Slice of Life

Plot Summary:

Kaori Fujimiya is a high school student who gives off a cold and aloof appearance in class. She has no friends and she is uninterested in making any more. Yuuki Hase decides he is going to break the ice and become her friend. As he succeeds in doing so he finds out that Fujimiya has a form of short-term memory loss where she loses her memories of her friends every monday morning. Because of this she doesn’t see herself as being able to make friends. Hase works hard to become her friend and she begins keeping a diary so that each Monday she goes to school knowing who he is. As time goes on she makes more friends and the mysteries surrounding the source of her memory loss are slowly revealed.

Production and Technical Information:

Based on the manga by Matcha Hazuki published by Square Enix

The manga was published in January 2012 and is still ongoing with 6 volumes.

The television anime series is produced by Brains Base and originally ran from April-June 2014 with 12 episodes.

The director Iwasaki, Tarou was very involved in the project as Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, and Key Animation. He has worked as an Episode Director on a lot of projects but was director of Memories Off 5 and Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaki Jikenbo.

Suga, Shoutarou did the script and series composition. He has worked on scripts for Darker than Black, FMA Brotherhood, Ghost in the Shell: SAC, and a good number of other shows.

The anime is very simplistic with thin lines and a clean style. I wouldn’t call it a “traditional” anime style. Characters are more muted and the colors are natural. At some points they use picture montages to save some money, but being a slice of life anime it’s not jarring to action or flow of the series.

Music is done by Toda, Nobuko and this is her debut working on anime music. The music I would say is simple, but well done, just above average. It fits the feel of the anime but a few themes can be repetitive.

Review:

Isshuukan Friends, or One Week Friends, starts out really charming. Memory loss isn’t anything new but Hase-kun’s earnest feelings and clear romantic interest makes the viewer interested in going along for the ride. Over the first three episodes the pacing is near perfection. He makes reasonable progress with Kaori and you can see their relationship really beginning to blossom.

Shifting into episodes 4-6 Fujimiya begins making more friends and you see her growing. These are also strong and the viewer is satiated with a few hints and clues to whatever the reason may be behind Fujimiya’s memory loss. At this point in the anime it’s being painted as the ultimate crux and reveal with what may be the climax of the series.

This is when the anime began to drag for me. The reasons behind Fujimiya’s memory loss seem very superficial and thrown in almost as an afterthought. It ends up revolving around something that you end up thinking “really, this was the reason?” After having so many episodes where you feel such strong emotions for the characters and have it steeped in mystery to have it be revealed and it be trivial.

As a result, I began to feel distant from the characters. When one thing begins to feel superficial it all does, including the romance between Hase and Fujimiya, which ends up going nowhere.
In all this series had a lot of potential and I was really hopeful, but it ended up disappointing.

[starrater]