Irodoku is a slice of life, shojo anime with one short season of thirteen episodes. It's a sweet and cute show that isn't very plot intensive, but rather focuses on the sentiment behind its story progression. Watching Irodoku feels like staring at a cuddly teddy bear- it's attractive to look at, and makes you feel warm for a second, but you'll get bored if you keep looking. While I still do recommend giving it a watch, don't let it become your primary anime, it works better as something to fall back on when you need a break from everything else.
The story of Irodoku follows a high school girl called Hitomi and is set in Japan 2078. It's well known that the world has rare individuals who are able to perform magic, Hitomi's family is full of such mages. Hitomi is colorblind and very introverted, she does not try to make friends and has some deep rooted abandonment issues because of her childhood. Determined to broaden Hitomis' perspective, her grandmother, Kohaku casts a spell on her and sends her 60 years into the past. In the past, Hitomi meets teenage Kohaku and now attends school with her as a transfer student, whilst trying to figure out how to return to the future. The story then explores how this extremely closed of girl manages to join an arts and photography club and makes genuine friends. She opens her heart to new experiences also falls in love for the first time. It's also interesting to see how she initially hates magic, but now begins to enjoy using it because it gives her a chance to see colors and make others happy. But as reality catches up, we must ask, what happens when she returns to the future?
What I dislike about Irodoku, apart from its snails pace on story progression, is that it completely disregards any laws of time travel. There are no consequences or paradoxes that should be created by her actions in the past, which I find really illogical. They also have a great start to building characters, but don't really pull through in making them interesting enough to support the plot. In the end, just watch this anime for its 'feel good' factor, it does not have much else going for it.
My personal ratings are:
Story: 2/5
Character Development: 3/5
Dialogue: 2/5
Music: 3/5
Enjoyment: 2/5
Overall recommendation: A Monochromatic Photograph
Irodoku is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
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