When I started watching Quiet Country Café, I was almost positive that
the anime would be pretty much identical to the original anime in mood
and tone. I was fully ready to post up a 4 sentence review saying
something along the lines of, “This is exactly the same as the
original. If you liked the original OVA, you’ll like this one too.”
However, what I found was something that’s actually quite different, in
its own subtle fashion.
As I stated in my review of the original
work, I found the original Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou’s mood to not only
be calm and cheerful, but also depressingly claustrophobic. However, I
certainly didn’t feel any of that here. In this OVA, a certain
seemingly disastrous event occurs (yes, something actually HAPPENS in
this one) which acts as a catalyst for the main character to embark on
a kind of spiritual journey. This outing manages to be surprisingly
uplifting; while watching the original OVA, I felt that the main
character was trapped in an imaginary prison, yearning to break free
and explore her surroundings. In this OVA, she does just that, and the
results are very satisfying.
Also, the plotline seems a little
better than before. In the original, I found the moments of beautiful
serenity to be somewhat at odds with the moments of absolute tedium.
There seems to be much less of the latter in this latest installment;
in the original OVA, there was an absolutely painful scene in which the
main character spent 5 minutes making a cup of coffee, but in Quiet
Country Café moments like that are small if they even exist at all.
Furthermore,
I found the music to be a significant improvement over the last OVA.
Both the JPop songs and the instrumental BGMs work much better, and are
just flat out nicer to listen to. Unfortunately, the animation isn’t
really better. The difference between the two animes is a pretty clear
example of the strengths and weaknesses of computer-aided animation.
While the new OVA has brighter colors and more nicely defined character
designs, it lacks the incredibly nice detail in the animation that the
original OVA had. In this one, movements are less fluid, there are less
visual touches to make the animation seem special, and the characters
“stick out” in front of the backgrounds more. While the animation is
still pretty good, it wasn't particularly impressive either.
All in all, I think Quiet Country Café is significantly better than its
predecessor. The nicer mood, the more engaging plot, and the superior
music, combined with the fact that this anime’s style takes getting
used to before you can really like it (insert lame metaphor regarding
coffee here), allow for a much more pleasurable experience.
Screenshots
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