This Week in Anime

Top Reasons to Watch Skip and Loafer

Steve
Nick, there's been no shortage of "omg me" posts going around lately, and this column is no stranger to that. But I must declare that I've never seen another animation screenshot before that so perfectly captured my quintessence every weekday at 6:21 am.

Whenever an animator draws bags under a high school girl's eyes, it is a tiny gift to me and my decades of accumulated sleep debt.

I am super on board with more frumpy bumpkin rom-com heroines. We had another great example last year with Heroines Run the Show, and now we have Skip and Loafer. Not only is it the sweetest show of the season, but it also marks the triumphant return of director Kotomi Deai! Who, funnily enough, also did the ED for Heroines Run the Show. I guess she shares our affection for these funny little bundles of anxiety.

It is effervescently pleasing to all relevant senses. There's no shortage of facets to hone in on, from the impeccable color design to the perfect VA performances. But the real mark of high school bildungsroman anime quality, as we all know, can be seen when the premiere recruits as many fabric perverts as possible.

Very true. And it made for a very reassuring first episode, for me, anyway. I'd been looking forward to this show purely based on the Deai factor, so the equally strong source material was nice to see. After all, as the great and severely underappreciated Anime-Gataris once declared, the best anime are all puke anime.

Genuinely one of the realest depictions of how high school works.

Yeah, it's a surprisingly tough series to describe without just sitting someone down to watch it. Because it'd be really easy to get the impression that Skip and Loafer is saccharine and frictionless when it's much more nuanced than that, it is ultimately healing, and that's one of its strongest qualities. Still, it takes some big bites to get there. It wrestles with a lot of the nasty and/or cringey stuff that haunts people's adolescences. Because, for better or worse, those makeup most of our defining experiences, and Skip and Loafer often argues it can be for the better.

Oh, for sure, Nao-chan calls for a Pride-appropriate shoutout. And she's a great example of the careful and compassionate line that the show toes. Because there are scenes when the writing acknowledges some of the frictions and injustices society imposes on trans people. It's not all idealized. But in the end, Skip and Loafer always champions kindness and honesty, and that direction feels more genuine in the face of those realities.

She's also extremely protective of Mitsumi, another feeling I can relate to.


Granted, it's funny she's worried about the boy equivalent of a Pomeranian, but I'm glad she's got my Mitsu's back.

Well, it's pretty obvious they're something more than friends: they're ducks.

The whole story revels in its unlikely pairings and friendships, though, and that's the beauty of it.

It becomes a vehicle for one of Skip and Loafer's greatest tricks: endearing the audience towards Egashira. Because she starts on perhaps the worst foot possible there, it'd be easy for the narrative to treat her as an adversarial roadblock that Mitsumi and Shima are meant to overcome to deepen their relationship. We've all seen that before, and SkipLoaf, thankfully, has other plans.

Do NOT get on his bad side. He will zing you into next week without ever breaking his smile.

Her whole deal becomes crystal clear when we learn that she used to get picked on for being overweight. And that's all well and good for her character development or whatever, but I forgave her for any and all prior indiscretions the instant this happened.


One of the cleanest, most laser-focused applications of hater technology I've ever seen. Impeccable pettiness.

The popcorn debate brings out the best in everyone. Like now, I have a new name for all my Twitter mutuals.

I appreciated the scene when Egashira took her aside and said, "Actually, Mitsumi-chan, Mike Collins stayed in lunar orbit in the command module during the Apollo 11 mission, so he wasn't part of the moonwalk."

So true. And jokes aside, I really do love how familiar all of these characters feel. Not just that their archetypes are common but that they're each suffused with details that instill a sense of authenticity. Like, we all knew the girl whose notebooks looked exactly like this.

She's the dweeby nerd, so of course I relate to her. I had those glasses too. If only I could have been as effortlessly cool as Mitsumi.

See, I know it's already too late for me because I saw that outfit and thought it looked just fine. But then again, I'm a pretty big fan of her graphic-tee-forward wardrobe overall. She's got some bangers in her closet.

It takes someone special to pull off Where's Waldo chic.

Also, speaking of all that reckoning going on, I want to shout out how good the translation has been. Every character's voice comes through and feels distinct, and I love the appropriate applications of slang (cool) and slang (endearingly outdated).

She whips out "knee-high to a grasshopper" in one conversation. It's exquisite.

The wording choices and idioms are consistently goofy in a way that complements the show's tone. The translation also knows we could always use an egg or two in these trying times.

And there are trying times to be found in Skip and Loafer. Usually whenever it gestures to Shima's past and home life, which are both still as fuzzy as his hair, but no doubt complicated.

It's funny that child actors are a running theme this anime season. And by "funny," I mean "oh no."

Yeah, and it's super revealing whenever we see the cracks in his cool normal guy facade. For example, the weird anxiety he gets about buying a souvenir for his brother allows the normally frantic Mitsumi to be the calm voice of reason for once.

It adds another compelling layer to their relationship.

If Skip and Loafer is about anything, it's about honest confrontation and proper emotional hygiene, so I can't wait to see Shima develop further. And not just because I'm dying to know more about the latest hot mess to waltz into the cast (though it's mostly because of her).

Oh, I'm sure she'd be normal about it.

I have to agree. She does strike me as the type to—and I mean this in the kindest way possible—take up juggling as a hobby.

I'd fallen behind because there's too much good anime (and Zelda) to keep track of this season, but I relished this opportunity to catch up. It's effortlessly likable in a way that belies all the craft it takes to make a series this kind, patient, and full of bedhead.