City the Animation is the 13 episode adaptation of the manga City by Arawi Keichi. The series originally aired during the Summer of 2025.
City is less a continuous story and more a collection of antics by a wide cast of characters, much like Arawi's previous work Nichijou. The arguably primary characters are known as the Mont Blanc Trio and consist of college students/roommates Nagumo Midori and Niikura Ayumu. They are joined by coed Izumi Wako who lives in a different apartment in the same complex. Nagumo is naturally talented and unmotivated, coasting through life. Niikura is hungry for success and is secretly dedicated to the older Nagumo. Wako is carefree and coasts through her life without any challenges, having modest success in the things she finds interesting and with very little able to dampen her mood. The room mates struggle through the entire series with being poor college students but only attempt quick ways to change their situation, refusing to look at things in the long term. Wako...well, we're not really sure what she ever has planned in her life.
The rest of the cast are a misfit collection of other characters, residents of City, who directly or indirectly interact with the Mont Blanc Trio from time to time. The Makabe family is helmed by father Tsurubishi who runs a moderatly sucessful restaurant but is easily distracted by childlike fancy. The oldest child, high school student Tatewaku spends his time playing soccor poorly and trying to gain the love of Wako's younger sister Riko. The other child is daughter Matsuri who spends all of her time outside of familly and school with her best friend Amakazari Eri (Ecchan). Together the middle school aged girls have an incredibly imaginative sense of play and wonder through out the City. A much larger family is the Adatara clan, who's father runs the liquor store next to the Makabe restaurant. The mother struggles to reign in all 5 of their kids, of various ages and Grandfather Adatara has a strange fued with Mr. Makabe. There is a small group of people who run the City Magazine and a struggling manga author with in its pages, who also lives in the same apartment complex as the Mont Blanc Trio. There is the aloof and ultra wealth Tanabe, who spends her time and her staff rewarding people for being good citizens...all be it in less than ideal ways. The list goes on.
As with Nichijou the series is a collection of vignettes about the wide cast off weird characters as they go about their semi-normal lives in the City. Over the course you learn their personalities and history, building on a greeted understanding and connected-ness as it progresses. While not as insane in its comedy as Nichijou was, City the Animation is a fine example of innocent comedy for comedy's sake. It isn't bogged down by the need to tell a cohesive story. That's not the point, its really just a look into the odd ball lives of the cast purely for amusement. No lessons, no tension, just stupidity at its highest form.
Kyoto Animation delivered a phenomenal product in their adaptation of the manga. There are a lot of fast cuts and comedic turns as we have seen in Nichijou but what heightens this series is the fantastic creativity in panel layout and directing. On top of that the story of friendship between Ecchan and Matsuri was pure joy and heart breakingly sad at the same time. Delivery, character templating, casual physical comedy and absurdity at a very high form. It's not for everyone. Some people just want to see masculinity and power and thats OK. Manga and anime are mediums of expression for a diverse audience. City absolutely delivered what I needed and wanted and it hands down the best anime of 2025. Now its time to begin reading the manga, a thing I put off since the anime was announced.
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