Anime Review: Kin-Iro Mosaic

Who Would Like this Anime?

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It’s moe. It’s slightly (!) yuri. It’s slice-of-life. So you’ll get characters that are too pure to be true with a lot of girl-on-girl blushing (only roundabout stuff) and no connecting storyline. In return, you’ll also get decent comedy and good directing. Even if you don’t like moe in particular, you won’t have to avoid it, thanks to the comedy.

For: People who like moe, slice-of-life, and comedy with a bit of yuri flavor.

Translation Where?

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I’ve watched the combination of these releases since FFF even takes eternities on batches. There are only very few overlaps which make it hard or impossible to read the lines in question, but they’re not even a handful. The subs themselves are A-OK apart from the Onee-chan-equals-Sis dilemma. Although here, it might just work with Shino being a klutz. Still, a “meh” from me.

Translation: All good but the usual “Sis”.

Premise

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A duo of British exchange students visits Japan to study abroad and have fun with their Japanese classmates and friends. Errr, this is a slice of life anime, so there’s no real story.

Visuals

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I’d rate the art above average. The animations are good enough, the backgrounds and stuff crisp enough. There are a couple of art style switches to emphasize the comedy, which works splendidly and is well-timed as well as well-executed. Well, well, well. It’s easy to look at, all good. And yes, it’s hard to find a representative scene here, so deal with it.

Conclusion

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When reading this, always remember that this series is moe. And why is it listed as “Kinmoza!” everywhere?! Anyway, here we go.

First of all, the characters. They’re all enjoyable and have their own traits without getting annoying. In a moe sense, they’re acceptable and consequent in their behavior. Strictly speaking, we have five boke and four tsukkomis. Only Shino is pretty much always on the receiving end. The moe is there, albeit in a healthy dose, so most importantly for me, it’s not overstrained.

One typical downside’s there, though: the two exchange students are British. Apart from the usual “why the hell would they picture Europeans to be blonde?!”-problem, their English plain sucks. So they suck at English and one of them even at Japanese (gaijin pronunciation), so what language can she speak properly, then? Especially episode 11 is from hell in that regard. But the English dilemma’s omnipresent in anime and otaku stuff in general, so whatever. The side characters do their job, too. It’s a bit sad that most of them are cliché, but at least Shino’s sister feels refreshing.

Next, the “story”, or rather slice-of-life. In a chronological kind of way, it’s cohesive. No eternal spring or summer, time passes. There are also logical events happening like a trip during summer, studying for end-terms, etc. Things don’t happen without any reason whatsoever, so reason isn’t abandoned for the sake of moe situations.

The comedy. Although moe slice-of-life is the leading part here – contrary to Lucky Star where comedy’s the center – the comedy is pretty decent. Thanks to the good directing, art style switches, and cuts, it has a few good impacts and doesn’t get boring to watch. It’s one factor to make it worthwhile even if you’re not into moe.

Putting it all together, I can say about myself that I’m not a moe fan. I don’t drool over little girls doing pure things in a way that can’t exist in this world that is probably FUBAR while creepily giggle to myself. But this series has a well-adjusted dose of moe and eases it all up with good comedy. So even if you’re not into moe, this series is worth a watch, and very bearable and enjoyable nonetheless.

I’ll break up the rating into two sorts: normal and moe. If you’re into moe to begin with, the whole series gets spiced up a tad more. It’s probably not moe enough to make you shoot through the roof, though. And for those who don’t like moe, the pure white moe scenes might be kind of boring. It won’t get downrated for it’s unbelievably pure characters or lack of real story, because this is slice-of-life moe – or moe slice-of life. If you got this series nonetheless, you had it coming.

I wouldn’t mind rewatching it at some point, so that’s a good sign. And I had a hard time choosing pictures since there were many potentially good ones, which is a good sign, too.

Rating 7/10

Moe Rating 8/10