IKIGAI DAYS

What anime series are you watching this Summer season? Recently I’ve been enjoying this series called “Narenare: Cheer for You!” (菜なれ花なれ)

Here’s a blurb that I got from myanimelist about the series:

“The feeling of wanting to cheer someone on… where does it come from?”

Six high school girls with diverse hobbies, skills, and personalities. Each carrying their own worries, they run, shout, collide, daydream… When the pure desire to support aligns, their cheers resonate in the hearts of those involved. The support of these six high school girls from Gunma might just change the world a little bit?

Story

The story centers around Kanata, who is the protagonist of this series and her group of friends. The series starts off with a cheer leading scene from the past, where Kanata and some of her friends were competing in a cheerleading competition. I won’t say anymore or else it will spoil the series! You have to watch it yourself!

Thoughts

Upon watching the series, the style, character design and story felt nostalgic and somewhat familiar to me. Once I finished the first episode and saw the ending credits, it had P.A Works and it dawned on me why I really enjoyed it. I’m a big fan of P.A Works and one of my favourite series from them is called Hanasaku Iroha (花咲くいろは), which I recommend you check out! It’s a nice slice of life anime that was released in 2011! I can’t believe it’s almost been a decade since its release. My love for P.A Works really started from Hanasaku Iroha and I had to watch their other series such as “Angel Beats” and “Shirobako”, which I also recommend you checking out

Anyways, back to my thoughts! The animation is a bit unique with the colour and it feels a bit different to the usual P.A Works. The pacing of the story felt fine to me and it wasn’t rushed and you get introduced slowly to the characters of the series

Should I watch it?

I wouldn’t say Narenare has an amazing storyline or anything that is unique, but it brought me back to why I really enjoy the slice of life genre. It’s something you can put on, relax and enjoy after a long day of work without thinking too much. It’s also been a while since original anime has been released that’s not based off a light novel or manga, which is super common these days. Not to say they are bad but it’s a nice breath of fresh air having something original released. Plus a big bias is that it’s by P.A works! Definitely give it a watch or add to your super long list of anime you watch

It’s currently airing on Crunchyroll and there are 3 episodes out at the time of writing this post

If you are watching it, what are your thoughts? Are you enjoying it so far?

One last thing! Thank you for reading up to here and this is my first post! I used to blog many many moons ago about anime, figurines and Japan! I thought to blog again as I really did enjoy it in the past and I got to meet many people who interacted with my previous blog, and sadly most of them don’t blog anymore. This blog will be a reflection of things that I enjoy in life, which are anime, food, Japan and sort of a personal journal!

If you also blog as well about anime or we share same interests, please feel free to share your blog below! I’d love to connect and check it out too!

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!