Anime Review: Youkai Apartment no Yuuga na Nichijou (Youkai Slice of Life)

Not sure about people who watched this, but the reason I found and watched this anime was because of its Opening song in top seasonal opening lists. When you look at MAL, the underwhelming low score makes it seem even more undesirable to watch. So what happened to this anime? I think these ratings are typical for a 24+ episode series as people's memory of the plot/story wavers since it's airing so low if they watched it weekly. Anyway enough about that, let's get straight to the review.

Youkai Apartment no Yuuga na Nichijou is a nice take on the slice of life genre, by involving the youkai theme, with a more hearty and comforting mood. And that's how one should be watching this sort of anime. The story doesn't really have a plot, and this is typical for most slice-of-life anime. However, an interesting aspect of this anime for me is the "dorm"-like setting since I never lived somewhere around than my home, and even if I wanted to, I can't and I don't want to burden my family. The anime gives me the sense of longing, of living in a dorm, of living with friends, but perhaps that's not a big reflection of how dorms are like in real-life.

The only "solid" plot is the story about the two new teachers (Naomi Chiaki & Haruka Aoki), but they are usually broken up into different episodes, so it's like a long continuing story. This could possibly be one of the downsides of the anime because they add some "filler" in between this story, but then again it's not wrong to do that either since it's a slice of life - human relationships take time to develop and prosper. I like the competition between the two teachers of who is more favorable. Personally the winner Naomi Chiaki was the better person anyway. Despite him being a "punk", he seem very real towards his students, compared to Haruka Aoki, who is trying to convert people into praising her in a cult-like fashion. It's reflective of life where teachers will always strive to be "favorable" in the eyes of the students since you have to be dealing with them most of the day. Not only that, but it also shows that one must be vary of people like Haruka Aoki, who seem all nice but a different person if you know them better.

The other aspects of the anime are not bad and interesting as well, and it's a chill watch. The OP for both cours is amazing and that's what got me into this anime in the first place. The animation is well done, it's not superb quality like Kyoto Animation, but one should not expect series like this to have such high quality anyways.

Overall, Youkai Apartment no Yuuga na Nichijou is a decent slice-of-life anime, where there are not really any hateable characters other than the "antagonists", Haruka Aoki, and the other villains in the story. To be honest, the MAL community was definitely way too harsh on this series, and it should at least be a 7.5+ on MAL. I recommend this anime if you just want something chill & sometimes that's not too heavy on the plot, and if you want something different to your typical slice of life.

Overall Score: 8/10

Story: 7/10

Characters: 8/10

Art: 8/10

Sound: 9/10

Enjoyment: 8/10