I wasn’t planning on writing a First Impressions for ZatsuTabi -That’s Journey- but the show was on my radar before the season began and I did enjoy its first episode. Even though this messes up the schedule I had written down earlier this month, here’s a bonus post.
ZatsuTabi follows Chika Suzugamori (Hika Tsukishiro), an aspiring manga artist. Despite winning a newcomer’s contest, Chika has struggled to get a series off the ground. Following three back-to-back storyboard rejections (and that’s three rejections for the day, not overall), Chika decides to lift her spirits up by randomly going on an adventure. With no particular destination in mind, she decides to hold a poll on social media and let the internet decide which direction she should go. The poll yields a surprisingly high turnout, thanks to one of Chika’s peers repositing the poll and majority rules for Chika to go “up”. While Chika realizes that she was too vague with her choices, she nevertheless honors the poll by traveling north from Tokyo to Aizuwakamatsu.
This show very much scratches that Laid-Back Camp itch for me (which is funny because Laid-Back Camp‘s creator, Afro, has a new anime adaptation airing this season). Obviously, the semantics are a bit different, I don’t see Chika camping for the time being, but the general concept is there. Just a couple of girls traveling around the country, having a good time. I don’t know I’ll necessarily enjoy this show as much as Laid-Back Camp but its premiere does pull off the slice of life adventure vibe quite well. Past all the setup, the episode has a relaxing, methodical pacing to it. The antics feel random but that fits perfectly with the impulsive and vague nature of the journey. As for the antics themselves, there’s plenty of cute, slice of life moments to be had here. The highlight of course is the episode’s “climax”: Chika’s 1,225 step hike towards the Mount Haguro Shrine. It’s a lot of fun seeing Chika go through the motions such as getting frustrated over how long the trek is taking to pretending that it’s fun so that she can better cope with it. The fact that there ultimately isn’t a neat view at the top is a pretty hilarious punchline, made even more amusing by Chika acknowledging it as such.
Given that traveling is the main element of the show, Chika of course plans on doing more journeys at the end of the episode. I sure hope the catalyst isn’t always going to be Chika getting her manga rejected. As hilariously depressing as it would for Chika to never make it big, that could get repetitive after a couple of episodes. I’m curious how this hobby will evolve over the course of the show. Chika completely wings her first trip, which is mostly fine though that’s bound to come with some risks. One moment in Episode 1 that worried me a bit is when Chika visits a hotel and gambles on getting a room without a reservation. It works out for the sake of the plot and I get that Chika has to wing it but I don’t know if I want to take that kind of risk all the time. It also appears that money might become an issue. Chika has money from the contest she won beforehand but that’s a well that’ll inevitably dry up. If her manga keeps getting rejected, I can see the show having her work part-time to save money for future trips. That might also allow the show to mix things up a bit.
While ZatsuTabi was originally a candidate for episode reviews, I suppose the door is now open since I wrote this post. Regardless of whether or not, I continue with the coverage, I still plan on checking out a couple more episodes with this show. I’m a sucker for slice of life anime such as this and this might be a good addition to the genre.
Watch ZatsuTabi -That’s Journey- on Crunchyroll
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