Anime Review: Just Because! - Vanilla or something more?

Hey there guys, Endblade here. Today we're going to be doing an in-depth review of the anime: Just Because! so do note that there may be minor spoilers up ahead, but nothing too major or plot revealing.

To start off, I have always wanted to do an in-depth review of an anime piece, just to give my thoughts on the various aspects of the anime from the animation, plot, setting and the character development, of which all four aspects are crucial in determining if said anime is going to be a big hit or a huge flop.

Spot all the characters!

Before I would like to go any further, I would like to say that this review is not sponsored, nor is it claiming any rights to any of the screenshots or pictures that I have taken from the anime, all such photo rights belong to the creators of Just Because! - Pine Jam studios and Sentai Filmworks, without which would not have been possible to create an original story not based not a light novel or manga.
Firstly, Just Because! is somewhat different because as mentioned above, it is a 'original' story not based on an adaptation of a popular manga or light novel. Such series rarely get greenlit by studios to air, notable recent exceptions include the 2017 hit romance anime - Tsuki ga kirei (The moon, so beautiful) and arguably one of my favourite anime titles to grace 2017.

Going back to the statement 'original' story - why did I place the word between inverted commas? Not surprisingly, this is related to the plot of the anime itself.

Plot
Simply put, the story revolves around a group of high-school students (yes, the cliche group of stereotypes that we have known and grown to love) in their final year of study before pursuing different careers or furthering their studies. Eita Izumi (blue-haired guy) is a transfer student who keeps changing schools due to his parents' work commitments, and he arrives back in the same neighborhood he grew up in middle school. Mio Natsume (red-haired girl) is the same age as Eita, and Eita has had a crush on her since meeting her in middle school (cliche much?) but Natsume of course is oblivious to such affection, because then there wouldn't be any story to develop.

It is your typical, slice-of-life student story with a love-triangle to spice things up. Well, is this that reveal considered a spoiler? I guess most romance genre anime feature some sort of variant of love-triangle relationship, so its' more of a standardized trope if anything else.

Just because its' overused doesn't mean it can't work (pun intended). And that sentence sums up the story of Just Because!, not something game-changing but tried-and-true plotlines which seem to tie themselves up easily. However, the ending is as cliche as it can get, and although it does tie the anime up well, it doesn't do the story justice with the amazing character development given to each character.

Some scenes may seem a little unrealistic with emotionally-charged dialogue that would most likely be impossible in reality, but certain scenes where awkwardness between characters like in the screenshot below which was taken in an episode where the group of friends were at an aquarium.

Such small snapshots help to convey the silent awkwardness between characters, and this brings me to the next point in my review: Character Development.

Eita (top right), Mio (bottom right), Haruto (top middle) and Morikawa (second from right)

 Character Development
What Just Because! does well is in the subtleties of conveying emotion. Not to the detailed extent of Tsuki ga Kirei, but well enough to show the tension between characters like the unspoken affection Eita has for Mio, and other relationships that blossom during the course of the anime's run.

All the characters have their own hobbies, likes and dislikes. This is not an anime where the characters are simple character tropes. One good example is the character Komiya, who loves photography. Her emotions and dedication is seen in her work and the photos she takes throughout the series serve to highlight her character - straightforward, loud and dedicated.

Komiya and her love for photography

It is this silent nod to individuality where we can see each character develop in their own way, overcoming their own individual fears and struggles. The middle of the anime was the best portion, because the development of each individual featured Eita, Mio and their group of friends using the group for their own selfish reasons, much like how sometimes people in reality do so in their own circle of friends.

While the main five characters - Komiya, Eita, Mio, Morikawa and Haruto are well-developed and unique in their own motivations and personality, what I felt could have been improved would be the supporting cast and side characters. Their classmates were introduced but treated like their entourage rather than actual supporting cast, and their personalities were not well-developed. It could have been the large number of main characters which left little time for the minor characters to be explored further.

When someone talks about how real the characters feel, it is only as real as the setting of the anime allows it to be. The less realistic the anime setting, the characters tend to be less human-like and more extreme in polarities, like how like in Gundam you have the good vs. evil comparison and characters that fall into the 'absolute good' or 'absolute evil' stereotypes. Another example is the aniem Classroom of the Elite, which feature an over-the-top school setting with even crazier, complex characters. It doesn't mean that such shows don't do well, because their genre in anime allows such setting and characters to flourish.

Setting

Eita and Haruto

Setting the stage in Just Because! is your typical school type of environment, nothing crazy or out-of-sorts in this anime or some anime that features an unpopular club with weird characters cliche (looking at you Oregairu and you Hyouka). But it does well in using hobbies as the focus of the anime. Photography and Baseball, two hobbies which feature greatly in Just Because! and for good reasons. Baseball is popular in Japanese schools, and photography, well you can never go wrong with photography.

Using such hobbies to set a realistic and approachable environment where we grow to learn about the characters and see the story develop helps immerse us into the story and leaves us wondering - could such a story be an actual romanticized retelling of some writer's school life? While far-fetched, such themes are real enough to merit such thought and Just Because's normal Tokyo life helps to cement the idea of such a story playing out in reality.

I would like to use this time to praise the use of music, the moments where slow music is apt in certain scenes to help build tension or establish emotion and the absence of music in parts of the anime when it is not needed is another good point of Just Because!

Animation

One weak point is the sub-par animation of certain scenes, and the animation in general seems less of the selling point of the anime but the smaller budget such series' are allocated speaks volumes here. While the other aspects of Just Because! are compelling enough to make it a decent anime, the animation (hence the name anime) pulls down the overall rating and while not comical or horrendous, the vanilla animation (which isn't much because this isn't an action flick) makes it a little less impressive.

Final Thoughts

Pondering and wondering

While Just Because! is no pioneer in the school or romance anime genre, it sticks to its' guns and produces a simple, albeit slightly overused plot but mixes in apt use of music and framing to create a sense of realism and gives the feel that it might be someone's actual past, retold in a slightly romanticized manner.

When my friend told me he was watching Just Because! and it gave him the feels that he wasn't able to celebrate New Years' in a festival setting (one of the episodes in the show), I realized that the show itself evoked a sense of longing yet nostalgia of times past unobtainable.

A good watch if you are looking for something simple and enjoyable, and maybe it might offer you a chance to reexamine your own life and past. Not for the type of person who doesn't like to watch something true-to-life (one of the closest anime will get to reality).

You can check out my updated anime watch list (with ratings) over here.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

Until Next Time,

Endblade