I normally don’t like to do  “episode 1 posts” of any series, but I felt that I needed to respond immediately to Minami-ke Okaeri while my reaction and feelings towards it and its visuals are still fresh in my mind.

The show is done by the same company that did Okawari (asread) as opposed to the first season (Doumu), which is generally considered the “worse” Minami-ke show, but I read that asread was bringing some of the original staff along to work on this new season. Whether that’s true or not, it’s clear that Minami-ke Okawari is trying to be more like Season 1.

The visuals end up being a mix of the two seasons, with what feels like an overall lower budget. That sounds like an insult, but it really isn’t. I have no proof, but seeing as almost everything is suffering these days I’m almost certain anime is getting less funding too. The show tries to adhere more to the visual style of Season 1 with its sparse shading, but the highly saturated colors resemble Okawari a lot more, especially in the backgrounds. More than the differences in style and animation, the color scheme was what I think really set apart the first two seasons.

Some of the animation does seem stiff and not up to the level of the stuff in Season 1, but I think that’s also because I’d gotten acclimated to Season 1’s style. Watching Season 1 after watching Okawari, it took time for my eyes to readjust, and now watching Okaeri after not having watched any Minami-ke for a while, it might be simply a case of my eyes needing to adjust once more.

Even if their attempt to mix the look of Season 1 and Okawari doesn’t succeed in the end, I’ll at least know that they tried.

If they give more Minami Touma scenes, then that’d also be just dandy.

And joy.