Asatte no Houkou
 

One summer day, Shouko Nogami comes across Karada Iokawa praying in front of a wishing shrine. The two are joined by Karada's brother, Hiro who also happens to be Shouko's ex-boyfriend while they were college students. Karada and Hiro had made plans to go to the beach with Karada's childhood friend Tetsu and his sister Touko and Karada invites Shouko to come along. After a tension-filled day at the beach culminating in a scene where Shouko talks down upon Karada, Hiro tries to talk to Shouko to catch up on old times, but that doesn't fly too well when Shouko, in a fit of anger, slaps him and runs on down the trail. As the clouds block out the view of the moon, Shouko keeps on running until she reaches the shrine where she had met Karada earlier in the day. She finds Karada at the shrine looking downcast, and at that moment, the clouds clear up and a transformation occurs: Karada's body turns into that of an adult's while Shouko's body turns into that of a child's.


The first episode does a great job of fleshing out each of the individual characters and that transformation at the end pretty much got me hooked and sets the stage for the second episode really well. In it, we see how each character deals with the transformation, from Shouko's stoic acceptance of what happens to Karada's rampant denial that this is happening. The interaction between Shouko and Karada, and their attempts to move on with their lives, especially when dealing with the other characters like Hiro and Tetsu, is really what keeps the story interesting. While it's certainly not going to be an action-packed series, the direction the plot takes and each character's day-to-day struggles makes the series definitely worth a watch.

Links

Lunar Fansubs

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6

ANN Entry

Actually this is one of the top 5 animes that I am really wanting to finish. The story is slow but it is building up to something every week. As zzero said, the plot always stops at an interesting part which makes you want to continue.

Right now they are only showing 3 main characters and their relationships. However as the next ep suggested, another new character will popin and something interesting will happen again :)

Its worth the watch IMO!