Two years after Shirobako, P.A. Works still cannot match their moe girl styled protagonist to the more realisic looking secondary characters.
Our protagonist, Koharu Yoshino, has trouble finding a job after finishing college in Tokyo, but refuses to move back to her small town family. Short on cash, she gets a job as “queen” for the tourist department of Manoyama, a small town almost aa bad off as her home town. She thinks it’s for one day only, but not having read her contract, she doesn’t realise she will actually have to spend a year as the queen of the Kingdom of Chupakabura… She doesn’t really want to, tries to flee, but in the end is more or less guilt tripped into staying on.
As you know, Bob, Japan struggles with a demographic crisis and an aging population, especially out in the countryside where small towns like Manoyama struggle to keep young people living there. At the same time, there’s a certain nostalgia for and fetishisation of the country side and anime isn’t adverse to indulging in this. P. A. Works has essentially built a career out of this, even a mecha series like Kuromukuro being set in a loveningly rendered beautiful part of Japan. Sakura Quest is no different, but everything is a little bit more rundown than the norm.
There’s a depressing undertone to this first episode, especially in the first part as Koharu goes around Tokyo failing to find a job. This is of course to set up a contrast with the more idyllic Manoyama, but you can’t help but think it reflects just a bit too much of the real Japan and the anxiety of young people trying to find jobs in an ever stagnating economy. It’ll be interesting to see if Sakura Quest can keep a bit of this bite going, or whether it’ll turn more cozy than that.
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