It's been a good while since I posted my last review here and pissed off everyone in the world with my take on K-On The Movie, so I thought, hey, why not give some attention to a really underrated slice of life anime that honestly should have gotten another season at the very least: Slow Loop.

On the surface, this just seems like a typical high school slice of life centered around fishing, but surprisingly, despite the main characters being high schoolers, the show never really has many scenes with them there, instead focusing on them doing fishing and other laid back activities during their free time. It's something that's quite unique within the genre, and I really appreciate the show for taking this direction. It allows the show to focus a lot more on the outside environments that the characters go to for their fishing trips and more of their lives when they're out and about without the worries of school stuff, which provides its own level of comforting vibes as a result.

And that's not all the show does to stand out from other slice of life anime, as it also has a unique flavour in how it presents its themes of fishing. The show essentially comes off as a series of fishing lessons, but it's never on the nose about that. It has these lessons come through naturally as a result of what the characters are doing in the moment, experimenting with different types of fishing and how to handle different types of fish, and how to handle them in different rivers, lakes and currents. Not only does it provide some really intriguing info that's enough to make me want to considering fishing, and not only does it give more substance to every single fishing scene, but the pay-offs for each one of them are seeing the characters use the skills that are taught to the audience within these scenes and making different meals out of the fish they catch, which is always nice to see and provides a show with a lot of charm, especially when the show also transitions into lessons on how to cook certain types of fish.

But the show doesn't completely rely on its fishing themes to provide a substantial viewing. It's a slice of life anime at its core, and it does a pretty solid job with the quintessential elements of a slice of life show like this. Despite being a very laid back show like Non Non Biyori, it has plenty of comedic moments and instances of characters being expressive for the sake of being funny, and while it's far from the funniest anime I've seen, the comedy here is really effective.

When it comes to the show's characters, most of them are pretty solid and very enjoyable. and one of the many refreshing things about the show is how it doesn't feel the need to over-exaggerate their personalities for the sake of a comedic tone.

Hiyori is a shy girl who has difficulties trying to talk with other people, but she is a lot more downplayed in this aspect compared to shows like Bocchi the Rock ~~which this show is somehow connected to because Kessoku Band makes a cameo in one of the episodes, but I completely missed it, lol~~, and the show doesn't put too much emphasis on that, making it very easy to empathize with her from the first episode. The show is more focused on showcasing her passion for fishing and teaching people like Koharu and Futaba everything she knows about fly fishing in particular, and it's always nice to see her passion whenever she gets a moment to teach fishing lessons throughout the show.

Koharu is more of an energetic goofball, being a lot more open than Hiyori, and sometimes lacking knowledge on a lot of things. While the show uses that part of her personality for comedic purposes, it doesn't paint her as completely inept. She gets plenty of opportunities to show that she's actually quite proficient with fishing at times, and is actually the one who cooks said fish the most. Plus she gets to be part of sentimental moments with Hiyori and Koi without all of them ending with some stupid ass gag about how dumb she is. It allowed me to appreciate her more outgoing nature and how she inspires Hiyori and Koi in one way or another.

I wanted to say more about Koi, but I honestly don't have much to add. She doesn't exacty have much going for her, but she is quite likeable on her own, and I was really intrigued whenever the show delved into her history with Hiyori. And I don't have much to say about the other characters in the show either, but most of them are pretty good too.

Futaba was really cute, and I loved seeing her around, especially when she was fighting the struggles of feeling like she couldn't open up to people like her best friend Aiko about fishing, her big sister, Ichika, was honestly pretty weird, and she fell more into an over-exaggeration archetype that I didn't vibe with, I really liked how much focus it gave to the adults of the show, such as Hiyori's mother and Koharu's father, and those two were really nice, Koi's father can suck a dick with how annoying he is with hs obsession of fishing, and how that affected others around him, and Aiko and Kaede were just kinda there, I guess.

And for the final thing I want to touch on that makes this anime so great, it delves quite a bit into heavier topics to give a small bit of emotional depth with how Hiyori and Koharu both lost family members who meant the world to them in one way or another before the former's mother and the latter's father decided to remarry together. Whenever the show went back on these, it never goes so deep into it that it becomes an emotional powerhouse of a show like Clannad or Celestial Method, but does touch on them enough for said emotional weight to be effective. It serves as a big factor into the show's heartwarming core, since it goes into exactly how Hiyori's father played a big part in her adoration for fishing, and how it affected her when he died, and how Koharu felt in the moment of losing her mother and younger brother, with the fact that she barely acknowledges it adding an addtional layer of tragedy. Even when it's brought up, she leans more into not dwelling on it much. These heavier themes played a big part in me connecting with Hiyori and Koharu, and seeing them have a closer connection as sisters through the passions passed on from their deceased loved ones.

So in all, Slow Loop is a really relaxing, fun, and sometimes emotionally powerful slice of life that provides a unique approach to the genre, is really well written when it comes to tying its fishing and cooking lessons into the story, and is really heartwarming with how it handles its characters. I watched this show early in 2024, but I definitely should have done so sooner than I did, because this was a really nice watch that I wouldn't mind returning to in the future.