Binbou Shimai Monogatari

Information of Anime

Kyou & Asa Yamada are two sisters that attend secondary & primary school respectively.  They live only due to their mother's death & their father running away due to a gambling debt.  To continue living through these hard times, Kyou studies & works two part-time jobs to support the family financially.  Asa handles all the housework & financial bookkeeping.  With good neighbours supporting them, the two sisters live through this painful life hardship by happily having each other.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The show mainly evolves around the two Yamada sisters on how they are spending their lives together.  This includes the activities they enjoy, managing their financial situation in order to eat & live, & the relationships with the people around them.  There are lot of cases where the two girls would hunt for special sales from supermarkets & the fear of losing each other along with their happiness.  They look through the simple things of life than the going for luxury.  In other words, focusing on their needs than wants. Most of the time, the show is narrated or from point of view of Asa.

The show ends with the promise that the two sisters made with their mother before she pasted away.  That promise was to protect their sister respectively.  This comes when both sisters are sick & Kyou fails to do a good job taking care of Asu, but manages to do well with what she has.

My Personal Review

Binbou Shimai Monogatari is a simple anime show that focuses the simple things of life.  Although it faces the hardship that the Yamada sisters are facing, the theme of the show is soothing to watch.  You may not face a situation like the girls, but watching them on how they overcome these obstacles of life is heartwarming & you pretty much feel for them.  If you want something that focus on the hardships of life with happy results, I recommend watching this.

Animation

The character designs are soft.  The Yamada sisters seem to be blushing all the time as those red blushes stuck on their cheeks.  Also, I find that Asa looks older than Kyou with her thick eyebrows.  Although the series makes Asa the mature one of the two sisters, I think that visual is a bit too far.  Most of the times, the girls will have different forms such as the famous SD format.  However, most of it comes during the intermission where we get funny remarks of how the girls study everything the plant encyclopedia to find plants in the fields when they go walking somewhere.  Otherwise, it would be the eyes.  They are drawn these ways for comedy purposes.

The backgrounds are pretty dull.  This is probably to show the ages of the buildings around the small town.  It displays the mood of the show very well as we get an idea of the lifestyle that the Yamada sisters are in.  Although the drawings are blurry, they are done well overall.

The colours are flat & dull.  Again, this is a good choice to get the viewers into that town.  There seems to be a good amount of toning & shading here, especially with colours that hardly have any bright colours in them.

The animation movements are pretty realistic & smooth.  Sometimes, there seems to be some missing frames as some of the scenes look choppy a bit.  But, these usually occur in scenes where silly movements are involved.  Also, they seem to occur when the sister go into that deep love trance where the background goes pink & flower petals flow around the screen.

Sound

The sound effect are good.  There are some silly sounds here as well.  The sounds are crisp & clean.  However, there are times where it gets fuzzy.  But, it's hardly noticeable unless you have sensitive ears.

The seiyuus for this show aren't bad.  They play their characters well.  For Asa's voice, I'm not too use to it.  I have heard this seiyuu's voice in many anime shows & I have some ups & downs about her.  There are some roles that liked her in & some that I didn't.  For her role as Asa, it's so-so for me.  I'm not sure if it's because of Asa being mature.

The music isn't too great for me personally.  They help set the mood well.  It's mainly soft ballads & some country style.  It's soft & gentle.  For me, they aren't too memorable as they don't stick to my head.

Story

Most of the show follows the lives of the Yamada sisters.  Most of it is from Asa's point of view.  I think the writers wanted it this way since she is the youngest & would be the one facing most of the pain.  The adventures that the sisters face are heartwarming & deal with real life situations; even though chances of some of them happening is quite slim.  Although the show focus some of the seriousness of the problems, the strong bonds that the sisters have can be going overboard.  They tend to go into their deep sister love too much that it gets annoying almost.  I'm pretty sure the animators want to make it look funny since it occurs too much.  I think wrecks the mood bit when the seriousness of the problem disappears like that.  But, I find the show quite enjoyable & touching as the two sisters try to live through life with the hardships they have.

Overall Conclusion

Binbou Shimai Monogatari is heartwarming show that deals with real life situations.  There isn't a lot of anime shows today that deals with these scenarios in much seriousness.  However, the show tends to ruin them with the strong love bonding that the sisters have for each other.  To be honest, I would like the show a lot if they didn't go overboard on that department.  If you are looking for an anime show that's down to Earth & focuses on the simple things of life while life gets difficult for the main characters, I recommend adding this to your anime to watch list.

Binbou Shimai Monogatari gets a 7.5/10.  The theme & storyline of the show is a strong point & makes it different from other anime shows out there today.  It really puts the viewers in the mood & feel for the Yamada sisters for their lovable characteristics.  However, the strong sister love bond can be a turnoff for some people as the number of flying petal scenes outweighs the problem's seriousness in the show.

Last updated on December 19, 2007