The Summer 2025 Anime Preview Guide - CITY The Animation

Penniless college student Midori Nagumo lives in an ordinary city filled with not-quite-ordinary people. And as this reckless girl runs about, she sets the city in motion. Midori is in a bit of a bind. She is in debt, and her landlady is trying to shake her down for unpaid rent. Her best friend refuses to loan her cash since she's wised up to her tricks. Maybe some bullying would help. Or a bit of petty theft. Neither is sustainable. Maybe getting a job would settle things... But working means less time for fun adventures in the big city...

CITY The Animation is based on the CITY manga by Keiichi Arawi. The anime series is streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Sundays.

There's a sense of melancholy that pervades the second episode of CITY The Animation. If the first episode was largely devoted to the status quo of the characters' lives, the second episode draws attention to how things can change in a snap. Niikura reflects on how in high school, she came to admire Midori and look forward to seeing her defeat the athletic teams every day after school, until one day Midori changed schools without warning. Matsuri and Eri wander the city in their flights of fancy again, but at the end of the skit, Eri's mother asks her if she's told Matsuri that they're moving yet.

It's the mundane kind of change, not the sudden devastation of death or trauma (though I'm not sure if that Sasago kid is okay after tripping over a mole). The kind of change that happens to people every day in cities can nonetheless lead to disruption and a sense of loss. I'm going in blind here, and I don't think there's going to be a wild tone shift, but it's gratifying to see that there's more to CITY than just yukking it up.

There's still plenty of yuks to be had, though! Midori and Niikura prove to be a particularly potent combination when it comes to bringing the silliness. Their sketches, rife with physical comedy and silly faces, brought me close to tears on a couple of occasions. This episode also spends more time on the community magazine that runs the horoscope that had poor Tatewaku running around in a miniskirt last week, confirming my suspicion that those things are written by throwing a dart at a board, because astrology is fake.

While I'm sure most of our readers will gravitate to the Japanese version, the dub cast deserves a shout-out for the work they're doing. This is the kind of comedy that involves a lot of yelling as the bokkes and tsukkomis bounce off one another, and every single actor puts their full throat into it. They capture the emotional tone of each sketch just right, from Eri and Matsuri's playfulness to Todoroki's exaggerated sobs.

The show still looks fantastic, but that's no surprise; Kyoto Animation has always put out quality work in that arena. Its only competition for best-looking show of the season is DAN DA DAN, which is a very different kind of tour-de-force.

I must reveal a secret, known only to my closest friends and people who follow me on social media: the beloved comedy series Nichijou did nothing for me. I sat through the entire first episode completely stone-faced, even as my friend cracked up next to me. Comedy is subjective, blah blah blah. Thus, I approached CITY The Animation with a sense of trepidation, even dread – would I once again be left out in the cold while everyone I cared about enjoyed warm chuckles and guffaws beside the warm glow of the TV screen?

While I've seen more adoring reviews than the one I am in the midst of writing, I did, in fact, enjoy CITY! Hooray, I get to be part of the crowd!

No small part of what made this such a pleasure to watch was the brilliant animation. I'm not the first person to connect the mood of the series to illustrations by the children's author Richard Scarry, and I won't be the last; as someone who spends a significant amount of time reading books to toddlers, the comparison is too apt not to make. The titular city comes to life with vivid, even hyperreal colors, and the use of pen-and-ink lines over traditional shading methods creates a flat, picturesque feeling. Normally, I'd criticize the lack of depth, but here it just works and makes the forays into a sense of three-dimensionality all the more striking.

The sketches are more hit or miss; the first after opening is about a boy being pushed to wear a skirt. “LOL it's humiliating for boys to wear girly clothing” is just regressive in this day and age, even if the skit is also skewering astrology. It's also the weakest one of the episode, and it's too bad the episode put its worst foot forward like that. The rest range from frenetic, such as the “crunchy noodles in the bag” incident, to endearing, like the girl who lovingly describes her texture stims. The deliberately unfocused narrative makes it so I don't have much of a sense of the characters yet, or whether they'll become anything more than loosely-defined vehicles for gags. But considering it is a gag series, that's fine, and the voice actors in both languages seem to be having fun.

Nichijou may have left me cold, but CITY has enough charm that I'm willing to give it more time. And hey, maybe by the end I'll be cracking up right along with my friends.

If, for some reason, you were worried that CITY The Animation was going to drop off in quality after just one episode, then I have great news for you: It doesn't!. The wizards at Kyoto Animation have delivered yet another stunningly animated and impeccably directed little slice of comedy heaven for anyone who loves the medium to gorge themselves on. Dig in, folks.

If anyone is still on the fence about whether or not CITY is for them, and the promise of the most luxuriously animated gags around isn't enough to seal the deal, then I suppose it will all come down to how much you click with the humor. The very first sketch of the episode is a perfect example of the typical CITY The local high school soccer team that Tatewaku plays for is getting rallied up by their captain because they have exactly one job, which is to protect the only player on their team who is any damned good. It would, after all, be way too hard actually to get any better at the game themselves. They spend a solid two minutes hyping themselves up to be the best bodyguards they can be for Sasugo the all-star, since he's constantly getting injured and taken out of the game. At exactly this minute, of course, Sasugo trips on a mole and sends himself to the hospital. Roll opening credits.

It's not a brilliant gag in concept, but execution is everything, and the punchline lands because of the timing and skill of the animators bringing this simple comic-strip bit to life. That's pretty much every bit in CITY, give or take an extra layer of surreal, cartoonish weirdness. Some of them fly by in an instant while we're hanging out with the denizens of the city, like hyper-acrobatic flips and dashes that Midori makes after trying to bill Ayumu for the meal they shared last episode, or when the chef from the family restaurant suddenly deflates like a burst balloon. Some jokes take up a whole “Chapter,” like the sketch when we follow a couple of extremely energetic and goofy school kids who spend their free time goofing off at the local shrine.

Not every scene is going to be laugh-out-loud funny, but I can guarantee you that every scene will give you something to smile at, or something so weirdly and passionately overanimated that you cannot help but be impressed. CITY is essentially the perfect hangout comedy in that way. Every week, you'll be given the chance to chill with the fun weirdos of the CITY and marvel at their antics, and every week you will end the episode counting down the minutes until you get to go back and do it all again.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Long ago, in the ancient, bygone days of around 2011 or so, Nichijou cemented its reputation as a comedy classic by marrying likeable characters, absurd humor, and a ridiculously high-quality animation that elevated the rest of the series' strengths. CITY The Animation is essentially the exact same thing, except different. We've got a different cast of characters, sure - they're in college now, instead of high school - and the setting has moved to a new, anonymous metropolis. Still, if you ever got the chance to enjoy Nichijou, then you'll be right at home in the CITY.

That's a great thing, so far as I'm concerned. Any opportunity to enjoy the talents of the crew at Kyoto Animation is a worthwhile endeavor, and a wacky sketch-comedy lets the artists cut loose and get really weird with it. It's one thing for a gag to center around the clumsy waitress Midori accidentally uncorking a champagne bottle right into a customer's face, but the gag reaches new heights in true Nichijou fashion as we watch the ballistic cork slowly penetrate the skull of the patron in gloriously detailed slow-motion. An otherwise stone-simple scene featuring two dudes freaking out over a manga in their tiny apartment becomes engrossing simply because of how much effort is being put into every deranged quiver and spasm of their faces.

The vocal cast makes sure to sell all of these bits with gusto, which is absolutely necessary considering the lunatic-yet-also-somehow-still-cozy tone that CITY is aiming for. I watched Amazon's stream of the premiere in English, and the dub capably translates the show's appeal. You hear every gasp, every sputter, every shriek, and every squeak, and it often sounds like the actors are having so much fun that they're just a fraction of a second away from breaking.

CITY The Animation might be a little too weird and zany for some, but I implore anyone who loves animation to at least check it out. The best thing about the Nichijou/CITY approach is that, even if a joke doesn't make you bust a gut laughing out loud, it will still be utterly mesmerising to look at. It is a standout testament to the skills of a team of artists in their prime, and I consider it one of the must-watch shows of the summer.

The second episode of CITY is, primarily, more of CITY. The jokes are goofy and loud and full of outlandish, stunt-y reactions. It's indulgently colorful. It's got irreverence for days—I'm just now realizing that the city in CITY might in fact just be named "City". It's even got no pretensions about the source art of short-form gag manga it's derived from. The travails over the cancellation and uncancellation of the in-universe Mr. Bummer manga are delightful in how absurdly dramatic they take the whole affair. CITY knows this is material that doesn't need to be taken remotely seriously, despite how seriously KyoAni is putting their whole ass into producing it.

All that said, this second episode does show signs of reaching for greater heights anyway, as CITY swings for the sentimental a few times in this entry. It's primarily glimpsed in the relationship between Nagumo and Niikura, as the latter reflects on their time in high school, and how Nagumo inspired her toward her photography hobby in the first place. This fits with that grounded vibe CITY has going, as underneath all the craziness, these do still feel like real people with real histories and connections between them. It's properly paralleled with the cozy after-school hangouts of Ecchan and Matsuri, and the familiar, in-joke friendship rapport they have with each other. It's all nice—chill, even.

Of course, this is CITY, so that "chill" still comes with absurdist gags about funny faces, girls tumbling into rivers, and multiple demons being summoned over 500-yen moral quandaries. And while none of them quite hit the heights of that noodle escapade in the first episode, they're all extremely smile-inducing and sensible-chuckle-worthy. The sense of pacing is great, as the sentimental scenes last just long enough to endear viewers to characters before they're back to spinning and flipping around while they yell at each other. Or in the case of that manga subplot, they're dragging the efforts out just long enough to get laughs out of how tortured the efforts around this stupid four-panel comic are. That and spending an inordinate amount of time on the artist comforting himself by petting the ears of an odd rabbit-cat-dog thing. There's an incredible selection of creatures in this city, including the adorable cuttlefish demon who appears at the very end.

The penchant for sentimentality, endearing the audience to these characters as it escalates the gags, is what I believe is going to give CITY its legs as a comedy. I already like just hanging out with Nagumo and Niikura, and want to see how they get along with Izumi as they continue their new friendship with her. And I could watch Ecchan and Matsui effectively play Calvinball after school every day. CITY is confirmed as the real deal, and unlike Mr. Bummer, I think it's got enough juice to it that it could run for as long as it needs to.

Slice-of-life anime is an institution that runs the whole gamut of styles and qualities. Even putting aside the pedigree of Keiichi Arawi and previous creation Nichijou, CITY The Animation looked primed to stand out as one of the more distinctive examples. Kyoto Animation is back on the case, bringing a stunningly bold, thick-lined, flat-colored art style that swooshes past viewers at the start with an irreverent story about a petrified bird god that has pointedly nothing to do with the actual setting and plot. We've never been so back.

Not that CITY is necessarily just "More Nichijou." It does have the same short-burst ensemble-based approach to the comedy, yes. But thus far, there are no robots or diminutive mad scientists, and the antics seem just a bit more grounded. Sure, quirky women are creating their own gods for good luck, as well as an odd old man apparently spying on the restaurant where much of the action takes place (he's seemingly killed in an explosion partway through), but really, I mean things are more normal. Sketches can encompass two school friends BS-ing about what counterproductive superpowers they'd have in an extremely knowable way before cutting to a Kenan & Kel-ass farce about restaurant workers trying to stop a patron from realizing they dropped some noodles into his bag.

A lot of the base delivery of this comedy does come down to that very anime style "characters react by yelling a lot" school of supposed punchlines. Some of that can be very hit or miss, like the awkward pauses between a manga author and his editor regarding struggles coming up with ideas. And the opening bit revolving around putting the introductory boy Tatewaku in a skirt probably isn't going to work for everyone, but I thought it was earnestly funny enough. What elevates all this usual action is, expectedly, that artistry. KyoAni is gorgeously committing to each one of these bits, selling even the most minor of punchlines as animation events. Even that aforementioned awkward author/editor conversation brings some lusciously animated blobby tear-drops and devolving doodly faces.

The height of this is probably that noodle-bag sketch. Just when it's hitting a fever pitch of chaos, the ultimate act of blasting a patron in the face with a champagne cork and dropping another serving of noodles into the bag is rendered with quiet, musically scored beauty that turns the physical comedy into stupid, stupid poetry. I was howling. It's backed up by the layers of other happenings (like said spying old man getting exploded as a side-effect of everything) that keep everything feeling like it's moving and speak to the interconnected nature all these people have as residents of this "city." This is a kind of comedy that, as long as it's been around, has been proven not to work for everyone. But if you're into it, I think coming back to it week after week to see KyoAni's spin on it will be well worth the trip.

Sometimes it can be tricky to analyze a show with this format critically. A lot of it just comes down to breaking down the individual skits of the episode to see which work and which don't work. I will say, though, sometimes there is a consistent throughline with the specific types of shorts that are selected for these types of anime adaptations to the point where show runners will intentionally pick shorts to adapt based on synergy rather than chronological order. I don't know if that is happening here because I didn't read the manga, but there's a comedic theme with a few hints of cute character writing.

Episode one seemed to focus more on over-the-top and dramatic direct cuts, and a lot more on facial expressions in animations. It's funny that, for most of the time, the characters' facial expressions are as simple as two lines on a blank canvas of a face. That gag with the weird tongue mouth had me on the floor because of how random it was, and I think it works because we usually don't see that many wacky facial expressions with these types of designs. Keiichi Arawi's designs have always been charmingly simple, and I like the fact that it seems as if they are lampshading their own manga with the shorts about the manga artist here. It ties together that there are a lot of strong stylistic jabs going on here, but none of it feels cynical. If anything, the whole episode just comes off as very endearing to the point where I am having my heart warmed up at the same time.

This episode is also giving us the real dynamic between the main trio. While I still maintain that the show is about the city itself and everyone who lives in it, these three seem to be the main goobers that can tie a lot of these groups together. Erica Lindbeck, Cat Protano, and Brenna Larsen do a great job of playing Midori, Ayumu, and Wako, respectively. They all have so much energy without making the character sound too young since they're all supposed to be college students. Like the rest of the show, there's the perfect blend of “I can't stand you” and “I would die for you” energy, and it's infectious. Can't wait to watch more.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, but this might be one of the most gorgeous things I have looked at in the past couple of years. Kyoto Animation isn't an outlier when it comes to delivering high-quality animation, but to nail a very specific look for a series in style and directing is a separate conversation entirely. I have not read the source material for CITY, but I could tell that it is emulating the manga aesthetic seamlessly. The line shading on the shadows, the various popping colors, and even the way that different things are laid out between the foreground just scream “Manga”.

But this isn't a motion comic; this is a fluidly animated comedy series that seeks to capture the different perspectives you would expect from people living in a small town. I like how there isn't necessarily a central main character because, as the title suggests, the inhabitants of the city itself are the entertainment factor. We got high schoolers, kids, old men, irresponsible adults; we have it all! This is done by the same person who made Nichijou, and while, so far, this doesn't seem as crazy as that show yet, I can see where a lot of the DNA is. If anything, this series seems to emphasize comedic breaks through silence, which adds a lot of emphasis to how the characters react to each other.

As a comedy, your mileage on how the jokes land may vary. I wouldn't even necessarily say that a lot of the humor in this episode was laugh-out-loud for me. But even if this humor doesn't play towards your sensibilities, it's executed so perfectly that I feel like it still needs to be admired on some level. I'll be keeping an eye on this show thoroughly as it will be my gentle treat after a long week of work.