Kids on the Slope Anime Review

“Kids on the Slope” follows the story of Nishimi Kaoru, a smart, rich kid that has moved into Kyushu. His father travels around a lot due to his work, so Kaoru is forced to move into a new school every few years. No stranger to isolation, Kaoru quickly separates himself from his classmates, even when they try to approach him. That is until he is confronted by Kawabuchi Sentaro, the schools most infamous delinquent. Kaoru quickly learns that Sentaro plays jazz percussion and, being a piano player himself, eventually becomes intrigued by jazz. The two eventually start playing music together and become friends.
I wish that was where the story stopped, but unfortunately through a number of side character, meaningless romances and unresolved events, Kids on the Slope falls into the “13 Episode Trap”. The “13 Episode Trap” (not a real thing, just something I made up) is when an anime of 13 episodes or less attempts to do too much in too little time. Kids on the Slope tries to develop too many characters, such as Sentaro’s childhood friend Ritsuko, a trumpet player named Junichi and the beautiful art student Yurika. The anime introduces these characters (especially Junichi and Yurika) primarily as side characters, but then in a single episode, we are suddenly bombarded by their rapid character development. In other anime that have fallen into the trap, these bursts of development typically last about an episode, but Kids on the Slope manages to finish off Junichi’s back story in about 12 minutes. The development of these characters is just so rushed that when the anime wants me to feel something for them I unfortunately just don’t care enough. Kids on the Slope tries to develop a romance between Kaoru and Ritsuko. It spends the first 8 episodes or so frantically trying to build the romance between these two characters. The development is so rapid that it becomes unnatural and awkward. In my own opinion, a decent romance anime needs at least 20 episodes to build a natural, believable romance.
After all of that you probably think that I hated the show, and that simply isn’t true. While it did fall into the “13 Episode Trap”, to my knowledge, Kids on the Slope was able to perfect something that no other anime has before. This show managed to create the best musical sequences in any anime ever. Other shows like Nodame Cantabile and K-On! also have musical sequences. They are good, but something feels off about them, and you can instantly tell that they are just on looped animation sequence when they play instruments. In Kids on the Slope, every musical sequence feels fresh and new, but unfortunately it only gives us a handful of these moments. The animation on Sentaro’s drum playing is some of the best animation I have seen in any anime. The actual musical compositions are also fantastic. Sentaro and Kaoru’s performance at the festival is my favorite scene from the show and my favorite music sequence from an anime. Kids on the Slope had problems with its character development and story, but the music, animation and artwork made it all worth it in the end.

My MAL Rating:

Story: 4
Art: 10
Sound: 10
Character: 6
Enjoyment: 7
Overall:7