mono

mono is a 12 episode slice of life anime based on the manga of the same name by Afro.  The series originally aired during the Spring of 2025.

     Following the graduation of a senpai she highly regards, Satsuki falls into a depression.  She and another 2nd year student, An, are the only remaining members of the Photography Club.  Unwilling to let her senpai's legacy be forgotten they forge a plan to save the club by merging it with the Cinema Club, absorbing its few members as well.  The newly minted CinePhoto Club now has to figure out what it wants to do.  Sakurako, the former president of the Cinema Club, suggests that they actually do the things the club would suggest.  Satsuki decided to buy a used action camera and ends up befriending a lazy manga artist named Haruno in the process.  Haruno decides to 'sponsor' the club and the store her grandmother runs becomes a de-facto club room over summer break.

    The CinePhoto club joins Haruno on trips researching things for her manga, which leads to them taking gastronomical tours all around  Yamanashi Prefecture.  Their focus on capturing film and photo for their club activities falls by the side as they enjoy a summer they will never forget and befriend a handful of other weirdos associated with Haruno.  As the Summer comes to a close they realize they didn't really produce anything they could use for their clubs projects...instead they ate way to much food and climbed a lot of mountains and drove many miles with Haruno and her friend Kako.

    I went into this series blind, not realizing it was by the same author as the modern classic, Laid-Back Camp.  It took a few episodes and some fun cameo's to even learn that this manga exists in the same world as that one!!  I was already hooked before that realization based purely on the character design and sheer joy of the narration.  Its interesting how quickly the series switches its focus from being about a few weird kids trying to save their club to a travel vlog of sorts, showcasing many delightful events and sites in central Honshu.  One things for sure, these kids have a lot of expendable income...especially with how much food they consume at restaurants along the way.  The other thing is...their parents are very much absent from their lives!

    The characters are lovable with amusing designs and antics.  Laid-Back Camp feels like a warm fluffy scarf while mono feels like a neon colored tank top.  The hi-jinks and antics are upfront and center as the band of misfits wander around the country side.  Even the resident responsible adult, Haruno, feels like a kid willing to get up to trouble at the drop of a hat.  Yet they don't do anything remotely dangerous of problematic...well except for the episode where two of them bomb a massive hill on long-boards.  Instead they move from one mundane adventure to the other but bring a level of energy that makes it seem like something extraordinary.  The best way to sum up the series and its tone...making mundane and normal tourism feel as exotic and exiting as visiting an active volcano.  This was a fantastic series and greatly overshadowed a similar themed series, ZatsuTabi, much to that shows detriment.  Two for two, Afro knows how to tell a really fantastic fluffy iyashikei story!!

The series is available on Crunchyroll.