Yurumates: Soft and short slice of life, but unspectacular

Written by Little_Wolf-18 on April 29, 2012 at 2:51 PM

Unknown… and unspectacular. To me, this was still enjoyable as a relaxing change, but truly nothing to get hyped about.

Story: True to a slice of life, the story is open. “Yurumates” follows a group of four university students throughout a year, showing small problems and oddities students frequently have to struggle with (not knowing how to cook, laziness, forgetting to clean, money problems, struggling to keep up with university stuff etc). Nice as a short and pretty soft comedy, but nothing special. (If you’re new at university, struggling with some issues, and want to see that others aren’t better off, this might be hilarious though. ;) )

Characters: Unique and realistic as far as anime goes. However, despite the fact that the charas should have been easy to empathise with for approximately 20-to 30-year-olds, the anime was too short to truly enable me to get a feel for the characters, and thus didn’t stick to memory well. (Yeah, how logical I'm doing a review in this case. ^^")

Dialogue: Easy to follow, probably funny for those who’ve experienced at least a few things similarly, but not over-the-top comedic or memorable.

Animation: Very soft; character design kept basic, simple, and somehow reminiscent of chibi style drawings; backgrounds are kept simple as well.

Entertainment: Friendship combined with comedy, bits of Japanese culture, and realistically exaggerated situational humour – sometimes quite cute, generally soft and relaxing, and probably enjoyable if you’re looking for just that; however, it wasn’t all that spectacular to me. Too short in some meanings (characters?); were it longer however, it would probably be boring as long as it didn’t get spiced up with more comedy, a consistent plot or more memorable characters/chara interaction.

Conclusion? Nice as a relaxing and soft anime, probably aimed at college freshmen/freshwomen who want to have a small laugh at people in a similar environment. Cute and relaxing as it isn’t longer than any normal anime film; but if you get your hopes up too high, you’ll probably be disappointed. For me, this didn’t stick to memory too well.

Note: No second episode, don’t even waste your time looking - somebody uploaded sth. corrupted and declared it the second ep of this thing. -.-
@zuzube’s “what is this an OVA of?” – when in doubt, Wiki is best: There seems to be a manga behind this. Didn't read it and didn’t look for it though, frankly said.