Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Aelthyna
"The festival-like world has slowly settled to a leisurely pace."
"The dangerous times have since been called 'The Age of Evening Calm.'"
I have decided to open up my review with a few quotes from the anime. I think they expressive, and convey very well what makes the world of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou so special.
For me, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou has been a genuine life-changing experience, though in an inner sense: I read the manga during my formative years, which led it to fundamentally shape my taste, and yes, my worldview.
To this day, I still find the premise of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou to be as resonant as ever. A dying world, like a weakly flickering candle on the edge of exhaustion, where something inexplicable has happened that has made the further existence of human life impossibl…
Read at the sourcebob-weebington
This is basically an iyashikei. Very slow, beautiful backgrounds and some animation. Not as much content as the manga obviously. But it is different to see it in animated form for the 2 episodes in this show and the 2 episodes in the other rendering (Quiet Country Café).
If you need to relax a little this is great to pop in. The girls are likeable, wide-grin-faced professor oak is... well, wide grin-faced professor oak. Not much else to say about this one other than it's very relaxing.
It's also fairly unique, so if you are looking for shows with different animation/art styles then I think you will like this one.
Read at the sourceSpriteDrawsStuff
My expectations were pretty high going into this, having seen a couple video essays talking about how great it is. Usually that would be a pretty bad thing, but luckily this 2-episode OVA still managed to far exceed my expectations.
I'd say the biggest thing Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (YKK) has going for it is its artwork and animation. YKK is very much a love letter to the field of hand-drawn animation, having some of the best animated scenes I've ever seen in an anime before. Every little plant and leaf was animated amazingly and made the whole setting feel alive. The shadows from the trees and clouds onto the characters is surprisingly detailed, something you don't see as much in modern anime. And the backgrounds were made so beautifully, they could very well be regular paintings you see…
Read at the sourceSr_Matheus2000
Im very mixed on this anime. I dont see the point of it. only 2 episodes? no setup is payed off. Like the girl in the beginning asks if she can come visit again, but never does. The show the main character having a gun a lot of times, but she never uses it or has any need to. Maybe this is more developed in the manga. but the anime seemed to be more interested in showing the pretty visuals.
The visuals are pretty, lots of nice shots, beautiful backgrounds. But some shots linger a bit too much. The episodes are 30 minutes, but i feel like it could easily be cut down to 20 if the shots didnt linger so much.
There is barely any sound or background music. the ones that are there are fine.
Read at the sourcerooster_
It would be very hard to do a straightforward adaptation of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, a highly-episodic manga about little scenes from everyday life. It's a type of loose story that lends itself well not only to the periodic-release manga format but also to the comic form, where your eyes can pass over scenes and panels at your own leisure. Not so much when animated, where you're forced to sit and contemplate what are sometimes static scenery paintings with superimposed characters (this was not a high-budget OVA), which can result in anxiety or frustration.
The YKK manga I think disappoints many people who are coming to it as an "ultimate relaxation experience" or "healing" (iyashikei) series. A lot of YKK involves boredom, for the main character Alpha and perhaps for the reader as well. I…
Read at the sourceKumoiro_Shizuki
On a rainy day like this, I finished this anime. And in this somewhat gloomy mood of exam revision and confinement, I fell under the spell of these 2 episodes. I fell in love with its atmosphere, its world, its musical universe, its artistic direction, its characters, its story. This Oav, an ode to the present moment, is a sweet love letter to serenity, quietude, the little moments of everyday life and the lightness of life.
This little haven of peace doesn't, I think, need deep stories or complex, convoluted plots. It doesn't need fight scenes or betrayals. Nor does it pretend to revolutionize anything. What's more, this Oav is to his manga what Position is to Kotonoba Drive. It's just a tiny part of what Hitoshi Ashinano's work has to offer.
This little audiovisual document, lost in th…
Read at the sourceIlluminerosy
I hate to be that person, I really do, but the manga is better. Infinitely better. It’s hard for me to say this, because I really wanted to like the adaptation, but the manga just does everything the anime does without any of the problems the anime has. I’ll concede that most of my issues with it probably contain some bias, and that some issues might come off as nitpicks, but it nonetheless stands that they are problems not present in the original.
I suppose to start with a nitpick, I want to mention the starting song. I don’t like it (I did say nitpicks). Well, that’s not entirely true, because I don’t actually dislike the song itself. My main question is why this song. I guess I’m just confused as to what mood the song is supposed to establish. It has this reggae/surf vibe to it that w…
Read at the sourceaCheerfulPanic
This isnt an anime I usually go out of my way to recommend, I think its a bit of an aquired taste, but its one of my all time favorite. It's beautiful, relaxing and a perfect show to help you feel better about the world after a bad day. The characters are lovable, but especially given that the OTA is so short and gives you little time to truly connect with them, it especially excels in its serene moments and beautiful scenery. It is a show where not much of anything happens and while some scenes or gorgeous, some of the animation does suffer from a small budget
Read at the sourceOG_Otaku
Is it even possible to have spoilers for this anime? Highly recommended AFTER reading the manga. I don't think I would have enjoyed it prior to the manga. It has the slowest pace of any anime I've ever seen, very faithful to the manga. It's like an Italian neorealist film, like La Terra Trema, in how slowly it moves. Yes, it seems crude compared to most anime, but that was obviously a creative choice, to make it more like the original manga. I'm grateful to the makers of this anime, just to be able to relive a few moments with Alpha and her friends.
Read at the sourceSgtSalamander
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is the most pleasant and relaxing post-apocalypse imaginable, and for that it stands utterly unique among anime as a whole. Instead of some depressing decay, this story and the world it takes place in feels more like the sleepy years that come at the end of a life well lived. Even if I personally disagree with the premise that such a fate for mankind is an acceptable one, I cannot deny the warmth with which this show displays and even treasures the simple joys of life. To begin with the story, it is a simple yet quietly revolutionary take; What if the collapse of civilization actually resulted in something quite nice? A robot manages a quiet little country café on behalf of her master, who has been gone for some time. One day she receives a camera in the mail from h…
Read at the source607
I want to preface that this anime is not for everyone
This anime is such a short and bittersweet experience, in the two episodes that it is packaged in it can almost bring you to the verge of tears and I think that's a sense of Anemoia and Kenopsia if I could describe it with a couple of words. The setting is what grabs you and pulls you in with such a strong grasp that the characters are almost secondary, It has such little dialogue that's why I say that but that's not a bad thing. Having something reach out to you on an emotional level without characters having conflict and/or something on the line is really hard to do but Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou does just that and with relative ease.
This is exceedingly subjective, but regarding world-building, I have seen that it has been docked some…
Read at the sourcegakinotsukai
Ahhh, what a relaxing and comfy slice of life anime. You can honestly leave the subtitles off for this and it wouldn't make much difference, the dialogue and characters are secondary to the art. That's because this is legit some of the prettiest hand painted watercolor art/backgrounds I've seen in years, relaxing, serene, calming, and gorgeous are the first words that come to mind. All complimented by really smooth hand drawn old school animations. The most dated part are the character models, they're VERY 90's which I honestly love. To me this ranks up there with something like Mushishi season 1 in terms of ART quality (lol, and nothing else so don't take that comment too seriously or the wrong way).
I'll be honest, if you're the type of anime fan that thinks modern anime is the be all e…
Read at the sourcePlastik
10s across the board. The first Yokohama Kaidashi Kishou (YKK) OVA (and manga which I am currently reading and adoring) could not have come to me at a more perfect time. I watched this OVA during a month-long break after I quit a stressful fast food job which left me anxious and depressed every week. Watching YKK ultimately relaxed me in a time when I was extremely tense, and gave me a newfound appreciation of the beauty around me, and the relationships I form with friends and family.
There are dozens of reviews here that put it better than I ever will, YKK is a show about appreciating beauty, and the somberness of the passage of time which will ultimately wash away so many amazing memories. Something else that I feel is important (moreso to be found in the manga, but is plentiful in the…
Read at the sourcecaidenz
It's hard to describe what makes this anime so special. I used to be a person who could not watch slice of life at all, it was just too boring and it felt like there was no substance. But I've come to realize I was just watching the wrong shows, and it turns out that Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is one of those shows that is right for me. It's a show about nothing at all really and I think that's what I like about it. It's not trying to tell me anything or send some big message, it's just a peaceful show with minimal dialogue and pretty pictures. It takes place in a post apocalyptic world yet it is so serene and calm. And don't take this the wrong way, I'm someone who loves a complicated story with deep lore but I think sometimes it's nice to have something that doesn't really have any of that.…
Read at the sourceBladedQueen
Here is a short, small slice of an android girl's life, and a meditation on "mono no aware" or the wistful transience of all things. Little happens, and yet I couldn't help but smile at nearly every scene; there is no fear of silence or rush to an action sequence, instead confidently zooming into the ambient details like grass swaying in a sunset breeze or the relaxing burble of a coffee kettle.
Zoom back out, and we're offered a glimpse at the future days of humanity's lost past - life after the death of modern civilization, in all its splendid tranquility, from the naively inquisitive and adventurous perspective of that android girl who's more charmingly human in an hour-long OVA than most characters are over the course of a full series.
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is all it needs to be, a…
Read at the source666
The protagonist is a green-haired, always-genial, and scarcely ingenuous gynoid-denominated Alpha who runs a coffee shop while waiting for her owner to return. She infrequently gets customers at the start of the OVA, but everyone who meets her relishes her due to her outgoing and cordial personality. She’s simply a nice person, without any malevolence at all.
As far as my enjoyment goes, there are a few ways to describe the atmosphere: serene, bittersweet, nostalgic, poetic, explorative, joyous, even inscrutable. There are only two major events and these are weather-cognate. The rest of the time it’s the minuscule moments that are in the spotlight, much homogeneous to a diary or an impressionistic painting. The inclusion of a camera, specially designed for robots, that avails Alpha to re…
Read at the sourceUncool_Slut
"𝘼𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙚 𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙩 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧,
𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙪𝙨 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧,
𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝙤𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙖 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙚...
....
𝘼𝙨 𝙬𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙢𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩."
I wanna see more green apocalypses....
Nausicaa and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou really got me wanting green apocalypses where people help each other out and rebuild a life, It's an unbelievably chill anime with no complex plot involving die-hard enemies out to destroy you or something of that sort, the only enemy these characters are trying to defeat is the loneliness in life itself or their inner-self.
Stories of characters just going about their daily lives, trying to find their place in the world. I not only like the heartwarming relationships they shared…
Read at the sourceWallplug
This is as crazy as it sounds my favorite anime of all time it's just a nice chill anime to watch I've personally watched it a bunch of times over it's perfect no over the top action no real reason to anything it's just a nice Show kinda has a depressing and dreamy feel to it and I really enjoy that.
The Story
It has a story it's great wouldn't call it flawless.
Art
The art is just perfect one of the best looking 90s Ova's ever made I just love the way it looks in my opinion One of the best-looking animes ever made
a lot of people would disagree with me on that I know.
Sound
It's got an amazing soundtrack differently one of the best I've heard in any anime.
Enjoyment
This show is great weirdly makes me depressed but it's great.
Read at the sourcejeremypascal
The manga Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (YKK) is a masterpiece, that manages to portray an interesting and beautiful world and realistic human-like characters through simple everyday stories. To put it briefly, it's slice of life done right.
This OVA features a few early stories from the manga.
On it's own, it doesn't offer a good introduction to YKK as a whole. It leaves a lot of stuff out, that is crucial to understanding YKKs world and characters.
That's why I think of the OVA more as some sort of fan content for people that already finished the manga and want to see some of its chapters in animated form.
Does it fullfill that purpose well?
Not nessecarily.
The adaptation is generally very faithfull in terms of its story.
However, even if you know YKK's world and characters, the OVA still…
Read at the sourcestmwg01
Quick take: Purely slice-of-life, the OVAs explore the concept of learning to find the beauty in everything around you, despite how tragic it may look on the surface. I genuinely felt sorry for Alpha, despite the attempt of the series to convert a pure, innocent and positive story.
I gave this series a shot on the recommendation of Kenny Lauderdale. Indeed, by the time I had gotten around to watching this, I had realized I prefer older art styles, so I thought I’d give this a shot. Not to say the newer styles are bad, just that I have a preference. That seems to have been the overall goal of this anime. The storyline is slow moving and I felt sad most of the time. Sad that Alpha was lonely, sad that she missed her owner and sad that the world was in it's twilight. Yet the story was attemp…
Read at the source
