One Week Friends
AnimeEmily: One Week Friends is adorable. From the art style to the interactions between our two mains, just about everything in this introductory episode is sugary sweet and, as always, I’ve just about fallen for this odd tale of friendship.
The premise, admittedly, requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief. Basically, Kaori Fujimiya avoids all unnecessary contact with those around her, save for Yuuki Hase who, over the course of the week covered in the episode, manages to become reluctant friends of sorts with Kaori, gradually discovering that she is far from the cold person she comes off as to the rest of her classmates. However, as the fate of this particular story would have it, come Monday, all of Kaori’s good memories with those outside her family are wiped, including those involving Yuuki. In the end, though, Yuuki, having discovered the person Kaori really is and seen how much she actually wants friends, decides he will, week after week, make Kaori his friend again.
To be honest, the only real problem that I had with the episode has to do with the premise. Having seen a similar type of problem pop up in ef: A Tale of Memories, I can’t help but wonder why Kaori doesn’t just write down all her good memories in a journal /diary so that she can have a record of them. It might be tedious and will probably fail at times, but at least it would allow her to form some friendships. Also, the convenience of her memory loss—only family members are excluded—is a bit silly, but I suppose having it any other way would be pretty depressing for Kaori. Those minor issues aside, I pretty much loved everything else about the episode. Yuuki is an absolute sweet heart and his persistence was endearing and kept a smile on my face throughout the episode. Kaori herself is a sweetie and seeing her gradually open up and become more animated with Yuuki was an absolute joy to watch. The chemistry between the two was really quite sweet in how it felt a bit awkward with both of them tending to blush at one point or another, but also felt genuine, not fake.
Visually, I really loved how One Week Friends looked. All of the colors were soft and bright, adding to the relatively happy, innocent tone of the show. I also really loved the character designs which are relatively cute and fit the nature of show perfectly; I was especially fond of the little strands of hair that all the characters had coming from their heads.
All in all, I really enjoyed One Week Friends. It was every bit adorable and sweet as I wanted to be, plus a little more. Yuuki’s is quite the endearing character and I can’t wait to see him win Kaori over week after week and show her what it means to have a friend. Though I can see the show getting a bit repetitive with the same scenario happening every week, I’m confident that, at the very least, the show will maintain a similar level of adorable throughout its run time, which I will gladly take.
Maggie: One Week Friends makes a lot of gentle promises and presents itself as a somewhat fluffy, feel-good show about friendship and human relationships. I didn’t have many preconceptions going into this show, and my expectations were set neither high nor low. I felt like One Week Friends would be a middle-of-the-road show, decent but nothing mindblowing. This first episode hasn’t really done anything to change my opinion so far, but I do remain rather optimistic for where the show is headed.
Hase’s friendship with Shogo is just as endearing as his efforts to befriend Fujimiya, and it’s these simple scenes that say so much without words that I like the most.
One thing I really appreciate so far is the show’s scope and perspective. The first episode spans one week, yet we only see three characters the entire time: Hase, Fujimiya, and Shogo. Hase is trying very hard to establish a friendship with Fujimiya and constantly goes to his friend Shogo for advice and support. Some people may have issues with the limited scope of the narrative so far, but I like it. I feel like this is an honest portrayal of a common high school experience. It’s normal to spend an entire week without deviating much from one’s circle of friends, no matter how small. And it gives Hase and Fujimiya a lot more depth and robustness as characters since we can focus all our attention on them with few distractions via secondary characters. Shogo’s presence does balance the equation slightly and gives the necessary outsider’s perspective into the friendship. In fact, Shogo is probably my favorite character so far. His practical, level-headed nature and calm persona have won me over. He may seem a little too grown-up for his age, but his role as Hase’s friend and advisor is fitting and charming to watch.
Hase and Fujimiya’s rooftop lunches provide an easy, comfortable space to explore the boundaries of their relationship.
The only complaint I have is that, well, nothing really happens. Hase and Fujimiya eat lunch on the roof a few times, and their first encounter is replayed over the course of the week as the two revisit the foundation of their budding relationship to try to figure out exactly where they both stand in relation to one another. One Week Friends is obviously a dreamy, slow-placed show by nature (just look at the glowy artwork), but they’re going to have to give us a little more to work with if they plan on keeping their audience interested. However, it’s far too early to make any condemning remarks, because there’s a lot of room for personal growth and empowerment, and Hase and Fujimiya seem fairly dedicated to each other, even this early on.
Ben: Going into One Week Friends, I had no idea how it was going to be. All I really knew about the series is that it’s based off a manga in which I haven’t read. The description made it sound like it was going to be a nice, laid-back drama about a boy who wants to befriend a girl, but can’t because of a memory disorder she has. That description is mostly true, and I found this first episode to be a pretty good setup for the series. However, I have a big concern with the substance of future episodes.
That concern regarding future episodes is the story, which is paper thin. The whole series, presumably, revolves around a boy named Yuuki Hase who tries desperately to befriend a girl named Kaori Fujimiya, despite the fact that she’s always alone and cold towards everyone she interacts with. I don’t have any idea how this is going to be stretched out into 12 episodes, because it feels as if this story has the potential of getting very stale very fast. When watching the first episode, I can’t help but think that this story might be better suited to be a film rather than a series. Then again, this is my introduction to the series, so those who have read the manga probably know better than I do.
The biggest complaint I have regards Fujimiya’s condition, which serves as the entire plot to the series. I feel that the disorder she has is way too specific. It seems like it’s just an extremely fictionalized interpretation of anterograde amnesia. Apparently, Fujimiya loses all of her good memories gained in a week every Sunday night except those of her family. Honestly, that’s slightly too farfetched for me to suspend my disbelief. What is nice about her disorder, however, is that even though it sounds a little bit questionable, she does treat it as a serious illness and her reactions to it (basically, shutting herself out from society) seem perfectly believable.
Positively, I enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere and the interactions between Hase and Fujimiya. Hase came across as so excited to have made Fujimiya as a “friend” that it seems genuine. I’m also fond of the whole, “She’s good at math and he’s horrible at math” subplot. Hopefully, that can be expanded upon (well, it wouldn’t have been emphasized so much if it wasn’t planned to be expanded upon, right?).
The first episode of One Week Friends was mixed for me, but needless to say, I found it to be pretty good. It was interesting enough to keep me on board with the series for a few more episodes, but I don’t have any idea how it’s going to continue on like this for 11 more installments.
