Skip and Loafer is an excellent, down-to-earth story that focuses on a coming-of-age tale with some drama and romantic comedy. It is rare to find a show about high school that plays it straight without resorting to gimmicks or wacky scenarios to try and differentiate itself. Regardless of successful execution, those other shows end up distancing the story from what is plausible in reality. Unlike Skip and Loafer, these fantastical narratives lose much of their ability to explore more mundane themes and experiences that ordinary people face in their own lives. Yet instead of believing it needs to make up for the lack of gimmicks with melodrama, the show finds strength in the sincerity of a girl's journey through high school while balancing her ambitions, studies and relationships. It creates a narrative that exudes a sense of lightness and optimism, which makes for a charming story that sincerely covers themes about high school that are true to life.

Like most shows set in the mundane, contemporary world, it focuses on the characters and their circumstances instead of being driven by some dramatic, complex plot. The cast is excellently written, with their lines and voice acting exaggerated ever so slightly to be entertaining while still keeping the behaviour and personalities within the realm of believability for real life. There is ample room left for nuance and subtly in the more dramatic or tense moments, though the framing of the more comedic ones is still a little direct at times. It is an achievement in its own right that Skip and Loafer has characters that could convincingly be a real classmate someone could have encountered in high school. Albeit someone a little quirky and more interesting than the average person. Much of this is achieved by having the characters take the social situations they are in seriously but also having them reflect on them once the heat of the moment has passed. This keeps everything in proportion, avoiding a descent into melodrama as the characters are aware enough to laugh at how emotionally consumed they were when they acted. Yet it also preserves the value of these situations since the drama is maintained as the genuine response of the characters instead of making it appear like it is done for the benefit of entertaining the audience. These elements are essential for any show that wants to play its contemporary setting straight while maintaining the believability of the characters.

Our lead, Iwakura Mitsumi, is an excellent viewpoint to explore the themes that come with high school, being someone who has set lofty goals yet is also an outsider to a big city school with a large student body. She combines just the right amount of earnestness, awkwardness, and neurotic overthinking to make her endearing to the audience. Kurosawa Tomoyo is fantastic at playing characters with this personality and gives an excellent performance, capturing both the anxiety and eagerness in the character. Mistumi's background, coming from the countryside to the city, really accentuates her character with her wonderment at the urban lifestyle. While it is used to play up her more socially inept side, never having dealt with so much social politicking with her peers in a tight-knit country town, it also reinforces one of the show's core themes. There is a constant strain on her time with the fast pace of city life, having to manage her studies, extracurriculars, and her social connections. Most other shows in high school all centre around only one aspect of this, either on the club element if they are covering a particular activity or the social aspect if they are a drama/rom-com. Despite being an almost stereotypical fixture of schooling in Japan and Asia, Skip to Loafer is surprisingly one of the few shows that even deals with academic goals in a genuine manner. While it is an interesting subject to tackle and makes Mitsumi and her peers feel much more like real people who would be concerned about grades, maybe so few shows cover this because it feels a bit too true to life. After all, it strikes a bit close to home to be reminded of studies when watching entertainment. Yet it is essential for the story Skip and Loafer wants to tell and does wonders for being able to relate to the characters since it never feels like the show is glossing over an essential part of the student experience.

Seeing Mitsumi sleep deprived and biting off more than she can chew really drives home what it is like to be a high school student who wants to achieve it all. The show handles this aspect well, always ensuring to keep the problem of managing their studies and time visible even when they take a backseat to relationships for a bit. It creates this sense of a consistent challenge that rears its head and drags Mitsumi back to reality whenever she becomes too consumed in her social or extracurricular pursuits. Being such a core aspect of being a student, the various ways the characters attempt to manage this and their motives for it reflects on them, and by extension, Mitsumi, who tries to find her own solution. The other characters respond to the constant workload by creating intricate schedules that maximise efficiency or by simply resigning themselves to indifference about their performance as long as they pass. Their motives for working hard also vary widely, with some seeing it as their responsibility as students and to themselves for their future, or simply as a means to increase their social standing. Mistumi's consideration and reaction to all of this makes for an interesting exploration of this idea while feeling natural. The path she chooses to take in the end tells us about what she values and how far she can or even should adapt from her life in the country.

The thematic elements to do with the countryside thus far have felt under-explored, even though the show successfully connects much of Mitsumi's personality to her upbringing. Skip and Loafer does avoid the pitfall of having her country girl aspect being nothing but a shallow quirk that is only paid lip service to and quickly forgotten about. While Mitsumi does return to the Noto Peninsula during her summer break, it feels much more like an interlude than anything that really drives her characterisation forward. Part of this is due to the implicit contrast between city and country life, with how much slower-paced and carefree it is, creating this feeling of a purely slice-of-life interlude when she returns owing to how little actually happens. The return and other vignettes/flashbacks to her time in Ishikawa does effectively maintain the idea that her hometown is important to her with their consistency. Yet, with how little has been dug into the theme of rural decline or even the broad strokes of Mitsumi's dream/plans to do with it, it raises the question of if runtime was used as efficiently as it could have been. Still, it is refreshing to have a story where moving to the city is not a way to escape the countryside and forget about it but is seen as an opportunity to improve things at home. While P.A. Works has covered the topic of rural decline in more depth in Sakura Quest, where it was one of the central focuses, it is still poised to be an interesting secondary theme and convincing motivator for Mitsumi in Skip and Loafer.

Supporting Mitsumi, the rest of the cast is just as strongly written and helps to reinforce her characterisation with how their personalities play off and compare to hers. The show here is exceedingly strong in bouncing fluidly between the various characters' perspectives and giving glimpses into their inner thoughts. This is primarily a strength of manga as a medium, but it has been translated well to animation. The internal narration from the supporting cast is appropriate to the moments they are in when we switch to their perspective. It tells us enough for the audience to grasp the depth and nuances of their character and what drives them behind their outward-facing persona. Yet it avoids the pitfall many other shows make by having their character internally monologue their background and deeper motivations even though nothing in the situation would provoke those thoughts. It strikes the right balance to give us meaningful insight about the characters to bring them to life without giving away too much at inappropriate times or being hamfisted in its delivery. Even though they are supporting characters in what is ultimately Mitsumi's story, the cast never feels like they exist in a bubble. Another pitfall that Skip and Loafer deftly avoids is the feeling that the supporting cast exists only in relation to the leads or their school. The inclusion of small moments where characters talk about their past in junior high and still remain connected to their friends from that time really bring Skip to Loafer's world to life. It eliminates the feeling that they exist only to interact with the protagonist and that they have lives of their own that would continue without Mitsumi or even the viewer.

The most interesting supporting cast member is probably Egashira, who occasionally acts as a half-hearted antagonist to Mitsumi. She is a realistic departure from the characters in most anime being designed to have their appearance match their personality, at least in the broad strokes. While Egashira presents herself as agreeable and dainty with her fashion choices, it is very much for a deliberate social effect that goes far beyond self-expression. It reinforces how Skip and Loafer stays true to life in that people have limited control over their appearance and rarely choose to deliberately appear antagonistic. Having everyone behave exactly as their metaphorical tin label suggests may be expedient, but it often comes at the cost of believability in other shows. From this idea of appearances being only a partial reflection of someone, we get plenty of depth from Egashira. She cultivates the image of a sweet and confident person, yet has a scathing, calculating, and ultimately insecure internal dialogue. It gives her a chance to surprise the audience when her actions and inner motivations occasionally match what is supposed to be just a facade, and we see real sweetness as she slowly feels more secure with other characters. Some degree of having a book match its cover is still appropriate in characters like Kurume. Her appearance is one of less effort compared to other characters and reflects her scorn for what she sees as substanceless vanity and how appearances are usually exploited by those blessed with them. On the other hand, it is refreshing not to immediately pigeonhole Murashige, the stereotypical modelesque girl, as the antagonist of the series by making her a shallow love rival simply because she is attractive. It is the interesting other side of the coin for appearances not being indicative of someone's character, with Yuzuki being a friendly and understanding person from the start. All this serves to make the supporting cast both endearing and gives them a convincing level of depth to explore.

Finally, coming to our male lead, while much of the praise received by the rest of the cast also applies to Shima, his background as a former child actor feels far too dramatic at times. Compared to everyone else's fairly ordinary lives, his personal history feels the closest to coming to a gimmick meant to dramatise things. It feels jarring against the initial grounded tone of the show when it is introduced after the first episode. Though to the credit of the series, it never becomes overbearing or compromises the show's other elements. It does descend close to, or even dip into, melodrama at some points, especially regarding Ririka and Shima's past acting days. There are interesting places to go with Shima's character, and his backstory suggests a great deal of depth to his character, yet this season has explored so little of it. And at the moment, the hints about a more dramatically tragic past and the direction the story will take with it feel wrought with potential for going over the top. While that does not preclude Skip and Loafer from handling it well, thus far, the situation of his past coming back to haunt him has felt melodramatic with how little it involves Mitsumi or anyone else in the main cast. It creates the feeling that it is a problem inflicted by a third party in order to "spice things up" instead of having it be a more natural crisis of his internal conflict boiling over. With how much of the show is driven by characters discovering each other while learning to deal with and accept the flaws they find, it feels like a cheap way to direct the problem outside of this dynamic onto a lightning-rod character to serve as the antagonist. While it does create a dramatic climax and break the status quo within Shima to allow for character growth, it feels forced and less organic than what could have been the internal unravelling of his outward persona.

The mystery box that is Shima's character does feel a little out of place in a series where the rest of the cast are largely known quantities. It does explain some things that were slightly off with Shima, like his voice acting lacking that bite that makes for a visceral performance. The only time it breaks from this is during an internal monologue we get late into the season from him, which sounds far more natural and full of emotion. While this could be down to a directing decision, meant to aid in his characterisation as a soft-spoken person and deal with the theme of an actor not being sure where the character ends and his self begins, it makes his performance feel particularly floaty and even weak at times. It also pushes the show away from its ostensible seinen or josei framing to one closer to shoujo. Shima feels like the stereotypical mild, soft-spoken yet brooding and mysterious love interest and does little to break the mould at the moment. This is not necessarily a problem, but it runs counter to the expectations established by how straightforward the rest of the narrative is and its very mature emphasis on gradual communication as a way to connect with people. The small snippets we get of Shima's past do make his reluctance to open up, even to Mitsumi, highly convincing. However, it only thematically supports the characterisation and depth of the other cast members instead of interacting more directly with them. While the implicit contrast between Shima and Mitsumi suggests that her earnestness is what he needs for him to grow beyond his past, there is not enough done with that before the situation implodes itself. Again, this is not necessarily a problem, and there is still plenty to explore in a second season. Still, it feels like a more gradual and down-to-earth opening up and discovery of Shima that would have made for fantastic character scenes were sacrificed for a dramatic climax.

As a result of this, while the series has convincingly sold the viewer on a strong friendship between Mistumi and Shima with plenty of chemistry, whether it can convincingly be a romance is still up in the air. Because of how asymmetrical the relationship is with Shima holding all his secrets, the audience still needs to be convinced of his feelings. At the moment, all the romantic tension feels distinctly juvenile since it is mostly a mixture of gestures that could be misinterpreted as being more than they are meant to be, or born out of affection that a more mature person could still reasonably see as intense but platonic. While this heightened sensitivity and overthinking about romantic connotations is fitting for high school, what Skip and Loafer needs to meet its expectations and go beyond most romances is to show how meaningful and intense their connection is. And that requires the characters to open up in a more mature manner and grow into their relationship instead of the typical one-off high school confession. But that can be developed further down the line, and it is unfair to hold against a first season that is meant to establish the scenario. With Skip and Loafer being the story of Mistumi's experience in school instead of Mitsumi's experience in love, it is reasonable for it to remain only one of the main elements in the show instead of its primary focus.

Overall, Skip and Loafer is an excellent coming-of-age story that deals with high school in a rare genuine and down-to-earth manner. It does not seek to embellish the experience for the sake of drama and entertainment, giving us characters that feel just as real as anyone a viewer might know. While some elements, like Shima's background, feel a bit tropey at times, the series more than makes up for it in other areas. While Skip and Loafer has plenty of merits as a stand-alone season, it seems better poised to be the strong introduction that supports a second season since it has left a lot unexplored, crucially with its male lead. There is some worry that Skip and Loafer will lose traction with audiences like many other more realistic anime since it hinges on investment in the characters instead of some readily marketable trope to keep more juvenile audiences on board. Hopefully, the quality will continue to speak for itself, with Skip to Loafer being a strong 8 out 10 at minimum. It is hard to give it a 9 at this juncture because it has yet to explore Shima's character in depth. While I like the characters and Kurosawa Tomoyo's performance as Mitsumi in particular, I did not make this very personal emotive connection to them. Ultimately that final push is highly subjective, but it is not hard to see how someone who found the characters leaping from their screen would rate this even higher or have this as one of their all-time favourites.