Non Non Biyori

Nothing can be objectively good, but enjoyment has to come from somewhere. Non Non Biyori is an anime that I really enjoyed but I don’t know exactly why. I will be comparing it to other anime to see if I can figure out exactly what made it so enjoyable to me.

The story in Non Non Biyori is pretty simple: it’s about a girl from Tokyo who moves to a rural part of the country, likely a hamlet. Although it’s supposed to be about her getting used to her new lifestyle, this intent is lost fast and just like Akari from Yuru Yuri she eventually doesn’t even seem like the protagonist anymore. It’s not really a problem since in my opinion this anime works better with a group lead than a single protagonist at the head of the group, but the character introduced as the protagonist does seem to have the least characterization out of the main cast. It’s a common theory that the setting is what makes it so enjoyable because it’s relatable, but Tamako Market takes place in a town much more similar to my own and it wasn’t anywhere near as enjoyable. I had some problems with Tamako Market since the main character was the only one with decent character development and generally not much going on, but there wasn’t anything I can remember specifically about it that would make it that much worse than Non Non Biyori. The story of moving to a different place is a story that I can connect to since I once lived in Costa Rica for six months which has a very different culture and atmosphere than my own, but the exchanges in Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo, Kiniro Mosaic, and Ikoku Meiro no Croisée The Animation are much more similar to the situation I was in and I didn’t enjoy any of them quite as much as Non Non Biyori. I definitely had problems with these anime as well: I didn’t like the harem ending of Sakurasou, the accents in Kiniro Mosaic made the series feel fake, and Labyrinth felt more like a Japanese dub since it’s set in France with French characters.

The art style could be a reason to like Non Non Biyori, after all the characters are very well designed and the background art is beautiful especially for such a long series. Starting with the character designs they all have realistic hair colours save Renge who despite having purple twintails fits in nicely with the art style. They’re obviously drawn as lolis and are never sexualized. They would make better younger sisters than girlfriends. The eye size is pretty typical for a seinen moe anime and although it obviously isn’t realistic it could arguably be the most attractive eye size in anime. Apart from Renge’s triangle mouth their faces all look fairly similar, but their face shapes are still distinct enough that their hair isn’t the only thing you can use to tell their head shots apart. The brother looks like a fairly generic anime boy and since he doesn’t even have a voice actor I haven’t felt any reason to remember his name. The two older characters Kaede, the candy store lady, and Kazuho, the teacher, have more unique designs than the main cast. Aside from how different the characters look from each other they all do have memorable designs even for a veteran of the moe genre such as myself. I wouldn’t necessarily consider Non Non Biyori’s designs to be my favourite designs, though. Anime adapted from video games such as Kantai Collection, Hyperdimension Neptunia, and Idolmaster have more attractive designs in my opinion. Apart from Aikatsu and Steins;Gate I can’t remember any anime adapted from a video that was actually well made especially in terms of competing against Non Non Biyori. Kantai Collection dragged out and although it’s lackluster storyline wasn’t any worse than Non Non Biyori’s absence of a solid story it still felt far less satisfying and halfway through I felt no drive to complete it. Hyperdimension Neptunia has some of the most beautiful character designs I’ve seen, but the story fails to be engaging and as fun as the characters are to be with it wasn’t that enjoyable of an anime. Idolmaster does have some character development and the story has some substance to it, but with 14 main characters and only 25 episodes it doesn’t have enough time to give any of them that deep of characterization. Aikatsu I already consider to be better than Non Non Biyori so its strengths and weaknesses are irrelevant. Steins;Gate is adapted from a visual novel with a story that has many paths but only one of which was adapted into the anime. The story is good, the characters are designed well, and it’s incredibly enjoyable, but for whatever reason I still rank it below Non Non Biyori. Steins;Gate is a very different series from Non Non Biyori, but the reasons I liked the two series still share a considerable amount of overlap. Both of the anime have likable characters and are set in a fairly small yet well developed area. Steins;Gate explores its setting by showing the characters changing the very world they live in through sending simple text messages and Non Non Biyori explores its setting by showing the characters travelling around through their little village and using different ways to indicate just how far apart different parts of their village are from each other. If the character design truly was the thing that made the anime so enjoyable then High School Fleet, the other anime Atto provided character designs for, should have been as enjoyable, but I found that anime to be quite mediocre.

The background art is very detailed, pretty, and shiny for an anime of its length. The three Makoko Shinkai films I’ve seen, Five Centimetres Per Second, Your Name, and Garden of Words have just as beautiful of backgrounds if not more beautiful, but as movies they only have so much time to make an impact and as good as their art was the stories in them were either too complicated for their runtime or otherwise weren’t quite as strong as what you would see in a series. The personalities of the characters aren’t too detailed and only serve as ways to move the plot forward rather than being important contributions to the enjoyability of the anime. The three anime series I distinctly remember as having as good of background art as Non Non Biyori are Yama no Susume, Glasslip, and Anohana. I know, it’s not everyday that someone would willingly compare their favourite anime to Glasslip, but I think it’s for the best. The first season of Yama no Susume has good backgrounds but is too short to draw any conclusions from; the second season I consider to be better than Non Non Biyori and therefore isn’t important for comparison. Glasslip is infamous for being far more uneventful than even anime like K-On! and Lucky Star. I think it would be safe to say that even if the background art was among the most important factors towards my enjoyment that all of the turn-offs in Glasslip would make it unenjoyable to even the people who valued background art the most, but there are still some people who enjoy Glasslip sincerely so it can’t simply be turned down as an anime impossible to enjoy no matter what your tastes. Not only does Glasslip not have any real characterization, but the intent of it being a supernatural romance is sort of forgotten about and nothing really happens throughout the series. In addition to no value in the storytelling there also weren’t any successful attempts at comedy. Anohana is a much better anime than Glasslip, but it still fails in a number of ways. The characters were interesting and well drawn, but the story of a dead friend who only the protagonist was incredibly unrealistic. My theory that Menma’s spirit was actually audio-only and Jintan was simply imagining her in physical form was shattered by the end due to conflicting information. Non Non Biyori doesn’t have any unexplained supernatural elements to bother me, but even anime with seemingly flawless magic systems like Death Note and Shigofumi rank lower on my list, but I won’t go into explaining those.

What makes the background art so important in Non Non Biyori is where the anime takes place. The setting is quite unique and it’s the only slice of life anime I’ve seen set in a such a unique place that doesn’t have something to do with careers. Shirobako, Bartender, and Barakamon have similar settings, but Shirobako and Bartender are fairly slow and information heavy. Barakamon I saw right after Non Non Biyori and although there wasn’t really anything wrong with it I still didn’t enjoy it quite as much. As I was explaining before, Non Non Biyori does a lot with its small world. Unlike anime such as Sword Art Online and Gurren Lagann that have too big of a world to handle correctly the characters and the director do a good job at getting you to know where everything is without having to go everywhere in near-real time like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0. Having too small of a world can also be a problem. Seitokai no Ichizon takes place in a single room for the first few episodes and even when they do the school doesn’t feel as natural or well laid out as the village in Non Non Biyori. I actually found the comedy in Seitokai no Ichizon to be comparable to if not better than the comedy in Non Non Biyori, but I still didn’t think it was as good of an anime. The protagonist in Elemi is an inanimate object so naturally the movement in the anime was extremely limited no matter how good the writing was.

All of the places in Non Non Biyori feel like places I could really go to. The candy store not only reminds me of real candy stores that I’ve been to but the aesthetic of it and the way everything is organized truly feels so well put together that even if I hadn’t seen other stores like it that wouldn’t make it any less believable. The bridge they jump off of feels nostalgic despite the fact that I’ve only done things in real life that were remotely similar. The scene is written in a way that I could see myself in that situation just through the shared sense of that kind of childish innocence. When they go to the little hole in the wall and talk about how they had done that before when they were younger I relate to that sense of nostalgia in a way that I haven’t really seen in other anime. Sure, there are some anime that I saw as a kid and are pieces of my childhood and therefore nostalgic to look back on, but I can’t remember any other anime that really go into that sense of realistic nostalgia the characters have around things in their own world. Dagashi Kashi did that a bit, but the monster of the week style of it made it feel a bit too fake for it to hit me in that same way. I have very strong memories of playing with my cousin up at his dad’s (or my uncle’s) cabin. In the summer we played around the lake getting mucky, we went under a bridge and blew up firecrackers that we stuck to the bridge with clay, and we found tadpoles in the pond. In the winter we used the firecrackers in the snow, we went on the frozen lake on snowmobiles, and we sledded down hills on waxed cardboard. We also play games like the “suicide notes” game where we would jump off a loft and say why were killing ourselves and then would drink something to “revive” us. These years didn’t just blend into one another since I would look forward to the next time I would go up there and would always go with fond memories of the previous trips. The nostalgia wasn’t just additive, it was magnified through the nostalgia of nostalgia itself. The characters have cell phones and are obviously living in the modern day and age, but you can still watch the anime as if it is through the eyes of the characters looking back on their childhood.

The designs of the school uniforms and the buildings themselves are rather unique. One important thing to note is that since the school has both elementary school and middle school students they don’t all wear the same uniform, in fact if weren’t for the flashback that showed Kaede wearing the uniform it could have been assumed that it was just how Natsumi and Komari’s parents decided to dress them. In the whole school there is only one male, but it isn’t a harem and not only is he not that important of a character he doesn’t have single line and is only used for comedy. With the male and female uniforms in consideration they’ve both designed nicely. Renge and Hotaru don’t wear the uniform but the clothing they do wear looks good. The school’s design is quite interesting. It’s quite small and only has a few rooms. It feels quite natural and as poorly as it is taken care of the internal structure isn’t too chaotic. For a schoolgirl not too much of the anime takes place in the school. I think this works to its benefit since their lives outside of school are more interesting, but the time they’re shown in school isn’t wasted and their pathetic excuse for a teacher is charming in her own way.

Apart from anime based around music like So Ra No Wo To and Nerima Daikon Brothers it can be hard to know just how much the quality of the sound is affecting your enjoyment, but I feel like the voice acting and background music in this anime really did make a difference. This is an anime I think would lose a lot in an English dub if it were to ever receive one. The very first scene has Renge playing a recorder completely out of tune, which sets the tone for the series very well. Renge’s “nyanpasu” doesn’t have any nice sounding English equivalent, sort of like how off Nico’s “Nico-Nico-Nii” sounds in the English dub of Love Live. Like most moe anime the cuteness of their voices is just as important to the series as the cuteness of their character designs. Komari’s slight tsundere lilt has a nice sound to it even if her personality doesn’t feel super realistic. Little things like rocks being thrown and water splashing all sound realistic enough but also don’t have that problem where instead of imagining the sound in their world you would be able to tell that someone had to use a microphone to create that sound effect. Renge’s voice doesn’t have as big of a range as the other characters, but she still expresses a lot of emotion. Chocotto Sister and Saki I also liked the voices, sound effects, and music in, but they just didn’t feel like as strong of series overall.

What analysis would be complete with taking apart the animation of the opening theme? As much as I doubt a good OP could provide the sole enjoyment for a show especially considering how good the OPs for anime like Absolute Duo, Lord Marksman and Vanadis, and Golden Time were compared to how little I actually enjoyed those anime, but I do believe the openings to this were really well made and at least made some contribution to my enjoyment of the anime. The OP starts off by showing the river the series is set near which gives a bit of information about the setting right off the bat since you wouldn’t normally see rivers like that in the city, especially without any pollution and being surrounded by rocks rather than concrete. I know the OP doesn’t actually start at the beginning of the first episode, but it still does give a good introduction to the series in addition to what we see of the anime before the OP starts. After the first shot we are shown the sky with clouds to further the idea that this is set in the semi-wilderness of a quaint hamlet. The title is shown in a colourful and bubbly font similar to the kind that an elementary school student might use to write their name. I think this might be nodding towards the fact that the main characters are younger than our typical 15-17 year olds these anime tend to revolve around. We see a can being kicked, a reference to the popular kids’ game “kick the can”, and then shows Natsumi with a grin implying that she was the one who kicked it. The students start running and the teacher stands there dazed as if ignorant to her job as “it” or even to the rules of the game in general. Throughout the series the teacher is constantly shown as being less competent than the students she has been assigned to teach so her inability to suppress her apathy in order to just properly play a game with some children says a lot about her character. Considering how unathletic she has been shown to be it’s surprising that the can even needed to be kicked in the first place, but she obviously didn’t do a good job at protecting it. Even with their failure of a teacher playing the key role in their game, they still seem to be enjoying themselves more than any normal adult has in years. They try hard to run away as fast as they can even though “it” is making no effort to chase after them whatsoever. How easy it is for them to have fun really plays into the series and in a way can even metaphorically describe how I feel about the series as a whole since despite how little seems to be going on in it the anime is still extremely enjoyable. The next scene shows the students playing music, cooking, and playing all under the limited supervision of their teacher. Although the teacher has her eyes permanently closed, she is shown to be sleeping in the last of these three events by having a bubble coming out of her nose and giving her a more joyous look on her face than usual. Again, the kids seem to be enjoying these activities, but considering how poorly Renge was shown playing the recorder in the first scene it’s a given that whatever skills they’re meant to be learning in these situations are taught in an ineffective manner. They are then shown walking in the rain with umbrellas and next the picture changes to a puddle showing the kind of weather that they typically get in that area. They are then shown relaxing in the shade of a tree with a ball visible showing that they were playing some sort of game and got tired. We then see a train go by in the background and it is shown that Hotaru was riding it. I think this is used to show the cultural distance between her and the other characters. She looks solemnly at the scenery through the window as it passes by. Natsumi is shown sitting on a tree branch and looking out at the sunset. The next image shows Komari inside reading a book while hiding away from the rain, which is clearly a common occurrence in the place they live. Renge hangs up a teru teru bozu, a Japanese spiritual ornament intended to keep the rain away. This not only shows that she would rather it not be raining despite relying somewhat on the rain for crop growth but also that she believes this little handmade figure will actually work to make the skies clear again. Although in Japan the teru teru bozu is a well known symbol we don’t see it in many anime. I’m going to speculate that most teenagers in Japan don’t trust this figure to help any and considering all the other Japanese cultural traditions that rely on faith that Japanese teenagers will participate in I think this specific one is likely seen as particularly childish. The four main characters are then shown lined up on a bridge and they take turns jumping into the river. Hotaru is reluctant to join at first, but she quickly gives. This scene is also shown in the series, but I wouldn’t call it a spoiler simply because of the apparent storyless structure of the anime. The manga wasn’t even adapted chronologically, hence the name “Repeat” for the sequel, and it never really needed to be since it’s not important what order the events happened in. I think it’s pretty obvious what this scene is meant to show. Hotaru isn’t too into this idea, but she still wants to join her friends in an activity that they’re all used to. The next scene shows the characters staring blankly at the camera for a couple seconds before eating what look like cookies in perfect unison. This could be to show how in sync they’ve become, but even without any deeper meaning they looking really cute doing that together. Natsumi and Renge have a snowball fight. Natsumi misses her shot and Renge picks a snowball far too big for her to feasibly use as a weapon. Natsumi looks frightened, but seeing the way Renge staggers back it doesn’t look like she would be able to throw it very far if at all. In the background we see Komari crying while Hotaru cleans the snow off of her that she was once covered with. We never see this full scene in the show itself, but even this little snapshot makes for an interesting tale. The concept of a girl having snow piled onto her fits in with the show so well I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something from the manga that simply wasn’t able to be adapted. We end with Natsumi jumping on large colourful tires that have been positioned to be played on. The scenes are set up in a way to show all four seasons of the year wrapped up into 90 seconds. I don’t pay enough attention to opening animations to give examples of similar openings to compare this to.

Like most slice of life anime this puts a very big importance on the characters, both how likable they are as individuals and how they interact with each other. I will be talking about the four main characters as well as the more prevalent supporting characters.

Hotaru is introduced to us as the main character. She’s from Tokyo as are 25% of the total population of Japan and the majority of the anime studios. She lives with her parents and has a healthy family relationship, much like the rest of the characters. Although the parents aren’t too important of characters, it is important to note that they’re all alive and still together since a lot of anime feature main casts that don’t have complete families. One of Hotaru’s defining features is how mature she looks for her age. Personality wise she more closely matches her chronological age than her visual age. She has a crush on Komari even to the point of making plush dolls of her. This seems more like yuri fanservice than a legitimate attempt to give her character more depth, but even if it does break the illusion of reality it still never bothered me. In fact, I found this little bit of romance to be kind of cute.

Renge is a rather unique character. Some call her the most realistic child in anime, although she still isn’t quite as believable as Rin from Usagi Drop. She is significantly younger than the rest of the main cast, but they still manage to be normal friends without seeing her as being less important. She does have certain childish needs that the others will often have to cater to. She acts like a bit of a younger sister to all of them even though the only other character related to her is their teacher. Pretty much everything she does looks so heartwarming and innocent that it’s easy to ignore how weird she would look in real life. She could be referred to as a loli, but she isn’t sexualized in any way. This anime is made for adult men and much unlike anime such as Ro-Kyu-Bu the characters are intended to be as innocent and realistic as would make sense for the context. Considering the fact that school swimsuits are more fetishized in Japan than bikinis it still could be considering sexual in that way, but it would still be disturbing for people to fap to it.

Komari isn’t exactly a cliche character, but she does follow a lot of tropes. She has a strong complex around being a loli and doesn’t like being the older sister who looks like a little kid. Just like Ed from Fullmetal Alchemist she freaks out about her height frequently and although as a comedy anime this isn’t exactly misplaced it is a pretty generic character trait. It’s supposed to be funny, but since any audience member who has seen at least a handful of anime like this is already used to that joke it loses its value as a joke and just becomes an annoyance. Just like any other moe or harem anime she complains about her breast size and she is envious of Hotaru who has much larger breasts than her despite a few years younger. Unlike Lucky Star, Toradora, and Yuru Yuri that were willing to go so far to actually turn the flat chestedness of a character into an important part of the show or even a major plot point this anime just passes it off as something you should come to expect from these types of anime and doesn’t do anything with it. I’m not saying that Chuu Bra is a good anime because it was brave enough to make its entire plot revolve around breasts, but I think it’s better if an anime actually does something with the tropes it incorporates rather than just inserting harem light novel humour into an anime where that isn’t warranted. These things wouldn’t be so much of a problem if she had more going on, but the fact is that her entire character is based around the standard imouto stereotypes. For whatever reason none of this bothered me all that much when I was watching the series. In retrospect I recognise that she wasn’t that well written, but unlike Sword Art Online that I’ve come to consider much worse upon noticing its flaws after the fact this hasn’t made me feel like any of my enjoyment was any less deserved than when I watched the anime. She has yaeba and considering the fact that the town hasn’t been shown to have a hospital or even a properly functional school I don’t think anyone would care to “fix” it or even see it as a problem that needs a solution.

Natsumi is Komari’s younger sister and is the youngest child in her family. Surprisingly despite how realistic this anime is said to feel she’s the only character in the main cast who doesn’t just feel like some anime character. This isn’t to say that she’s a boring character, though. She acts exactly how you would expect a girl her age to act. You could see it as a good thing that they aren’t all just normal people because it does make their characters a bit more fun even if they wouldn’t fit well in reality. She takes good care of Renge and generally gets along well with the other characters. As shown in the OP she’s considered to be fairly adventurous and athletic.

The next character I will talk about is Komari and Natsumi’s brother who seems so insignificant that I can’t even remember his name. Aside from Hotaru’s father he’s the only male character we know about in the entire town. He’s quite reserved and doesn’t even have a voice actor since he never speaks. He participates in activities with the other characters and in one episode he’s shown to be quite dextrous. Although he’s almost like a main character, because he doesn’t speak or interact much with the other characters it’s hard to remember much about him. He’s pretty much only used comedy and any scene where he isn’t just a background character he isn’t exactly treated well. For an anime with a single male character surrounded by cute girls he doesn’t seem too thrilled and for all we know he might be asexual. If we assume he isn’t he doesn’t have many options anyway. Komari and Natsumi are his sisters so they’re off limits, Renge is far too young for him, and Hotaru is a lesbian. Kaede the candy lady is only six years older than him so she could be a potential partner, but I don’t know how good of a couple they would make. Hotaru might be bisexual, but she seems a bit too obsessed with Komari to be interested in getting into a relationship with him. There was the vegetable stand that is put out by other people and we have seen busses with drivers that are most likely from that town so I don’t think the characters we have seen are the only residents, but it isn’t clear just how many other people live there or how many dating options he has if they were to keep the town going for more generations.

Kaede who is also known as “the candy store lady” is a young woman who runs the local corner store that the main characters will buy candy from. She graduated from the local school and has a close connection with Renge. In addition to candy she does sell some other things in her store, but we haven’t seen too much else being sold there nor have we even seen any of the adults shopping there. It was shown that she has a kitchen attached to the store and with the way it’s set up you can tell that she actually does live there. She was first introduced as just some storekeeper, but she later became an important cast member and has gone on different outings with the other characters. It is unknown what other customers she has that aren’t the main characters.

The school teacher is another important character. She is Renge’s older sister. Being only four years older than Kaede she was likely taught at the same time but we don’t know who taught the class before her. She seems like the most incompetent teacher and is often shown sleeping when she’s supposed to be teaching. I’m sure we all have had substitute teachers who do nothing but just give out worksheets for students to complete rather than actually teaching partly because the actual teacher isn’t expecting a single day of poor teaching to be that much of a detriment, but she is the main teacher and even worksheets would do a better job than her teaching style. When you think about how dysfunctional the teacher is it’s hard to overlook how the rest of the school is run. Japanese schools are cleaned by the students rather than janitors and their school doesn’t seem well taken care of. The roof leaks and the floorboards can even give way. Who knows how old the school uniforms are. They don’t look like they have much wear, but even though Hotaru is about the same size as the other girls she was never offered a uniform so it might be that they were all being used. There’s only one male student so there might be a male uniform laying around that she could wear with her own skirt, but either no one thought of that or it might be that the only reason the ones we see don’t look torn up is because they go through periodic repairs.

As redundant as it may seem in an piece of writing that is intended to deconstruct my enjoyment of the series there still are a few things related to enjoyment that I haven’t gone into much depth yet. The humour in this anime is often cited as being one of its strengths. The raw enjoyment that comes from the situations and random jokes differs a fair and is actually a bit weaker than the comedy in Sansha Sanyou and Joshiraku. These two anime don’t really have anything wrong with them that would noticeably tick me off, but I still don’t consider them to be as good of anime. One thing I appreciate about Non Non Biyori is how naturally the characters grow on you. Sure, it is a common trope for a character to join a new group of people at the beginning so the introductions make sense, but unlike anime such as Code Geass and No Game No Life where even the protagonists are secretive about their true intentions the characters in this show are up front about themselves and we learn about them in a similar way to how you would learn more about your friends or coworkers in real life. I think it’s really nice and relaxing to get to know unrealistic characters in such a natural way. Anime like Anne Happy and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei introduce the characters just fine, but because all of the characters represent something different they don’t feel like real people. I know anime like Log Horizon have realistic characters in an unrealistic environment which is a good combination, but it doesn’t feel quite as good.

My second point for the enjoyment section will be continuing on my comparison to Steins;Gate. Steins;Gate is well written and doesn’t have that visible of flaws, but after this analysis I understand why I didn’t like it as much as Non Non Biyori. The characters are well written and have interesting and realistic personalities, but the way they're used doesn’t leave me with the same fuzzy feeling Non Non Biyori gives me. Two of the characters die multiple times and one of the characters even changes from male to female not through a sex operation but by artificially changing their embryo to xx after it was already fertilized, something that is only possible through flawed Japanese mythology. I know I had some negative things to say about Non Non Biyori, but for a show with a magic system so well explained it disturbs me to see things that don’t work in our world and aren't explained in theirs. These specific things ticked me off in the show because of how tight the rest of the logic is. Just like the difference between cobblestone and a near-perfect sidewalk with a couple cracks the individual flaws are more noticeable and memorable in Steins;Gate than in very flawed anime like Vividred Operation, Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu., or Date a Live. The story in Steins;Gate is almost possible so the couple problems were a bit disappointing. In comparison Non Non Biyori doesn't have a story to begin with and all of its flaws fall within the realm it has set out for itself. Its simplicity is in itself a strength because it doesn't require the viewer to suspend their disbelief that much in order to get maximum enjoyment from it.

The most important reasons about why I like Non Non Biyori so much more than similar anime is the way it enabled me to connect with my past nostalgia and how well it avoids blatant mistakes as well as being able to cover up its smaller existing ones. As far from reality as the characters may be they are still super cuddly and fun to be around. They really feel like they belong in their world. Although I was skeptical at first as to why I held this anime to such a high regard I still believe it’s just as good as I did when I first saw it with my brother on a plane over a year ago. I have also watched Ghost Stories (dub) with him and although I loved that anime it still wasn’t quite as good so I don’t think just watching it with him would be too big of an impact. The songs were great and the way they show all four seasons was a nice touch.