Out of the many new releases this spring anime season, “Senryu Girl” is a breath of fresh air. Based on the eponymous manga series by Masakuni Igarashi, the anime revolves around Nanako Yukishiro, a cute and cheerful girl who struggles with normal conversations and often fails to translate her thoughts into words. Yukishiro devises a strategy and uses Senryu, a traditional Japanese poem form, to communicate.
As the series progresses, Yukishiro slowly and subtly expresses her affection for Eiji Busujima, a scary-looking ex-delinquent. Through their daily activities and interactions in the literature club, Busujima develops romantic feelings for Yukishiro.
“Senryu Girl” is a unique anime in that its quirks are often what moves the plot. Communicating solely through poem is nearly impossible, but these obstacles, are excluded in the anime.
Similarly, although Busujima may appear to be a bully character, nothing reinforces this idea besides his intimidating appearance, which usually scares people away despite his attempts to be friendly and make a good first impression.
Instead, the anime only focuses on the essence and purity masked underneath the characters’ outward appearances and makes sparkles out of them. In this way, the simplified, clean world presented by the anime offers a tranquil and cozy viewing experience.
Most importantly, “Senryu Girl” is an anime that cleanses away all the chaos of regular daily life, offering the audience an invaluable chance to freely discard what they are familiar with and enter a world without complexity and filled with sincerity.
The simplified universe in “Sanryu Girl” does not impede the proceedings of normal life but instead embraces its refreshing aspects, evoking some long-lost vitality that is hidden by the dust of life’s excess.
Watching “Sanryu Girl” is like being bathed in a gentle spring breeze and totally indulging in its innocent, limpid air. There is no dramatic tragic romance and no deliberate love triangle, but rather the blooming sweetness between Yukishiro and Busujima. “Sanryu Girl” makes it clear that this is an anime that people can just enjoy to escape from earthly hardships.
