Management: I know, right? Another accidental writeup here, this time in my usual style. I only realized I’d become trapped in a writeup about halfway through the episode, so it’s a little sparse, but hopefully still enjoyable!
So yeah, One Week Friends is pretty great. It’s got a wonderful atmosphere, its characters are absolutely charming, its direction does great work in driving home the emotional states of the characters, and it actually digs at some really poignant stuff. As I said in my week in review, One Week Friends kind of covers the same territory as Evangelion – a fear of human connection underlines all the actions of this series. But One Week Friends is a much more upbeat show than Evangelion, so it doesn’t just wallow in that fear – by design, it exists in the fraught space between isolation and comfortable connection, meaning it is pretty much always about the importance, difficulty, and power of trust. Due to Fujimiya’s memory, its characters are continuously reaching out, continuously being forced to extend a hand they’re not sure will be reciprocated. And through both the narrative and the cinematography, One Week Friends demonstrates again and again how extending that trust can open up your world.
