Akebi's Sailor Uniform (明日ちゃんのセーラー服)

Akebi's Sailor Uniform (明日ちゃんのセーラー服) is probably my favorite anime series for winter 2022. It is a slice of life anime, and Akebi-chan is the main protagonist. She is a first-year student at a middle school, the alma mater of her mother and she had wanted to study there because she really really like the uniform, a sailor uniform. Only problem: several years before she entered the school, the school had actually switched to a different uniform. But her love for that older uniform (worn by her mother, as well as a singer on TV) persuaded the school's admin to allow her that special leeway. So she attended school in a uniform different from the other girls.

What caught me was the quality of the drawing... in episode one, the characters are portrayed moving with such fluidity, the backgrounds drawn to such detail, some looked like photographs.

And there is also something about legs. Close-up shots of legs are used often as a way to express the characters' thoughts and emotions without using words. This is something that you see a lot in Kyoto Animation works, especially those by director Yamada Naoko (who has since left KyoAni). So I was quite surprised to see this technique being used so often in this anime. But it was a nice surprise. (Unfortunately, I can't find any "official" screenshots of such a scene, so the one below will have to do as a poor substitute.)

There were even scenes of someone wriggling her toes, a girl sitting in an empty classroom cutting her toe nails, Akebi-chan putting on a pair of socks... maybe someone on the production staff has a fetish for legs. 😅

The captivating part about this anime is how it looks as if the viewer was peeking into the private lives of these 16 girls (Akebi-chan is in a class of 16 girls) because of how it goes about portraying their everyday lives down to the mundane details. Walking to school (or rather, running to school), enjoying music on the school grounds, practising at sports after school... because the anime does not skip over the details, it makes it all the more "private" and the viewer ends up feeling sinful, like a peeping Tom. 😐

Besides the close-ups on legs, the anime is also good at using small actions, gestures, even the moving of the eyes, to portray a character's thoughts and emotions. These are the small details that come from observing people, and makes it all the more realistic. And thus easier to empathise with the characters. You can actually feel what they are feeling because of the realism.

And for once, at least these middle school girls worn skirts with lengths that are realistic, like, knee-length. You know, the length that schools usually put in the school rules.

So while there is no real story behind the series, no quest to kill a demon lord, not even a "we will set up a band and aim to perform at the Budokan!", I still recommend this series because of its skill at portraying the everyday stuff. It is like telling us, we don't need to be special for life to be interesting. There are things to be enjoyed in a normal life, day to day. We just need to keep our eyes open.

 

Wikipedia entry on Akebi's Sailor Uniform

 

(Above visuals were taken from the anime's official website, unless otherwise stated.)