(L+CR) Non Non Biyori

[RapidPotential]

Oh god, the enjoyment and relaxing vibe I get from this is just... amazing. This is the type of show I'm looking forward to watching every week because it just brings a smile to my face.

The interactions seemed fairly quicker in this episode than it was in the previous ones - in fact it felt twice as fast. Hotaru developing a Cuteness Proximity towards Komari is quite amusing - more of wanting to pamper her as much as she could, and fawning over her senpai's tiny cuteness.

I'm pretty sure Hotaru wore the glasses to look more adult-like - she certainly did - but I'm sure those were only for show. Loved how Komari failed to recognise Hotaru and leaving her puzzled at the end by apologising.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Anyone else is wondering how can a candy store stay in business when there's only five kids in the whole village?

That's part of the nostalgic appeal. Even rural places used to have more children and populations big enough to sustain local railroads and bus routes, nowadays not so much. Japan is still known to have the best and the most underutilized public infrastructure in the world. Too many railroads, highways, tunnels and hotels everywhere, and useless businesses like theme parks that have opened up during the 80's economic bubble. To have a candy store, a business with such a specific product, still open in the middle of nowhere, is short of being called a miracle. Perhaps it is artificially sustained by the locals who believe in the power of infrastructure. Perhaps it just carries sweets that have high expiration dates. Maybe the business is just some wife's hobby. In some way, that sort of eeriness is Japan's biggest appeal. It doesn't have to make money, but it's still there as part of the whole infrastructure package, or what is expected for every village to have, and it doesn't need to make sense.

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by cyth

That's part of the nostalgic appeal. Even rural places used to have more children and populations big enough to sustain local railroads and bus routes, nowadays not so much. Japan is still known to have the best and the most underutilized public infrastructure in the world. Too many railroads, highways, tunnels and hotels everywhere, and useless businesses like theme parks that have opened up during the 80's economic bubble. To have a candy store, a business with such a specific product, still open in the middle of nowhere, is short of being called a miracle. Perhaps it is artificially sustained by the locals who believe in the power of infrastructure. Perhaps it just carries sweets that have high expiration dates. Maybe the business is just some wife's hobby. In some way, that sort of eeriness is Japan's biggest appeal. It doesn't have to make money, but it's still there as part of the whole infrastructure package, or what is expected for every village to have, and it doesn't need to make sense.

Is that probably the same basic explanation for why the school is clearly a multi-classroom school building even though right now they can easily fit everyone into a single room?

[RapidPotential]

Originally Posted by cyth

That's part of the nostalgic appeal. Even rural places used to have more children and populations big enough to sustain local railroads and bus routes, nowadays not so much. Japan is still known to have the best and the most underutilized public infrastructure in the world. Too many railroads, highways, tunnels and hotels everywhere, and useless businesses like theme parks that have opened up during the 80's economic bubble. To have a candy store, a business with such a specific product, still open in the middle of nowhere, is short of being called a miracle. Perhaps it is artificially sustained by the locals who believe in the power of infrastructure. Perhaps it just carries sweets that have high expiration dates. Maybe the business is just some wife's hobby. In some way, that sort of eeriness is Japan's biggest appeal. It doesn't have to make money, but it's still there as part of the whole infrastructure package, or what is expected for every village to have, and it doesn't need to make sense.

The curious thing is the Japanese have a crazy-prepared mentality that they do everything in advance - just in case the areas or buildings ever need to be used by a larger amount of citizens than they are catering to at present moment, so I'm actually not surprised about that.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by cyth

That's part of the nostalgic appeal. Even rural places used to have more children and populations big enough to sustain local railroads and bus routes, nowadays not so much. Japan is still known to have the best and the most underutilized public infrastructure in the world. Too many railroads, highways, tunnels and hotels everywhere, and useless businesses like theme parks that have opened up during the 80's economic bubble. To have a candy store, a business with such a specific product, still open in the middle of nowhere, is short of being called a miracle. Perhaps it is artificially sustained by the locals who believe in the power of infrastructure. Perhaps it just carries sweets that have high expiration dates. Maybe the business is just some wife's hobby. In some way, that sort of eeriness is Japan's biggest appeal. It doesn't have to make money, but it's still there as part of the whole infrastructure package, or what is expected for every village to have, and it doesn't need to make sense.

Heh, I guess that's some sort of side-job/hobby for the owner. I wonder how the tax system works in Japan, because in my country if you don't gain a certain amount of money to pay the base fees for running a business you'll just end up losing money.

Another mind-boggling thing from this episode is when Natsumi at school is having difficulties understanding her math exercises. Now you'd guess that since she was technically at school she would ask the teacher for help, instead she asks that to her sister... while the teacher sleeps soundly.
Does her job entail something apart from playing the xylophone?

[cyth]

Originally Posted by RapidPotential

The curious thing is the Japanese have a crazy-prepared mentality that they do everything in advance - just in case the areas or buildings ever need to be used by a larger amount of citizens than they are catering to at present moment, so I'm actually not surprised about that.

I wish they would make use of that "be prepared" mentality when building tsunami levis or nuclear power plants, since they obviously don't know how to plan for the worst case scenario.

[RapidPotential]

Originally Posted by cyth

I wish they would make use of that "be prepared" mentality when building tsunami levis or nuclear power plants, since they obviously don't know how to plan for the worst case scenario.

Seems to only happen when it doesn't involve any type of large-scale disaster.

On the topic of the show though, we actually see Suguru's face for the first time! He'll still be the gag character living in the background though.

[Malkuth]

This one is quite interesting. I don't have any experience with so extreme rural societies, but I appreciate that the original writer assumes the perspective of the city girl, that has her worldview turned upside-down, and being so young and showing her lack of any baseline to criticize situations makes the anime very interesting

[nojay]

Originally Posted by RapidPotential

Seems to only happen when it doesn't involve any type of large-scale disaster.

The nation of Japan is one long disaster zone, always has been. Earthquakes are the big killers -- over 100,000 dead in Tokyo in the 1923 Kanto earthquake, 5,000 in Kobe in 1995 and 20,000 from the tsunami resulting from the 2011 Tohoku offshore earthquake but even today a typhoon has killed dozens of Japanese and that's with several days warning. A pair of typhoons hit southern Honshu in 2011 and killed over 90 people with wind damage, flooding and landslips.

On a trip to Japan I passed through an exhibition space where assorted companies and government agencies were promoting disaster preparation and recovery equipment and providing how-to guides for the homeowner to prevent furniture falling on people in an earthquake. They take this very seriously:

Spoiler for Image:

[VDZ]

Originally Posted by cyth

I wish they would make use of that "be prepared" mentality when building tsunami levis or nuclear power plants, since they obviously don't know how to plan for the worst case scenario.

They are prepared for things like that, as earthquakes and tsunamis happen in Japan all the time. The problem in 2011 was that it was the heaviest earthquake and highest tsunami to ever hit Japan in recorded history. They were prepared for disasters, but not on that scale because it had never happened before and there was no reason to assume it would.

(Anime-related context note: a couple years ago, there was an anime called Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, which was about an apocalyptic magnitude 8.0 earthquake striking Tokyo and causing massive damage. That was Japan's view of an apocalyptic earthquake back then; a magnitude 9.0 earthquake is 10 times as heavy as a magnitude 8.0 earthquake.)

The closest earthquake in magnitude that has hit Japan in modern history is the historic 1923 Great Kantou Earthquake, which used to be by far the worst earthquake in Japan's history...yet, even that earthquake was only magnitude 7.9.

As for nuclear power plants, you don't want to know just how many precautions and routine checks those things have. They were so many that TEPCO just said 'fuck it' and half-assed the maintenance of the nuclear reactor in addition to ignoring all the safety warnings they got (including a 2008 study telling them that a heavy tsunami would cause serious problems), with the government failing in its responsibilities of overseeing TEPCO's handling of safety measures. TEPCO then proceeded in screwing up once the disaster started, letting it get out of hand. There's tons of preparations for worst case scenarios for power plants in any country, but they're of no use if they're ignored.

[Dop]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

Is that probably the same basic explanation for why the school is clearly a multi-classroom school building even though right now they can easily fit everyone into a single room?

My assumption was that there probably had been a lot more children there in the past requiring a larger school, but now there were very few.
The school's clearly past its best as we could see from all the leaks in the roof and rotting floorboards in the first episode.

[cyth]

It's not that uncommon of a theme, I've been consciounsly seeing it across other titles ever since Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight pointed it out.

[nojay]

Japanese schools tend to be built to a standard pattern (see the classic 3-story three-year school buildings that crop up in most anime and manga set in large towns and cities) and the sort of one-story school layout in Non Non Biyori is at the lower end of the scale. It's quite old-fashioned, made of wood rather than Japan's national flower, chrysan^Wconcrete -- indeed it most resembles the "old pre-war school buildings with the ghosts/about to be demolished/portal to Hell" you also see a lot in anime and manga.

[Chiaki_chan]

ep 2

viva cutess girls

[Myssa Rei]

I agree with the observation that the school might have started with a high student count at one point of its life, but the drop in Japanese birth rates as well as the tendency for young people to move to cities have taken its toll, until what we have what we see now -- five or six kids all of different grade levels all in one room.

[Chiaki_chan]

"candy's senpai" "senpai" "senpai" Hotaru .............. she so cute

[chaos_animagic]

LOL... pairing Country vs City people will always end in either fights or hilarity, LOL

BTW... I didn't even know they have specially made child sized school desks... LOL

[Random Wanderer]

Cute episode was cute.

I feel an overwhelming urge to smack the teacher upside the head, though.

[Flower]

Okay, ep 3 was a little better for me.

A nice, extremely low key series that is ok for now, tho nowhere near as enjyable for me (at least so far) as Acchi Kocchi or last season's Kiniro was.

Kinda reminds me a little of a peculiar cross between Miname Ke and Sketchbook: full color.... Though not quite as effective as either for me - at least so far.

[Sol Falling]

Wow, awesome episode. I'm finally starting to get into the characters. Well, more like, Asumi Kana's voice is incredibly hnngh-worthy, lol. I'm getting a lot of flashbacks to Yuno and, to a lesser extent, Poplar.

Also helps that I'm a sucker for stories about sisters, lol. Great stuff.