Set in a future where the birth rate decline in Japan forces schools to shrink and close and people to work earlier (a pattern not exactly new, as the countryside there dwindles now, as third spaces are closed all over the world, and as city planning fails to care, etc), the idea of community amongst the young is stressed.

Even here the community risks being - and at times is - superseded by the big and the shiny and the new, and engulfed by other things, cliques, and common apathy as life goes on and they find other things to occupy their time. It takes work to make people care when so much acts to stop it.

Community is often revered but it is and has never been easy to create, yet alone maintain. It requires work. To quote Le Guin, as while she is talking about love here the same applies to wider community building, “love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new”. Manabi Straight understands this, and through it remains optimistic. The structure of the show's staff, where directorial responsibilities are split, is also interesting given what it is, and the show is full of visual inventiveness and populated layouts, with an utterly stellar OP and completely lovely ED, both more experimental and creative thsn the norm and each respectively reflective of the show's themes in their own way".

The ED reflects wonderfully the togetherness and wholesome cuteness that good cgdct shows can have. As our characters work together to clean up their student council office in inventive claymation.

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The OP continues the obvious theme of friendship, with inventive camera angles and digital camera style effects, making it feel personal with a fitting underlying sense of rebellion.

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Student Councils are often seen by students as lame and reflective of the larger structure of the school, and they can be, and students are generally cruel but so is the society above them. Manabi Straight aims to be more student-led, which is good. Maybe I’m “naive” in hoping we get kinder as a species and can see the benefits of things actually functioning more grassroots, in balancing community and individualism a la The Dispossessed, and maybe I’m silly for getting this out of a moe show, but I’m tired, aren’t we all?

At least in Manabi Straight they manage through their gargantuan effort (energy I probably don’t have), rebellion, and the right uniting projects to eventually rekindle community spirit, not just at a smaller scale with the council group, but throughout the school as they work to fix their crumbling infrastructure together.

The show still isn’t perfect, it can be melodramatic and cheesy in the ways you might expect, and some things irk me. Continuing, the notion suggested by the headteacher that community at this scale is a privilege only for students, formed from the proximity and lower responsibility of youth, is a sad one (though in our exploitative societal system and probably in Japan especially with its work culture, it’s not exactly unrealistic, even if unintentionally a tad defeatist).

However, as the girls say, it’s actually just the beginning, and the excellent ending shows an admittedly mild act of rebellion to keep them going. Community and change are not mutually exclusive. Momo carries on a passion, Mikan explores, Manabi’s job feels so very her and won't be short of socialising. “Forward! GO!”.