Streaming: Funimation
Episodes: 12
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: When she’s stressed out Hiyori spends her days near the ocean, fly fishing like she learned from her late father. Her meditative silence is broken one day, however, by a girl attempting to leap into the frigid March ocean. Hiyori uses her wits to help avert disaster, and she spends some time fishing with this girl, named Koharu. Koharu is impressed by Hiyori’s way with a fishing rod, and is even more impressed when Hiyori prepares fresh rock fish sashimi right there on the wharf. Hiyori feels drawn to this outgoing girl, and their meeting turns out to be more than just a chance encounter; Hiyori’s mother and Koharu’s father are planning to marry, which will make the two girls sisters.
After their families are joined and Koharu and her father move into Hiyori’s and her mother’s home, some of these big changes begin to make Hiyori feel withdrawn. Yet Koharu’s bright personality seems to be just the thing to help draw Hiyori back out of her shell. Koharu’s enthusiasm toward learning to fish certainly doesn’t hurt, either. As the two new sisters start the new school year, their future looks bright.
Impressions: As someone with a few passionate hobbies (right now I’ve once again fallen heavily for knitting and crocheting after a bit of an absence), the act of framing human drama around the pursuit of such activities just feels like a natural extension of real-life. Thankfully, this storytelling approach is no stranger to the anime medium, and there are often several anime per season that manage to provide a decent amount of character drama while also enlightening viewers to a hobby or activity that might be unfamiliar. It’s something that I really enjoy about anime in particular; I find that live-action entertainment seems compelled to turn most activities into competitions, and I’m not really interested in that most of the time.
Slow Loop seems to fall squarely into this kind of hobbyist anime category, discussing both fishing techniques and seafood-centric recipes through the course of telling the story of two very different stepsisters learning to live together under one roof. The first episode is cute and breezy, with some of the expected anime hijinks (which I can take or leave), but which ultimately comes across as surprisingly perceptive about how the loss of a beloved parent creates feelings that linger in unexpected ways.
When Koharu and her father move in, Hiyori’s fathers’ former office, which to this point has remained empty, becomes Koharu’s new bedroom. While Hiyori is fine with this on a logical level, on a personal one her feelings are clearly much more complicated. Her father was an important person in her life and instilled in her a love of fishing that continues to provide her life with meaning. I think that it would be difficult not to perceive the kind of emotional gap that this loss would create and the natural tendency for someone to see Koharu’s actions as unintentionally usurping those memories and that relationship. The episode doesn’t rely on overblown drama to address this – in fact, the characters’ handling of it is more mature than I would expect. Yet, it acknowledges it, and that is nice to see.
This is certainly not an especially unique kind of anime series; there aren’t really many of those around, and that’s fine. But it is pleasant and cute, and handles its subject matter with a certain deftness that I appreciate.
Pros: This anime might be a cooking series in disguise, and I’m certainly here for that! Hiyori’s strength is in the act of catching fish, something that she does to feel connected to her father. Koharu’s talent is for cooking, and seeing all of the unused fish meat in the fridge and freezer sets her epicurean inclinations in motion. This episode presents a couple of yummy ideas for using fish, including sashimi (naturally) and a dish of marinated fish over rice. Simple and delicious (and also food porn-y in their own way). The only unfortunate thing is that I’d be hard-pressed to locate sashimi-grade rockfish in my decidedly landlocked, urban location.
Cons: There are a few moments of weird fanservice early on in the episode between the two main characters. While this settles down pretty quickly (considering that they’re about to become step siblings and it’s not really that kind of story), it feels a little bit strange and inappropriate to encounter close-up shots of Koharu’s body parts in a school swimsuit, and to see the aftermath of what, in other series, would be the accidental faceplant by one character straight into another’s breasts. I hope that this isn’t a trend.
Content Warnings: Fanservice (mild). Butchering and meat preparation (non-graphic, but the show doesn’t shy away from the fact that the fish the characters are consuming was very recently alive).
Would I Watch More? – This first episode was a pretty pleasant ride. From the looks of it, this Winter season isn’t particularly full of many other prospects (for me, at least) so I could see myself watching a little bit more. I’m perennially looking for series that are along similar lines to Laid-Back Camp, and this seems to have some of those vibes.
2 replies on “Winter 2022 First Impressions – Slow Loop”
[…] Slow Loop – This story of a blended family and the two step-sisters who find that they enjoy fishing (and cooking up the spoils) had a pretty pleasant first outing. While I doubt it will achieve any Laid-Back Camp level of pure coziness, I appreciated that it seemed willing to address some of the tension and emotions surrounding two families coming together as one. […]
There is a movie you might like, 1992’s “A River Runs Though It.” It is about a family with some rough interpersonal relations but fly fishing holds them together.
“…in our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”