RogerBW's Blog

2016 contemporary comedy, 12 episodes, manga adaptation: AniDB. Kokonotsu works at his father's old-fashioned sweet shop, but wants to draw manga. A strange girl appears to try to recruit his father, but first she needs to persuade Kokonotsu to take over the shop.

This is a work of praise for small-town life and long summers of doing nothing much. There are only five characters (not counting the occasional one-shot), and nobody seems to have to worry about school or anything like that. Kokonotsu's crush Saya runs a tea shop; his father Yō leaves him to run the shop most of the time; his best mate Tō doesn't seem to do anything much.

Then violet-haired Hotaru arrives and shakes everything up. She's the heir to a big family-run company and wants to employ Yō, but she can't allow the sweet shop to close. So Kokonotsu, who has nothing but contempt for the business that stops him from doing anything fun, is going to learn about the history of Japanese sweets and snacks.

So mostly what we get is light physical comedy and joking talk about the history of sweets in Japan. It's often formulaic (Kokonotsu is minding the shop, Hotaru arrives to do something wacky and educate him about some snack product) but never mean-spirited; the show ends up being calm, satisfying, and basically pointless. It's a good palate-cleanser between more serious and involving shows, but probably not worth going to any trouble to seek out unless you are particularly interested in the subject matter.