Kids on the Slope

Its seriously an amazing anime. its one of my favorites! but sadly it is very overlooked and underrated. The reason i tried this in the first place is because i was watching all the generic anime like Naruto, Attack on Titan, Soul Eater, and the like and i just wanted to try something different, specifically dramas. But the thing is i hate the kind where people get dramatic over little things like "You stole my hair brush!Jason's hair was in that brush! You're going down!!!" god! i don't know why anyone would like that. This on the other hand is a really down to earth, feel good, coming of age drama with likable characters. Just give it a try!

The anime has a total of 12 episodes and was broadcast between April and June in 2012. The story begins with a high school boy (Kaoru Nishimi) who moves to Saseho in Nagasaki prefecture due to his father's business matter. Kaoru is the best student at his previous school but he doesn't fit into the environment and doesn't have friends because of his frequent changes of schools. After he meets a problem kid and a Jazz drummer, Sentaro, Kaoru finds a light in his school life. As Kaoru is a classic pianist, he starts playing Jazz under Sentaro's influence. Soon after Kaoru falls in love with Ritsuko, Sentaro's childhood friend. However, Kaoru is rejected because he finds out that Ritsuko's favourite person is Sentaro. Meanwhile, Ritsuko also notices that Sentaro comes to like a mysterious upperclass student, Yurika. Yurika loves Junichi who is a saxophone player and comes back from Tokyo after joining a student movement and is renounced by his father.

Love and relationship are unpredictable just like jams and Jazz improvisations, and they are leaping impulses and swinging like a person running down a slope. Each episode is composed of a small story along with a Jazz song such as "Someday My Prince Will Come," "Now's the Time," "Moanin," "Summertime," etc. The story is a really heartwarming. Perhaps, the time background of the story in the 1970s, where people listen to records, no musical score, transcriptions of songs, student movements, and people, makes the viewer feel warm. Above all, the music is brilliant! Yoko Kanno worked on the songs; the arrangement of Jazz songs, and the jams and improvisations are top-notch! I highly recommend this anime, and you will find passion and bittersweet in the story.

Shinichiro Watanabe is as close to a cult anime director as you get and with Kids on the Slope he addresses directly the stylistic thread that runs through everything he does, music.

Kaoru Nishimi is the buttoned down, classically trained protagonist, carrying his emotions bundled up in his suitcase through an endless carousel of schools and communities. Never having time for friends or even acquaintances, and drawing his only pleasure from the structured performance of classical piano. The series begins with the door to his sheltered existence creaked open by the self-styled drummer Sentaro Kawabuchi. In a cacophony of fists, romance, and blaring jazz, Sentaro awakens Kaoru to the wonders of expression.

Shinichiro Watanabe, along with composer Yoko Kanno, has sketched a nostalgic portrait of 60s Japan, and in what i'm sure are touches of autobiography shown an adrift young man find a home in the beautifully flawed world of jazz. Watanabe draws his characters with a loving hand, appreciating nuance and weakness as part and parcel, however this adoration can sometimes come across as sentimentally watery. But the show is made with a joy that leaps out from every vivid image and roaring musical number, that would suppress any criticism in sheer enthusiasm.

Drawing from the American Beatniks and his own experience Watanabe produces a delicate character play enriched by one of the finer soundtracks i've heard.

If you've ever in your life sat down and spent some free time watching anime, odds are you've heard the name Shinichirō Watanabe and Yoko Kanno. With two of the best well-known names in anime, you will not be disappointed when you get high hopes for this piece of work. My purpose of this review is not to go in depth of the story or its characters, but to hopefully help those who are undecided about putting this one on their watch-list.

The animation is incredible, the colors perfect, as expected the score is remarkable, character development is on point, and this story can be quite touching at times. I'm usually not interested into the more drama driven anime, but Kids on the Slope is an easy exception.

But to make the point perfectly clear, if you're debating watching Kids on the Slope, stop debating and watch it, period.

I started watching this anime as i thought it would similar to "your life in April " but it has more than that, after watching this one would definite start liking jazz music too. The emotions and types love have been well framed and all the characters were interesting. so much emotions have been put on all the characters, I like how well they have presented the bond of friendship between the main characters, makes think about my old schools friends too. Not for a single minute i felt that story is dragging. the motion and feelings of the characters were so natural doesn't feel like watching it on screen, it was more like experiencing it and you might relate it with story to. give this anime a shot you feel disappointed.