AKA: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou: Quiet Country Cafe

Genre: Slice-of-life drama

Length: OAV series, 2 episodes, 30 minutes each

Distributor: Currently unlicensed in North America

Content Rating: 3+ (VERY light nudity - blink, and you'll miss it)

Related Series: Yokohama Shopping Trip

Also Recommended: My Neighbor Totoro, Yokohama Shopping Trip

Notes: Based on the manga by Ashinano Hitoshi. Sequel to the original Yokohama Shopping Trip OAV series.

Rating:

Yokohama Shopping Trip: Quiet Country Cafe

Synopsis

Life continues for Hasseno Alpha, our resident robot girl.

After a serious storm that ruined a lot of the cafe Alpha ran, she decides to go travelling for a while to see the lay of the land, while her friends look after the place and watch over those who come searching for her.

Review

And what we have here is the continuing story about Alpha. Being just two episodes as well, it's still as painfully short, but luckily just as beautifully crafted as the last one, with the same quality in art, animation, voice acting and music and sound effects. Well, mostly ...

Storywise, this show feels the same as the former OAV, even though most of it is about Alpha travelling through yet more beautiful locations, meeting more people, while the folks back home reminisce about the ol' homestead in her absence. It has the same kind of musings from Alpha, now eagerly looking around and learning more about the "outside world." And, of course, we get little to no hints about how things were before this today we're presented with. Other than that, apparently Mt. Fuji has lost some of its top, though again, we don't get to know why or what happened.

And while the opening theme and the ending theme are the same style as the last OAV series, the in-movie music has leaned muchly towards orchestral fare, which was a little bit of a miss with me as it ruined some of the ambience I felt towards the show. And I kinda miss the midpoint song as well.

Outside of that, though, this series is still pretty darn good, even though the focus seems to have shifted towards the experience of traveling. That works for me, though. And, again, this will probably not interest you due to the continued lack of anything resembling action or deeper issues to delve into. But, yeah, I still enjoy this simply for what it is. Where other anime is all about aiming for the stars or making your dreams come true, this title leans more towards "stopping to smell the roses" and it deserves some credit for that.

Like on the first OAV series, if you need more action or deeper issues at hand, remove a star or two. — Stig Høgset

Recommended Audience: Eh ... Probably general audiences. There is, unlike the first OAV, a naked Misago here. But I really don't feel that is anything to make a big deal of. We're not talking explicit nudity, but more of an artistic nudity, tinged with a bit of mystery.