Storyboards: Yuji Tokuno

Episode direction: Taichi Yoshizawa and Shinichi Tatsuta

Without any dialogue, Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle’s premiere would be an anime episode I unequivocally love. Its camera is adept at capturing the enhanced flavor of idealized youth, even in moments where the technical execution of the colors and post-processing is a little lacking. Its extreme wide shots and creative perspectives — like peeking at a person through the wellhole of a staircase or gazing up at the top of a transmission tower while being situated within its base — engender curiosity and interest in its world. It’s an episode that frequently had me thinking about the ways we can observe and capture our environment and its inhabitants.

It’s a shame that for all that visual skill, for all the efforts of the storyboarding and episode direction, the Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle premiere kept pushing back against my attempts to immerse myself in its setting due to the awkwardness of its writing. For lack of a better description, it feels very light novel-like (it’s based on a light novel series), at odds with the more filmic direction. I thought that having a protagonist who is at the top of the social caste would provide a breath of fresh air at least, but instead I was treated to tired banter about groping and showing panties, and character depictions that felt familiarly forced and performative. The internal narrations also failed to impress, attempting to be meaningful and philosophical but only managing to be distracting. As unceasing as they were, I struggle to recall most of them.

The protagonist is the titular Saku Chitose, a popular guy with a loyal clique (with sufficient girls in it for someone to complain about Chitose having a “harem”) who’s loved by some and loathed by others. He’s also a sort of alternate Hachiman Hikigaya — after much too many narrated character introductions, the first episode has Chitose’s homeroom teacher giving him a task: there’s a geeky student called Kenta who’s been absent from school for some time, and Chitose has to, begrudgingly, bring him out of his house once more.

There are interesting peeks at Chitose’s character in the episode. The teacher, Iwanami, refers to him as everyone’s can-do-anything superhero, and a serious Chitose thinks to himself that “If I can’t live beautifully, it’s as good as being dead.” One of the main heroines, the air-headed Yuuko, expresses unconditional faith in Chitose’s ability to solve issues and calls him her hero. Another heroine, Asuka, an older student whose way of resolving issues differs from Chitose, tells him during an encounter that he is “imperfectly perfect as always.”

All these bits tell me that there is the potential for an interesting character study or journey. At the very least, it’s evident that Chitose is not by default an outgoing personality or even a “regular” person, and some of the elements that put me off may be an intentional layer of artifice that will be torn down for future interrogation. There are possibilities here, or the possibility that they exist.

Whatever the truth is, I hope there’s something good waiting on the horizon, and that the horizon is situated within the anime’s currently confirmed two cours, because what Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle offers now with the writing is mostly unpalatable to me. The scenes where Chitose and some of the heroines try to talk with Kenta are more notable for the light novel-ish humor (eg. inviting Kenta to look at Yuuko’s “E-cup” breasts, the girls being described as harem members) than the attempts to reach out. The use of property damage as a solution is another reminder that the story is more brash than the episode’s elegant direction. 

So, not a great first impression as a whole, but the vibes from the visuals are lovely and evocative. If the latter can stay that way for the remainder of the series, I’d be willing to put up with the bits I don’t like.

Note: The extended length of the first episode is misleading, as a good chunk of it takes the form of a special variety-style segment.

Watch it on: Crunchyroll, Ani-one Asia YouTube channel
Adaptation or original: Based on the Gagaga Bunko light novel series written by Hiromu and illustrated by raemz

Series staff

• Director: Yuji Tokuno (storyboard artist and episode director for Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 20, OSHI NO KO Episode 10, YAIBA: Samurai Legend Episode 6)
• Series composer and scriptwriter: Naruhisa Arakawa (More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers) 
• Scriptwriter: Hiromu 
• Character designer: Sumie Kinoshita (Spy Classroom)
• Animation production: Feel. 

Cast

• Shogo Sakata as Saku Chitose 
• Manaka Iwami as Yuko Hiiragi 
• Hina Yomiya as Yua Uchida 
• Ikumi Hasegawa as Yuzuki Nanase  
• Rumi Okubo as Haru Aomi 
• Chika Anzai as Asuka Nishino