Kids on the Slope Episode 12 Review and Series Roundup

Kids on the Slope went out in true Watanabe fashion: With an ambiguous ending leaving it open for a whole bunch of possibilities for these characters and what the future holds for them. At the end of Cowboy Bebop, Spike’s own life is left in the air and Ed is god knows where. At the end of Samurai Champloo, Mugen, Jin, and Fuu head their separate ways after helping Fuu find the samurai who smells of sunflowers. And now, Kids on the Slope ends with Kaoru, Ritsuko, and Sentaro back together again after eight years apart. Yurika even makes an appearance, now six months pregnant with Jun’s child.

This show had a lot of ups and downs (more ups than downs in my opinion, but still not the show it’s touted as by everyone on the internet), but in the end, it did not disappoint. I’ll maintain that Space Brothers is the superior of the two, but Kids on the Slope does not fall far behind. It’s a touching coming of age tale about Kaoru and moving through life, love, and music.

If this show had one major downfall, it was that it was only 12 episodes. It would have served this show the justice it properly deserves to be 24 or 26 episodes so it doesn’t have the awkward time skips with the constrained episode count. But if the show had any strong suit, it was, of course, the music beautifully composed by Yoko Kanno. The soundtrack could easily outshine Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo’s ambient music.

I believe that this show could have easily been just as strong (and maybe more interesting) if it wove in flashbacks of the previous 11 ½ episodes and have a 12 episode series of everything that happens after they meet at the end of the episode—something like what Space Brothers is doing now. But alas, it skipped through time willy nilly and had a lot of downfalls because it just hit the plot points and skipped over some important stuff.

I haven’t read the manga of this, so I can’t compare, but this could very well be Shinichiro Watanabe’s weakest work yet. It’s most definitely the weakest I’ve seen, but I’ve only seen Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.

Overall, I would suggest this to someone new to anime, but unfamiliar with slice-of-life anime. There are other shows that are on the list above it, but we’d certainly get there.