparison I can make to 3-Gatsu no Lion is that a lot of the dialogue during the episode is from the perspective of the main protagonist and their thoughts. We never once hear them express their thoughts out loud, it’s almost always something they keep internally. I personally love that kind of story telling, which is why Adachi to Shimamura is starting to grow on me. It has possesses something I enjoy so A+ for that.

Shimamura and Adachi’s dynamic is strange. You can feel like they want to be friends and they want to better understand each other and their feelings towards one another. However, like everyone in this day in age, how do you go about it without being awkward? I myself am not too sure, and neither are our two protagonists.

I think Adachi’s feelings towards Shimamura are genuine and I think are more concrete. She just struggles at expressing her feelings. While Shimamura feels more wishy-washy, for example, she mentions how if Adachi shut her out, yes she would be hurt, but she’d get over it in three days and move on. While she’s thinking that, she is also texting Adachi seeing if she was okay, and if she was ignoring her. To the point where she ends up giving Adachi a surprise visit at her house. Another example was when she was sitting with her friends, Nagafuji and Hino during lunch hour. Nagafuji mentions how Shimamura isn’t with Adachi for lunch and how they’re also attached at the hip (a time when the two of them are often together), to which Shimamura disregards; insisting that they’re not.

It feels like Shimamura is facing an internal struggle far greater than what’s portrayed during the episode. Again it could just be me overanalyzing everything, but to me, it genuinely feels like Shimamura is experiencing an internal conflict.

My thoughts on Episode Four

Yashiro Chikama, that alien person is oddly entertaining. I haven’t got a clue as to who she fits into the anime and its story, Yashiro seems like that character that’s just there. She honestly feels like a random character they put in because why the heck not.

This episode made me feel bad for Adachi, we got to meet her mother for the first time and hopefully for the last time because all I sense from her is negative vibes. Sometimes you get a family where there seems to be a major disconnect between parent and child, which seems to be the case between Adachi and her mother. Her mother sees Adachi as a troublemaker, not knowing what to do with her, and says she’s a ‘depressing child’. Which is sad maybe Adachi doesn’t feel comfortable approaching her mother on certain things or in general because she’s afraid of how her mother would react or say. All that being said, I also feel bad for Adachi’s mother, simply because she’s unable to find something that can connect herself to her daughter. She’s unable to find a way to make own daughter approach her and express her feelings towards her mother and whenever Adachi’s mother does try, it always ends in failure.

I enjoy it when it’s just the two of our protagonists together, with no one else there to interrupt them. Their dynamic is something I really enjoy, it’s almost as if they’re there to help each other express their feelings freely in a comfortable environment where they can be themselves; and I like that.