OneRoom Anime: Visual Novel But Make It A Great TV Short

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TV Shorts and standalone OVAs tend to get a bad rap these days. Yes, with TV Shorts we’ve seen a resurgence thanks to After School Hanako-Kun and The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Archenemies among others- however, just look at the scores for these two. MahoAku could only muster a 7.6 on MAL, and plenty of others fall well below that. It’s not necessarily a detested format, but TV Shorts fell out of favor with anime fans a while ago, leading to a graveyard of genuinely good content like the OneRoom anime. Though there’s one, big, nearly deal-breaking moment, there’s also a lot that you can take from something like OneRoom despite its narrow runtime.

Of course, the question for most is what is this OneRoom anime and what’s it about? To remain a little elusive to start, it’s about your growth as a person via the connections you make with 3 girls through the seasons of your youth. Yes, it really is quite literally styled as a visual novel in that sense- you occupy the role of the main character. But how could that work if there’s no room for you to make decisions? It’s a valid question, but the overall pacing and experience of the OneRoom anime answers that in its own way by not providing any dialogue from yourself. These girls aren’t interacting with you through an interface or another character, they talk directly to you. It’s a very interesting experience with the dead air that comes with it, but it absolutely leaves a lasting impact.

To dive a little deeper, what you have isn’t truly a linear or coherent continuity, but rather different routes that have formed a more complete picture. Your journey starts with a neighbor in high school that’s trying to get into the university that you attend. Beginning in Fall, transitioning into Winter, and arriving at Spring, our first girl’s route is undoubtedly defined as the “main”. Her actions are resolute as she creeps into your life as a new face that reaffirms your maturity and sense of responsibility in a world that you’re uncertain of. In contrast, the little sister “route” (it’s more an interlude) occupies the space of Summer and brings with it a nostalgic feeling that tries to fight off the woes of a life on your own. It’s somewhat bittersweet, and barring a single terrible moment, provides a great experience in regards to the impact of family as you walk out into the world as an adult. And lastly in Fall once more, we encounter the childhood friend as the “true” route. Emphasizing the ups and downs of life and that not everything can happen when you wish it to, the perseverance that you display in conveying your love to her is placed against the years of connection and closeness that provide the moment with its meaning.

The trio of ladies in the OneRoom anime present an outstanding experience of growth into adulthood through uncertainty, shortcomings, and ultimately the confidence to stand on your own. Yes, it really does sound absurd to the average anime viewer when in the context of visual novels- those (supposedly) erotic, trashy, and horny things that are inferior to anime. In a way, the OneRoom anime is a perfect opportunity to expand your horizons from a narrative perspective. Though it’s not a one-for-one copy of how a visual novel typically plays, its narrative adaptation of the overall experience is really outstanding, and is something I’d love to see more of in anime. The catch being however, that it’s really only suited to TV shorts such as this one. You simply can’t cram all that information into a mute character that has no explicit agency for 12 full episodes. Regardless, the OneRoom anime is really one unique watch thanks to its dedication to the feeling of visual novels.

That dedication doesn’t end with the story, however- resulting in a bit of a double edged sword. Yes, that little sister moment. Fanservice and visual novels do pair together quite frequently, so it makes sense that a dating sim styled anime would play into that. By and large, that fanservice is tolerable with the nearly university age neighbor, and especially with your now-adult childhood friend. The issue is the little sister earns themselves a moment in episode six during a massage- it’s a moment that simply should not exist. Aside from that however, the OneRoom anime has a solid grasp of teasing within the limitations of decency that can improve some scenes. It’s just, yeah, that one little moment that hangs over this series like a dark cloud.

With that moment being a dark cloud though, Kantoku’s original designs are certainly a shining ray of light that can pierce through it. A decidedly famous light novel illustrator, it’s hard to find someone that can firmly say they dislike Kantoku’s work. As for people that can complain about how it translates to anime? Well, there’s plenty of those, but none can complain about how it goes with the OneRoom anime. In a word, it’s perfect. Yasuhiro Okuda provides the best translation work I’ve seen for Kantoku’s designs.

Making the jump into firmly visual territory now with the OneRoom anime, let’s chat about some of the other staff to tidy things up. In short, this series had no right to look as good as it did (if that wasn’t already obvious from the screenshots). While color designer Chieko Hibi is the only staff member to perform above their standards, the rest are all rather talented individuals that you’d think you wouldn’t see on a Typhoon Graphics anime. After all, art director Hiroki Matsumoto has filled the same role for series like Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War. Regardless, the trio of staff comprised of the previous two and director of photography Fumito Nanba work the OneRoom anime into something that is visually stunning despite its limitations. It might move very little, but with the effort provided by these three the awareness of those limitations seems to almost evaporate.

Of course, a great deal of that also comes from the pair of storyboarders that worked on the OneRoom anime: Takashi Sakuma and Shinichirou Ueda, where the former is also the chief director. Together, the pair pull off some really impressive mimicry of visual novels. Of course, ideas such as the fading transitions and heavy usage of pans is the easy part. The harder part is capturing some of the less clear aspects of visual novels in a way that works with anime. In particular, one move that I’m quite a fan of is how the two wield depth of field and perspective. When in the less visual novel-esque scenes, they convey that by leaving the background more present and forcing off axis angles. It’s a subtle thing, but their inclusion which allows for more character acting helps a great deal in selling the more layered and direct feeling of the head on scenes.

When you put all these different pieces together, the OneRoom anime is really far better than you’d think it has any right to be. If it were a proper TV Anime it would certainly be much more popular than it is, but in its original format it still serves as a great reminder- don’t judge a book by its cover, or runtime in this case. Plenty of standout works of yesteryear exist as limited episode OVAs or shorts that don’t match the runtime of a full anime. And in them are experience that you simply can’t get with the requirement of 12 episodes. So take that chance, make the plunge and give not just OneRoom a shot, but other nonstandard anime a shot. Oh and also, probably don’t watch the OVA/episode 0 for OneRoom– it really is just unabashed fanservice.


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