“Do it Yourself!!” (2022, Pine Jam) is a slice-of-life anime set in the near future where a group of girls in a club are set on making personalized objects.
The show follows Yua Serufu (voiced by Konomi Inagaki), a clumsy teenager who crashes into a pole causing a chance meeting between her and Yasaku Rei (Ayane Sakura). After Yasaku leaves, Yua tracks her down to a shed behind the school to thank her, learning the shed is a club room for the DIY (Do It Yourself) club.
The group struggles to gain new members and is threatened with being disbanded if they don’t acquire five members before the end of the term.
Like the club the anime is about, the show uses what it has very well. A good example is music. It has a very nostalgic feeling to it, a kind of childhood innocence, being very calming and emphasizing the scenes really well.
The plot is very straightforward. Every episode is about the club and their activity, not wasting the viewer’s time on filler episodes. While the audience watches them create things, they also learn about their backstory because of their experience crafting.
Another good point of this show is that it’s not lewd whatsoever, as a matter of fact, it’s very wholesome. Showing the audience a group just working together with their passion is something that some anime don’t focus on and it fits perfectly within the show.
The characters’ color palette is very vibrant, using pastel colors for most of it and not wasting any space on harder colors. The background is very appealing looking with watercolors contrasting the characters quite beautifully.
Characters in this anime are very unique when compared to others of the same genre, like the eye shapes, color palette, and general shape of characters. Plus the way the animators draw the character’s different features, like Yua’s many bandages, meshes very nicely.
Some of the angles they use for shots are different when compared to other productions, occasionally using a “fisheye lens” view to get most of the environment and characters.
For as much quality as this show produces, it also has some mistakes. Like CG shots, the audience can distinguish really easily between what’s drawn on and what’s computer generated. From the background characters to one bike riding scene with the main character being entirely CG which didn’t fit right with the visuals.
Then there are the emotions of the characters, like Yua’s childhood friend, Suride Miku (Kana Ichinose), wanting to talk to her but being flustered and saying that she dislikes Yua. The same thing applies to a child genius who stumbled upon the club room while she was crying, calling it old and moldy then joining the club by the end of the episode.
For as good as the color is, the actual shading is lackluster, having there be no shadows where there should be and it just looks like a flat piece. There are parts where it’s “shaded” but usually it’s just a diluted violet color even when the article of clothing that’s being shaded is red.
The actual lineart is just nonexistent, Yua wears a button up shirt for school, tucks one part in, and leaves the other part out and the viewer knows it’s a collared shirt but there’s not so much as a line to clarify that. There’s this thing called minimalism, but this is just too minuscule, like the shape of the shirt arms emphasizes there’s a bump there but no line to clarify it or make it pronounced.
As for close up shots when they’re walking it just looks like the animators got lazy, used the same face shape, and moved it up and down without any hair movement. Speaking of animators being lazy, the background characters don’t move at all.
Besides all this production’s shortcomings, it’s still fairly enjoyable for a viewer looking for something relaxing to watch. However, if they’re not interested in a calming anime then this isn’t for them.