Spring 2021 First Impressions – Let’s Make a Mug Too

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12 (15 minutes apiece)

Source: Tajimi City Promotional Manga

Story Summary: After her father’s company goes bankrupt, Himeno moves in with her grandmother and her father starts over by opening a café. In the café is an extensive selection of coffee cups with beautiful colors and motifs. After Himeno uses a sample of these cups to advertise the café to her new classmates, her new and very outgoing friend Mika brings her to the school pottery club building. There, Himeno learns that her late mother, a former student, was famous for her beautiful pottery (including the ones in use at the café). Even though Himeno wasn’t previously interested in joining a club, she now feels drawn to the pottery club and its connection to her mother, of whom she has very few memories. It takes a moment for her father to wrestle with the prospect of his daughter following her mother’s footsteps, but he eventually encourages her to take this first step into a new, creative world.

Impressions: It’s interesting to me how it’s become more and more common over the years for anime and manga to be created for the primary purpose of advertising a location. After Lucky Star‘s success in helping to heat up the otaku desire for anime pilgrimages, I suppose it makes sense that certain cities may want to actively pursue the kind of tourist dollars that come with such activities. That said, whether or not an anime inspires fans to visit is secondary to the narrative in my eyes, especially because I’m not making it over to Japan any time soon.

Let’s Make a Mug Too is a laid-back, pleasant window into the charms of Tajimi City in Gifu Prefecture, a place known for its ceramics. The tone of this episode reminds me a little bit of Laid-Back Camp in its focus on hobbyist pursuits by a cast of upbeat, friendly characters. The episode is pretty light on other details, but does a good job of introducing the art of throwing pottery (including how difficult it can be to come up with something nice-looking) and developing some emotional context for Himeno to become involved in the activity.

I can be sort of a cheap date when it comes to pulling on the heartstrings, and this episode was no exception. Even though Himeno doesn’t seem to be outwardly suffering from the loss of a mother she barely knew, the evocative memories she experiences through the smells and sights within the club room and her father’s reaction to her desire to follow in her mother’s footsteps add a tone of bittersweetness to the episode. While I’m not a huge fan of dead mom narratives, I don’t think that framing detail cheapens this episode like it would in some other cases.

This series is told through 15 minute episodes, as well as accompanying 10 minute live-action segments where the main voice actresses experience Tajimi City firsthand, if you like that sort of thing. I don’t always enjoy short-form series because there’s less time for character development and other important activities, but I think the format works well here. It’s simply a brief but pleasant meditation on a very cool art form, and I’m interested to watch more.

Pros: I like how beautiful the pottery is in this episode. Each piece is unique, and the glow and sparkle of the glaze gives a good sense of how special each one is.

This is low emotional stakes entertainment, but the episode uses its time wisely and I may have shed a tear.

Cons: Like I said, it always kind of bums me out when a character’s mom is dead in an anime. I think it’s a convenient but kind of trite way to add a dash of melancholy without trying very hard, and I feel like it’s about time some other trope took over. Save our anime moms!

Content Warnings: Mention of a parent’s death.

Would I Watch More? – Yes, I enjoyed this episode and throwing pottery has always intrigued me, so it will be fun to learn more of that (and hopefully the series will focus on that at least some of the time).