Living for the Day After Tomorrow

Living for the Day After Tomorrow (あさっての方向) is a 12 episode super natural drama based on the manga of the same name by Yamada J-ta.  The anime originally aired during the Fall of 2005.

 

    Karada is an elementary school girl who is short of stature and fed up with not being able to be responsible like an adult. She lives alone with her adult brother, Hiro, who returned home to care of her after the death of their parents. Shoko has returned to Japan after going to college in America. She has chosen to move to a small and secluded town to start her life over after a bad end to a relationship. Karada and Shoko end up meeting each other at a small shrine on the outskirts of town. The shrine is a legend in the town because the stone inside of it are fabled to grant wishes. After they each play to the shrine Hiro arrives to get Karada. The siblings and their friends are going to the beach before the summer school session starts. Surprisingly, Hiro and Shoko know each other from college. Karada invites Shoko along to the beach, because she is her brothers' friend. Together the three of them meet up with Touko and Amino, to head off to the ocean. Touko is around the same age as Hiro and Shoko, she helps out at her families' café and has a mild attraction to Hiro but not enough to actively pursue him. Amino is Karada's classmate and has been in love with her for a long time.

 

    During the day at the beach the tension between Hiro and Shoko is thick and oppressive, at the end of the day she insults Karada. Hiro sends his sister back home ahead of him so he can talk with Shoko. Instead of going she stops at the shrine and begins to pray to grow up faster, so that her brother doesn't have to worry about her as much. Shoko comes across Karada praying at the shrine on her way home. In a moment forever lost to time the two share an intertwined fate as they are both affected by the shrines magic. In an instant Shoko, in her mid 20's, has the body of a grade schooler and Karada, around 11, has the body of an adult. They now share a powerful secret and head to Shoko's apartment to sort things out. Over time Hiro discovers the truth and all three end up living together. This period creates much tension as Hiro and Shoko's past relationship is revealed to Karada. Ultimately Karada runs away to make it on her own, even though she is internally the same person just now an adult on the outside. At the same time, Tetsumasa is searching for her. He is bothered by the excuses' dealing with where she is. He searches the town looking for her, confronting a quiet and brooding Hiro, who only gives vague answers.

 

    The story deals with four characters sorting out their individual feelings and their feelings for those around them. Shoko and Karada, once the truth sets in, are resigned to the fact that they cannot reverse the wish and are trying to sort out how to proceed with their lives. Shoko and Hiro are trying to sort out why their relationship went sour and how they can over come the past to make the future better. Karada and Hiro are trying to sort through their own hang-ups over each other, their own assumed guilt's. Tetsumasa and Karada are trying to confront and admit their mutual feelings in order to build a mutual trust between them.

    I really enjoyed this series; it's hard for me to find a problem with it aside from my own personal tastes. The artwork and character design fits well with the theme and feel of the story. The story is very mature and well written. I greatly enjoyed the fact that it has a super natural element which is the backbone of the plot but is handled in a realistic way and moves to the background. There is absolutely no comedy in this show, and normally when an anime has a body-switching plot the canned toilet/prepubescent sex humor drives the show. Not with this one. It was interesting that the main characters accepted their fate as best they could and strived to adjust their lives to the changes. The plot was not about them trying to reverse the effect; it was about them coming to terms with their problems before and after the change. They had to realize and understand why the change happened, not make up for it, but to try and make it better. I think the plot lines in this story are great real life lessons that everyone can learn from

 

    The background music fits the mood well, soft tinkling piano tracks and airy synth lines. The main characters are all memorable and well developed with personalities that grow throughout the series. The length of the series was fine, I think it would have been rushed if it was shorter and dragged out if it was longer. There are really no loose ends in the end of the series, the only thing I would yearn for would be to spend more time with these characters that I have become attached to. I have not read the manga but will probably pick it up now and see the differences between that and the anime. I really don't see there being anymore of this series, but hopefully the original creator will create another memorable, well written series after this.

UPDATE: This series was picked up by Sentai Film Works and is available on DVD and is currently available streaming on Anime News Network.
 

UPDATE: As of September 2023 the series is available for streaming on HiDive.