March Comes In Like A Lion (which I'll call 3gatsu No Lion for the sake of shortening it) is a fairly slow-paced character study about a high school shogi player with amazing atmosphere and characters but some pretty boring stretches at times.
3gatsu No Lion is an anime about a professional shogi player named Rei Kiriyama who, despite being a high schooler, moved away from his adoptive family and lives on his own. He's haunted by his pretty traumatic past and his shogi skills are starting to slip, but he's also been taken in by a small family of three sisters who care for him far more than his original adoptive family ever did. There isn't much of a "plot" to this one, it's really about Rei navigating life, coping with his past, learning to make friends, and making a better future for himself. While this could make the series feel pretty aimless for some people, that's not entirely a problem for me. I love shows where nothing happens and you get to just follow the characters through their lives, K-On's one of my favorite anime of all time. However, given how many aspects are at play in Rei's life, I definitely find certain subplots more interesting than others. For example, I was incredibly invested in Rei's relationship with the Kawamoto sisters along with his encounters with his adoptive family, but the shogi games were a bit of a bore for me (this is no Queen's Gambit, to put it simply). While I'm sure other people might feel differently, it meant that certain episodes would end up being far more enjoyable than others. I also think the anime gets off to a bit of a slow start since the first few episodes prioritize flashbacks to Rei's past over character interaction, but that all changes once Kyouko shows up in the present day.
Without much of a plot, 3gatsu No Lion is purely character-driven, so it's a good thing I like most of the characters, or at least find them interesting. Obviously, Rei is a incredibly complex protagonist with such a twisted past and his many issues. The series does an amazing job of depicting his depression in a realistic manner, like how he doesn't seem too bad when interacting until he's on his own and he starts to reflect. The three Kawamoto sisters are also incredibly lovable, though not quite as complex (especially the little one Momo). They're a real positive force in the series that just makes the general tone more upbeat by being on screen. Kyouko is probably my favorite character, though, and easily the most fascinating. She perfectly toes the line between sympathetic due to her childhood of neglect and abandonment, and detestable for the abuse she inflicts on Rei. She doesn't appear too often, but makes a big impact every time she does, partly helped by the fact that she always gets some really fluid animation. The only character I found myself not quite loving is Harunobu, who gets some funny and emotional moments but is also kind of annoying at times whenever he's stuck in the role of comic relief. Outside of him, though, I think the comedy of 3gatsu No Lion is generally pretty good. I tend to laugh whenever the Kawamoto sisters are involved, and the show never undercuts any of its drama with the humor. Frankly, I think this anime does a good job of juggling tone and pacing without feeling disjointed or losing any of its impact.
The first thing that really stuck out to me about 3gatsu No Lion is the animation, done by Studio SHAFT of Madoka fame. The more of their stuff I watch, the more SHAFT's style has been becoming one of my personal favorites, between the sketchy hand-drawn characters, the stunning backgrounds, and the frequent art shifts. This anime in particular uses a beautiful painterly style for the backgrounds that just looks stunning, and the facial expressions do a really good job of emulating the look of the manga. While I never brought this up in my Madoka review, I've always been impressed how consistently fluid SHAFT's works look. None of the character movements are stiff at all, the hair moves in the wind, it really doesn't feel like many shortcuts are taken at all. I also adore the sound design, especially when it comes to the comedy. The vocal sound effects almost always elicits a laugh out of me, every single time. The voice acting is pretty great too, which is solid all around but especially great in the emotional scenes. The music is probably the least impressive aspect of the anime's presentation, as it's a bit subdued and low-key, but it does a solid job of setting the tone for the series. As a whole, though, I think 3gatsu No Lion has some pretty stunning presentation, like most of Shaft's work.
This season was so consistently solid that it's hard to truly find which episodes were worse than others. However, there were two highlights worth noting:
Something Given: Rei doesn't let out his emotions too often, so the ending of Something Given was a bit of a shock. Kyouko's manipulations and the pettiness from his opponents finally got to him, resulting in a devastating breakdown that I'd call the most emotional moment of the season.
Silver Thread/Water's Surface/Base Of The Blue Night: Seeing the Kawamoto sisters and Kyouko finally meet was a pretty new deal, the intersection of Rei's past and present day. The second half of the episode had a pretty strong balance of drama and humor, between Rei and Kyouko's pretty intense fight and Hinata's immediate hatred for Kyouko, and Momo's hilariously sudden appearance and Kyouko's false belief that Rei liked one of the sisters.
Kyoto: I wasn't the biggest fan of Shimada's storyline throughout the season, but this episode was a pretty powerful ending, one might argue it's the climactic moment of the entire season. Shimada was so close to winning if he didn't have that tunnel vision, but Rei wasn't able to tell him. It's a pretty gutsy and painful route to take, but that's why I was impressed they took it.
Overall, 3gatsu No Lion gets its characters right and has the great visuals you'd expect from a SHAFT production, but it had a bit of a slow part and none of the shogi storylines really hooked me, a problem since this was half the series.
3/5 Stars
