I was interested in mono because the show is based on a manga by Afro, the same creator as Laid-Back Camp. And like that other show, this is also a CGDCT anime (I’m guessing that genre is Afro’s forte). Having the same creator doesn’t guarantee that I’ll cover it all in episode reviews but given how much I love Laid-Back Camp and the fact that I keep choosing to blog about CGDCT anime for some reason, I may as well give this new show a whirl.
In the first episode of mono, Satsuki Amamiya (Haruna Mikawa) begins her first year of high school with her best friend An Kiriyama (Aoi Koga). During the opening ceremony, Satsuki befriends Makinohara, the president of the school’s photography club, leading her to join the club herself. Unlike Laid-Back Camp, where any yuri content is purely subtext, this show is a lot more overt by comparison. Satsuki more or less develops feelings for Makinohara as she spends her time in the club obsessively photographing Makinohara. Apparently, Makinohara is aware and is okay with this so I guess it’s not that creepy. Funnily enough, Satsuki has her own stalker in the form of An, who joins the club as an excuse to spend time with her best friend and take pictures of her. Honestly, this silly love triangle would be the premise of an entire show. Imagine my surprise then that it’s only for the first four minutes of the premiere. The show speeds through Satsuki and An’s first year of high school until Makinohara graduates and appoints Satsuki as the photography club’s next president. It’s a bit disappointing to see this premise come and go but I ended up letting it slide once the real plot kicks in.
Following Makinohara’s graduation, An convinces a depressed Satsuki to keep the photography club alive. The two then decide to purchase new cameras, with An buying a body cam and Satsuki winning an auction for a 360-degree camera. When Satsuki’s item doesn’t arrive, the girls decide to visit the seller, Haruno Akiyama (Reina Ueda), who surprisingly lives just a few blocks away from the school, at her grandmother’s convenience store. Haruno is revealed to be a mangaka and her work caused her to get sick, preventing her from fulfilling her end of the deal. Once the misunderstanding clears up, Satsuki and An start hanging out at the store and conducting some of their club activities there (and it’s totally not because An’s favorite snack is in stock there). Later in the episode, Haruno gets the girls’ permission to use them as references for her next manga. The show actually gets meta with this as Haruno’s manga looks like panels taken from the mono manga. Kind of odd that this is the actual plot of the show but it is a more unique start than simply having a new girl join the club and learn the ropes.
The hangouts with Haruno allows the show to do some of the school club antics that you’d expect from this type of show. An has a fun bit where she decides to attach her body cam onto Taishou, a stray cat that alternates between dicking around the town and lounging in the store. It’s a cute idea until An learns that Taishou likes to disappear for up to a week. The hilarious result is the new and presumably pricey camera getting scuffed up the wazoo. As if that isn’t funny enough, we then learn that all the camera recorded is just footage of Taishou brutally fighting other cats in the area. As for Satsuki’s 360 degree camera, this is prominently featured in the third act when the club decides to use it to take some panoramic shots of the city skyline. There’s some good humor here, particularly with Haruno’s bad driving skills, but the main takeaway is the stunning timelapse and picture Satsuki takes with her camera. They reminds me a little of those vista shots in Laid-Back Camp and they make for a great turning point for Satsuki’s affinity towards photography. Given that this is Soigne’s first major production, I say they did a darn good job with animating the material.
Simply because I love Laid-Back Camp, I’ll be keeping an eye on mono. I don’t know if I’ll necessarily love it as much as Laid-Back Camp but that’s admittedly a high bar for me and putting that aside, I think the show is off to a pretty good start.
Watch mono on Crunchyroll
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