Shigatsu Monologue

My biggest problem with Shigatsu would having to be the constant monologuing. I don’t have any problem with monologues as a literary device, but Shigatsu uses it too much. It takes away from the impact of the monologues. I’m a big fan of showing, and not telling as much, but Shigatsu just barely does any *real* showing. There are plenty of monologues that can be taken out of the show, and it would be for the better. When there’s at least one monologue per episode (usually more), it really starts to get tiring for me personally. This only applies to Shigatsu however, as I really like Oregairu, which also had its fair share of monologues. The difference is that Oregairu had enjoyable monologues, while Shigatsu has monologues that border on pretentious.

On top of that, the monologues and dialogue in general, just doesn’t seem “natural” in Shigatsu. Shigatsu centers around 14 year olds, and yet it seems like they’re at least in high school, with how their
Humor was inserted at times when it should’ve been serious, and just destroys the tone of the show. It made it hard for me to take the story seriously, and quite frankly, the comedy wasn’t even funny. When the story is about the main character overcoming past trauma, while dealing with new challenges, the comedy just doesn’t fit. While I believe that a story shouldn’t be serious 100% of the time, the kind of comic relief in Shigatsu is just unneeded.

However, the animation in Shigatsu is very good. Like almost all A-1 Pictures productions, there’s consistently good artwork. I also like the design of the characters, and I actually prefer it to the original art for Shigatsu. The color palette is very nice, and easy on the eyes. The colors are vibrant, and fit their respective scenes very well. The loss of hair color for Kaori as the show went on was also a nice