Underrated Comedy Anime?? - 'And Yet the Town Moves'

There are no spoilers in this blogpost.

I recently watched an anime called 'And Yet the Town Moves', AKA 'Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru', or 'Soremachi' for short... and wow... I loved it. It is a comedy/slice of life anime with an underlying 'mystery' theme to it. I immediately recognised that it was animated by the same studio that worked on the Monogatari series - studio SHAFT. I won't do a summary of what Soremachi is 'about' - I'll just go straight ahead into my thoughts about it.

The first episode hooked me in instantly. I was already watching season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen so I got used to how that was animated and how the shots flowed into each other, but Soremachi has a REALLY different type of direction that I wasn't expecting. It's artistic in a way - random shots of objects and buildings in the scene and dynamic angles of characters in strange perspectives. But these 'random' things effectively contribute to the overall theme or vibe of each episode. It's cozy. The animation is perfect - it genuinely felt refreshing.

The characters are cute but they aren't painfully or annoyingly cute - it's a natural sort of cute. Even though the show is 12 episodes, it's easy to get immersed in the show's town and get a nice look into the characters, all of which I liked. If you are worried about unnecessary fanservice, there isn't a lot. I didn't find it too weird or off-putting - I don't think that's what the show even wants to focus on. The show's other aspects are way too good so I couldn't drop it.

The last episode was seriously great. I don't want to give anything away but it was wrapped up so well, I can't imagine a better way to end it.

As someone who is interested in animation and art - I really loved this show. It has inspired and motivated me a lot to work on my craft. Please give it a try, 12 episodes is do-able in a day or two.

I'm a little sad that not many people know this show (???? I mean I haven't interacted with anyone who has watched it yet). Please leave a comment if you have watched this show!

Thank you for reading! I'll leave you with the show's lovely theme song (1:30).