Bristles Babbles #25: Koufuku Graffiti Episode 1 Brief Review

So, I figured I should be more active and talk about them Japanese cartoons more on here. Brief episode reviews is a good place to start, though I’m really awful at keeping up with these shows and tend to just cluster up my backlog with each new season. Koufuku Graffiti is the first show I watched this season, though it would’ve been Rolling Girls had I been in the mood after powering through 58 episodes of Hunter x Hunter over the course of about a week (which I may talk about soon). To be perfectly honest I wasn’t quite as in love with Koufuku Graffiti as I thought I would be.

Koufuku Graffiti, animated by Studio Shaft, is about a Junior High School named Ryō Machiko, voiced by Rina Satō, learning about the pleasures of cooking for others and eating meals with them along with her second cousin, Kirin Morino, voiced by Asuka Ōgame. It’s a nice concept for a cute, breezy show, which Koufuku Graffiti most certainly is. Unfortunately I didn’t real feel Koufuku Graffiti. Don’t get me wrong, I like cutesy Slice of Life and I’m willing to believe that they have plenty of artistic merit, but I just feel that Koufuku Graffiti could do a little more with its concept than it did in that first episode. Koufuku Graffiti thankfully at least has some great bells and whistles on the production side of things. I’m loving the art design and I’m loving the OP. The literal food porn present in here is a little bit unsettling considering how out of place its absurd eroticism is amongst the Slice of Life moments, but in all honesty it did get a chuckle out of me.

Like I said, I do like cutesy Slice of Life, and I do enjoy these character interactions and the delicious food that this series showcases, so I’m more than willing to bear with Koufuku Graffiti for at least one more episode in hopes that it has a slightly more compelling focus on its core concept, though I’m not confident it will do that. Considering how bad I am at keeping up with seasonal stuff I really can’t be putting up with a series like Koufuku Graffiti that only gives me mild satisfaction. Not when I still need to catch up to Shirobako and KimiUso’s second cours and still need to watch Rolling Girls and Yuri Kuma Arashi.

6/10