I love anime that are somewhat educational about something. While Hajime No Ippo has a very over-the-top depiction of boxing, I felt like I came away from it with a better appreciation of the sport. Shirobako and Animation Runner Kuromi gave me a better appreciation of what goes into anime (though again, both works are romanticized), and so on. So, this past season, I decided to give the anime series Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater a shot for a similar reason, and I’m very glad I did.
The show follows Hinata Tsurugi, a city girl who moves to a coastal town with her parents when their work takes them here. She runs into an old childhood friend, Natsumi, who ropes her into joining the school’s breakwater fishing club instead of the school’s handicrafts club. Hinata is spectacularly squeamish, so she has problems cleaning and gutting fish, but she enjoys the struggle of catching fish enough that she ends up sticking with the club, and becoming a very avid fisherperson.
Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater generally covers a new type of fishing each episode – each one being focused on a particular technique, and always focused on fish you can go for at the breakwater – that is where seawater and freshwater meet. Most of the fish they have aren’t particularly big, and they’re also always things you can fish for on dry land – no heading out on a boat here. It generally makes things more newcomer friendly.
Additionally, I also appreciated that the show is also somewhat environmentally conscious, with one of the focus points on an episode being how not taking care of your broken or damaged gear, and leaving it lying around outside, or just not disposing of it properly can cause environmental harm, with the club working to get a fishing rig off of the leg of a heron that had lost several toes, with the episode getting into just how much harm can be done to fish and waterfowl through improper disposal of your stuff.
As an Oregonian, and one who tries to be environmentally conscious (and who has a family member who is majoring in Avian Biology) – I dig a show that recognizes that environmentally conscious fishing, and sustainable fishing, helps make things better for everyone else.
The animation is very good, with some awesome background art and animation, particularly with various things that involve fine manipulation, like when they show how to clean and gut various kinds of fish.
I’m really glad I watched this show this season – it was a nice uplifting thing I needed this summer of smoke, fire, and plague, and I really recommend it.
Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater is currently available for streaming on Funimation. It does not have a dub as yet, and the manga has not yet been licensed for an English release.
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