Adachi to Shimamura is a light-hearted, relaxing shoujo-ai series released in Fall 2020. Believe it or not, I was actually interested in watching this show mainly because I am a fan of the seiyuu cast, and character designs look aesthetically pleasing. I decided to watch this, and thankfully, it piqued my interest. It has become one of my favorite yuri series, and it's my personal favorite anime in this season.

The main duo of the aforementioned names, Adachi and Shimamura, are the highlights of the show, and I would say that they are some of the best written and most relatable out of all the yuri series I have watched so far. Both are extremes of emotional states all of us have felt at one time or another, and both are fundamentally flawed human beings in different ways. Both of them called themselves as "delinquents" because they had a habit of skipping class. It is their gradual emotional development that makes up the substance of the series, both in general and to each other.

Hogetsu Shimamura is a reasonably functional, sociable girl who just has no real attachment to life. She is unwilling to put relationships beyond the bare minimum effort towards them because she feels that human relationships are bothersome and require too much effort to maintain such balance. She is passive, she's never takes the initiative, and she doesn't speak her preference about where the flow of time carries her. She's also a bit of an airhead, as well as being an indifferent kind of girl, and it made her to skip class as well as not being aware of Adachi's own flaws initially. Shimamura has two of her other friends, who are Hino and Nagafuji.

Sakura Adachi, on the other hand, is both shy and unsociable. She's so introverted, she finds herself incapable of connecting with others because she can't clearly speak what's on her mind, and it make the entire situation difficult for her. She is very lonely in every sense of the word, she didn't even have much of a relationship with her family. It's this suffocating loneliness that has made her to also skip class. Adachi has finally met her first partner, Shimamura, the first person she ever truly wanted to interact with. Then they eventually became friends and started getting into the relationship together.

Shimamura was my favorite because she's actually pretty sweet and humble, albeit she's indifferent, & she likes to tease sometimes. Also, she's voiced by Miku Itou who is my personal favorite seiyuu because of her sweet voice. Then I noticed that Adachi has an introverted personality that is similar to mine because she and I have had some emotional problems. It makes her especially relatable to me, and it also makes her such an interesting, well-written character. If I'm Adachi, I would feel pretty similar when I get to have a relationship with someone because I'm pretty introverted myself, and I wouldn't mind at all if I can meet a person like Shimamura. Both characters are very likable with different kinds of flaws, and both end up in relationship in a pure, simple way at a slow, but steady pace.

Hino is a bubbly, petite girl who enjoys fishing, and she often complains not having friends who have a similar interest. Her childhood friend Nagafuji is a busty, mature girl who's also an airhead, and she slaps Hino whenever Hino touches her chest. Those two are both very lovable and entertaining, and they even give some helpful advice to Adachi and Shimamura to balance out their conflicting relationship. Yashiro, the mascot of the series, is a girl in the astronaut suit who turns out to be a glowing blue-haired alien girl. She really loves sweets and she can even eat them under her helmet! Personally, I find her annoying, and she's the only part that I don't like in the anime. She seems to be out-of-place, and I can tell that Shimamura feels irritated when she meets this alien loli.

The artsyle of this is both crisp and beautiful, and I would like to give props to Tezuka Productions, which is the same animation studio that made The Quintessential Quintuplets. I'm really impressed on how beautifully illustrated the animations and character designs are, and the lighting helps highlighting the emotion scenes well. The voice acting is incredibly well done, and Akari Kito, Miku Itou, Manami Numakura, and Reina Ueda all have done an amazing job portraying their characters.

To me, a plot doesn't have to be ground-breaking to make the anime enjoyable. Adachi to Shimamura proves itself to be a highly entertaining romance anime without wasting the viewer’s time bringing up typical, nonsensical tropes, although there are some fanservice in some scenes. The main characters are relatable and well-written, and their relationship gives me a wholesome feeling. Adachi to Shimamura is one of my personal favorite yuri series I've watched, and I recommend this to the fans of the slice-of-life shoujo-ai series.