See You Tomorrow at the Food Court

 See You Tomorrow at the Food Court (フードコートで、また明日) is a 6 episode slice of life comedy based on the manga of the same name by Nariite Shinichiro.  The anime originally aired in the first half of the 2025 Summer season. 

     Wada, a reserved and understated girl, who everyone assumes is a model student and Yamamoto, a tall and flashy gyaru, make an unusual pairing.  The two high school girls wile away their time together at a local malls food court, consuming various food items and chatting about their lives and interests.  While everyone assumes she's reserved and studious, Wada is irrational, academically deficient and vindictive.  Yamamoto, given her fashion choices, is presumed to be a sexually promiscuous airhead is reserved, considerate and driven by a goal to move to America.  The two of them reconnected once in high school after developing an unusual friendship in middle school and cherish their idle time together.

    Wada rages about anything she sees as a slight against her and battles popular opinion online.  Yamamoto does her best to reason with the unhinged girl but doesn't let it bother her when her friend refuses to accept logic.  Yamamoto doesn't follow pop culture as much as people would suspect, instead focusing on studying and enjoying Wada's company.  What do they spend their time doing every afternoon?  Whatever topic pops into their head, as there is never any plan outside of meeting.  They truly just enjoy the company of the other to that degree. 

    This was a surprisingly fun and endearing series that unfortunately only ran for half the season!!!   If any anime has ever hit me in the nostalgia nerve this one might be the most notable.  It reminded me of my teenage years spent aimlessly wasting time with friends at restaurants and coffee houses with nothing planned outside of spending time with them in public.  To make thing 'worse' I couldn't help; but seeing a lot of my own personality deficiencies represented in Wada...  I felt called out!  The way she made snap judgements on emotion over reason and tried to establish her world view in opposition to popular opinion out of reflex more than anything.  In the beginning it is established that she rages about the popularity of a specific idol figure in a popular mobile game but it comes out that hatred only comes from her being temporarily locked out from accessing his character in a way she wants.  Once she is able to join the elite's that can access him, her tone changes completely.

     In reality there is not a lot going on with the series.  Over its course some world building is done, but largely the setting is the two girls sitting at the same spot having casual conversations about their lives.  Some world building occurs, particularly revolving around a girl in Wada's class that she utterly despises.  She attacks the girls looks and her attempts at establishing a makeup routine but in reality the girl doesn't deserve the venom.  There is a boy who Wada went to grade school with who through a series of misunderstandings we learn holds a crush so hard on her to this point that he is dating a girl who looks like her.  Yamamoto goes along with all of these oddities, understanding that she won't really be able to change her belligerent friends mind once set on something.  But...there's not as much substance as a lot of people would like so this isn't really for everyone.  It was absolutely for me and I cherished each episode, I might have to pick up the manga. 

The series is available n Crunchyroll.