• Studios: Nippon Animation
• Source: Manga
• Genres: Slice of Life
• Synopsis: “The city of Tajimi, located in the southern part of Gifu Prefecture, Japan, is famous for Mino earthenware. The city is dotted with historical pottery producers and ceramic art museums. It has facilities where you can try your hand at making pottery, and many restaurants that serve food on Minoware dishes. The story begins when a high school girl moves to a shopping street in Tajimi. Many encounters await her, friends, town folk, ceramic art, etc. What will she discover in a town famous for ceramic?”

-Yakunara Mug Cup mo (manga)

First Impression:

Pottery and ceramic is a profound art. To make something as elegant as a cup with a blob of wet clay is mind boggling to me! Something that just a few hours ago would collapse that the touch of a finger is now structured enough to hold liquid within itself. Or maybe I’m too impressed by a lot of things! Yakunara Mug Cup mo caught my attention with through the story telling in the PV, the mother that was lost at an early age and a passion that’s yet to be discovered. As simple as the show is, there’s a sort of atmosphere that’s created with the story telling and I’m really excited to get into it! Let’s dive in!

The story follows the four girls that are apart of the pottery club! And my goodness look how precious they are! While the character designs are somewhat plain, they’re backed up (quite literally) by some wonderful backgrounds! The city looks like it’s based off the actually scenery with some paint strokes over it, the mural that allow the girls to pop, and even the simple grass that they lay on!

Shows like this tend to focus on the atmosphere that a scene creates and allowing moments of silence or realization through hyper focusing on different scenery around the immediate area. These “breaks within a scene help the audience to take in the emotion that’s being displayed. Sometimes emotions are better felt when you don’t have necessarily pay attention to visually. Moments like this are often scene in Studio Ghibli and KyoAni works, which is why these are the studio you think about when you ask for an emotional anime.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This. This scene right here is what convinced me that this was a show worth watching. The incredible timing, composition, and subtle emotion within delivery of the lines blew me away. Who knew I would be emotional on the first episode of an anime about girls making pottery? Not me!

Recommendation:

YES

Yakunara Mug Cup mo is a cute girls doing cute things type of show on the surface but has a more profound message and story underneath the adorable exterior. Short 15-minute episodes and colorful make the anime an easy watching for the Spring 2021 season. Though don’t expect much on the animation side as it’s a rough bit around the edges!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying me a

Ko-fi!

Or if you want to be on my Patrons page, you can become one on my

Patreon!