Sakura Trick

I started watching Sakura Trick as it was recommended to me since I wanted to get into yuri. The anime is focused on two first year high school girls: Haruka Takayami, a caring girl who only has kissing on her mind and Yuu Sonoda, an airhead who is conflicted emotionally. These childhood friends while searching for something to differentiate their friendship end up kissing. After the initial kiss, whenever they are alone together they kiss while trying to hide their feelings from their friends and family.

Sakura Trick intertwines these cute moments with a pleasant atmosphere consisting of a lot of pinks, light blues and yellows. This colour palette makes the simple character design shine as everything is neatly balanced. I wasn't particularly touched by the music and can not remember any moments where I felt like it really added to the scene, they all neatly blended into a nice atmosphere. Though, the intro animation is very cute with mild erotic notes backed by a very catchy song, I can't say the same for the outro animation and song unfortunately.
Now the kissing scenes, they play a major role here in making this anime a yuri. In my opinion they are perfectly represented, every episode has at least one kissing scene which backed by the calm yet tense atmosphere create for a cute yet erotic act. These scenes are what make the anime shine as they are filled with wholesomeness and cuteness, it's unfortunate that they start to become stale after the halfway point due to them all being done in a similar fashion.

This is where the anime starts to go downhill. We are introduced to a multitude of side characters which are simply there to fill empty space. This is unfortunate because I can see how each set of characters could have their own character arc with their own problems to overcome and kissing to go with it. Sakura Trick has the ideas and they are clearly introduced yet aren't followed up by character or story development regarding them. I believe this to be an oversight as 12 episodes focusing entirely on Haruka and Yuu with a few episodes seli-involving her Sister Mitsuki Sonoda are not enough to make me interested in the story they are trying to tell.

From what I can see, Sakura Trick stayed a bit too much in its comfort zone when it comes to side characters, this comfort zone extends to the main characters in the same fashion. All they do is kiss. I understand that this anime wants to emphasise the fact that Haruka and Yuu are more than friends but less than lovers, but I think they could have approached the problem in a better light. The constant question of ' Is this thing we have going on a relationship or are we just friends?' is merely glossed over with a little bit of development at the end. This is a prime example of the anime staying too much in its comfort zone and not exploring potential thoughts and outcomes that could lead to a more interesting viewing experience.

This anime was disappointing because it has potential. The good parts of the anime are really good but the rest unfortunately doesn't compare. Character development is insufficient and questions that are dying to be asked simply aren't. These issues can not be remedied by some blissfully cute kissing scenes, as much as I would like them to.
I can see something great in this anime, but this isn't it.