This is a heartwarming story about a boy named Rei Kiriyama, a shogi prodigy who has just moved to a new city. Knowing nobody at all, he felt really isolated and alone. That was until one day, he met the 3 sisters Akari, Hinata and Momo, and this is when his whole life started to change. This anime shows the every day life of Rei and the 3 sisters and shows the importance of having people who love and care for you.

Akari is the oldest sister, working in a bar to provide for her 2 younger sisters. Hinata is a hyper middle school ball of happiness and Momo is such an adorable little cinnamon roll. Rei meets them when he passes out on the streets one day and Akari finds him and takes him in. This is how his chaotic life began.

This anime portrays trauma so effortlessly they somehow manage to make it somewhat beautiful? Whenever something happens with Akari, Hinata or Momo he starts getting flashbacks to his past as if comparing what hell he went through to the life he's living now.

I honestly feel so bad about Rei's past he went through so much growing up :( he didn't have the same interests as everyone else so he was bullied and had no friends. Then one day he came home from a school trip to find out his parents and younger sister had been killed in a car crash and his snobby aunt didn't want to take him in, so he was taken in by a further relative and so he became the son of a shogi family. As good as this sounds it really wasn't :( he had an older sister named Kyouko who couldnt control her emotions very well and got angry easily.

The presentation of emotions in this anime is so realistic it's insane. Happiness and joy, but also grief and trauma intertwining each other to portray such a bittersweet yet fresh point of view to life. It also really shows what a bad life could do to such a young child, because as the anime shows, Rei completely shut off his emotions to try and live life but it would always come back to haunt him.

I also really love how the creator put so much importance on the shogi aspect of life. It strongly portrays how sometimes there's only one small thing keeping you going in life and without it you would go insane. For Rei shogi is like an escape from reality because as you could see, the more Rei suffered the more Shogi he played and before he knew it he was completely invested.

Younger Rei also learned independence so he could leave his home. Not for his sake, but for his family's sake. He was scared he would devour them so he left and moved to his new home like I said In the beginning, but this is when he realised he was better off when he had people in his life. This really portrayed the importance of relationships in life and whether you only have 1 or you have more than 100, you should cherish them all and keep them close to you because having people in your life is a blessing.

Now let's talk about the art style. It's BEAUTIFUL. It's got an old yet realistic style to it? I can't really explain it but it's so beautifully put together and it really matches the style of the anime. Linking to the art, the openings are AMAZING. The songs are so good and the art in the openings is so mesmerizing to look at (>‿<✿)

My heart felt so fuzzy whenever Kiriyama felt a sense of happiness or any kind of emotion （〜^∇^)〜 like when he said "I had no idea, if someone has interest in a world I was in, I didn't know it would make my stomach feel fluffy, and happy" it makes me so happy watching him rediscover happiness in his life (´∀｀)♡

One of my favourite characters is Nikaidou. I love how he claims to be Rei's best friend and even though rei always denies it he just persistently soldiers on LOL. He's such a positive character and even though Rei doesn't realise it Nikaidou also makes a huge impact on his life. I also love how deeply they portray the emotions of each and every character, even the smallest characters have such good characterisation it really makes the story much more interesting.

Overall, if you like a good old slice of life anime and don't mind things like trauma involved in it and want a deeper storyline and great characterisation I highly recommend this anime, I can't wait to watch season 2! Should I do a review on that too once I've watched it hmm??