Zatsu Tabi: That's Journey

 Zatsu Tabi: That's Journey (ざつ旅 -That's Journey-) is a 12 episode slice of life comedy based on the manga of the same name by Ishizaka Kenta.  The series aired during the Spring of 2025.

 

    Suzugamori Chika is a young manga artist, struggling to produce her first real published work.  After a series of rejections she decides to take her editors advice and take a trip to try and get some inspiration.  Unsure of where she wants to go, she posts a poll online and ends up traveling to a random area in the norther region of Honshu.   The experience doesn't exactly spark inspiration for a future manga, but does reinvigorate her in general.  She falls in love with the thrill of going some place new and unknown and experiencing the sites and sounds, meeting new people and trying new things.  Instead of settling in to try and force her creativity, she decides to go on another trip, and another...and another.

    As Chika continues to take random, poll dictated trips, around Honshu, some of her friends join on her journeys.  Between her friends from school and fellow manga artists she has gotten close to, Chika has even more unusual experiences exploring her homeland.   Each time though, will gaining valuable insight into different approaches to live, she struggles to spark the narrative inspiration she in so desperate to find.  But that doesn't dampen her excitement as she plans the next trip, hoping that this time, something will click along the way. 

    This is a straightforward and cute iyashikei.  The characters are stereotypical, filled with the standard trope of dere type characters common in low key slice of life female cast stories.  You can't help but suspect that the manga and the anime were green lit as an excuse for the author and production staff to take trips across the country on the companies tab.  None of the characters are disagreeable and their adventures are amusing and somewhat informative.  Nothing is out of the ordinary...its rather mundane.  The artwork and character design its self is mundane and inoffensive but not memorable.  This will be something that easily fades into the mists of memory as the next seasons roll in with more impactful shows.

    Though not all of the meh factor for this show is its own fault.  If only it wasn't up against a superior series of a similar vein, Mono.  Mono, by the creator of Laid-back Camp, pigeon holes a secondary character, who is a manga artist, into many of the main casts travel adventures around Yamanshi prefecture.  Comparing Zatsu Tabi to Mono is unfair to Zatsu Tabi, as the other is a far superior product, filled with a lot of life.  Zatsu Tabi is acceptable as a slice of life story but really lacks the spark that Mono carried in its cast and delivery.  That said, Zatsu Tabi didn't feel like a waste of time, Mono just highlighted its lack of quality in comparison.  Or the kinder way of putting it...Zatsu Tabi is a product that could have had more work done to it, to make it more entertaining. 

The series is available on Crunchyroll. 

Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary season 2

  Shoshimin: How to Become Ordinary (小市民シリーズ) season 2 is the 12 episode slice of live drama continuation based on the Shoshimin novel series by Yonezawa Honobu.  The anime aired during the Spring of 2025.

    For a recap of the first season, you can see the review of that here.  The story picks up about 5 months after the end of the first season.  Yuki and Jogoro are still avoiding each other, doing their best to live ordinary lives.   Both are dating other people and Yuki's boyfriend, underclassman Urino Takahiko.  He is a juniour member of the schools newspaper club and has ambitions greater than the publications is set up for.  He convinces the head of the club, Kengo, to allow him to do an article on a series of recent arson attacks.  Urino, who's older brother is a firefighter for the city, believes he can crack the case and uncover the identity of the arsonist.  His plan stretches across the months, gaining him attention among his classmates, the caution of faculty and Jogoro's inquisitive interest.  The climax of the investigation leads Jogoro and Yuki burying the hatchet and resuming their strange partnership.

    The second half of the story deals with parallel hit and run incidents.  Jogoro is struck by a car on Chritmas Eve, setting him up with a prolonged stay at the hospital.  The incident reminds him of a similar situation three years earlier that lead to he and Yuki becoming...friends?  As he takes a trip down memory lane and goes over the series of events that lead him to figure out who the culprit was in the first case, Yuki is working diligently to uncover who hit her friend.  The truth of the incident is far stranger than they could have imagined, leading the sins of the past to return with a vengeance for blood.

     The original season of Shoshimin has some issues with its pacing and story telling.  It was difficult to become invested in the story when you didn't understand the characters.  When what should be a juvenile Sherlock Holmes turns out to be little more than mundane problem solving for extraordinary problems, the viewer can lose focus and interest.   The first season does a lot of work to make the viewer understand its two lead characters, slowly setting up their personalities against the backdrop of pointless problem solving.  The final arc of that story however was more exciting as it included an amount of danger.  All of the groundwork laid out in the first season pays off in the second season where we don't have to re-acquaint ourselves with the main characters.  In fact, the first of the two arc, has a new character as the primary focal point, with Jogoro and Yuki playing background roles.

    The two arcs that cover the second season deal with uncovering legitimate crimes and do it in a creative and engaging way.  The story is more dynamic, especially with more people becoming involved without directly being included by Jogoro.  The second arc does a fantastic job of incorporating the origin story of our duo with the present day mystery they are trying to solve.  Also...it doesn't hurt that the mystery is about who ran over Jogoro and fled the scene, something a bit more enthralling for the audience than discovering methods for efficiently making hot cocoa.  As with the first season, the artwork and direction is cinematic in its quality and greatly appreciated.  This is an anime made for film snobs.  Sadly, this is the last we will see of this world and unfortunately the original novels have not been made available in English.  Time to watch Hyouka...

The series is available on Crunchyroll.