Alternate Titles: Isshukan Friends
Manga Adaptation by Brain’s Base
Simulcast on Crunchyroll

Premise

Honest Yuki Hase would love to befriend the lonely Kaori Fujimiya, but she keeps pushing him away, saying she can’t make any friends. When he finally gets her to warm up to him, Kaori reveals a most inconvenient truth…

Marlin’s Verdict: Love at First Sight

Words cannot describe how much this show has made me fall for it after only one episode. I haven’t felt this entranced by a love story since Kimi ni Todoke. It just touches the right part of my heart, every time I think of it I start getting the fuzzies. Yuki is a refreshingly forward romance protagonist. He has that kind of youthful eagerness that comes with falling in love, and is able to overcome the normal embarrassments that can stymie it. Kaori is absolutely adorable, and unlike most quiet girls has a very good reason for her outward persona. We get to see quite quickly the sweet, bubbly girl that lies beneath her cold facade, making her almost instantly endearing. Shogo is also a great wingman, recognizing his friend’s puppy love and giving him just enough common sense to keep him grounded.

That’s not even getting into how gorgeous the whole thing is. Brain’s Base knocks another one out of the park with a fantastic soft color palette that is well complimented by soft non-intrusive music, giving the entire production a very nostalgic feel. The show is adorable from head to toe, with both story and art supporting each other to give the viewer a feeling of sweet nature of Yuki and Kaori’s relationship while also showing the bittersweet side of Kaori’s condition. I think this show will continue its formula of one week per episode, and it seems to be building the friendship stronger if next weeks cute hang-out shenanigans are any indication. If it is able to keep up the mood while building the relationship, I think this show will be one I remember for a long time.

Iro’s Verdict: Too Sweet for my Black Heart

I’m just going to leave in the fake placeholder verdict Aqua put here for me when he drafted this post, because it’s pretty much accurate. I admit it, One Week Friends was pretty cute. The amount of stupid waffling that usually plagues romance anime was kept to a bare minimum, and the protagonist is willing to profess his intentions clearly. Fortunately, Hase’s attempts to befriend Fujimiya never cross that line between determined and creepy, meaning both characters can stay sympathetic. While her form of amnesia has absolutely no basis in reality, it has synergy with the weekly format of TV anime. One Week Friends won’t be the emotional roller-coaster that Golden Time was, but I’m perfectly fine with a romance that’s just an excuse for adorable-ness. I hope to see good things from this one.

Gee’s Verdict: I LIKE IT WHEN A MAN BEFRIENDS THE HELL OUT OF SOMEONE HELL YEAH

I am also going to leave the fake placeholder verdict Aqua gave me because it is scarily accurate in summarizing how I felt about this show.

While I might be the requisite hot-blooded guy who loves the robots and explosions, I found myself really enjoying One Week Friends. It’s ridiculously cute while still managing to avoid a lot of the typical clichés that invade most relationship anime. Compared to the physical abuse humor used in Kawaisou, One Week Friends is far more down to earth and grounded in the way Yuki and Kaori interact with each other. In addition, Yuki is one of the most surprisingly assertive and sensible protagonists I’ve had the pleasure of watching in a while. His dogged determination to befriend Kaori is completely altruistic in nature and free of pity, which just gives me so much respect for him. And of course, Kaori is adorable when she finally comes out of her shell. And that shell is a completely reasonable one to have considering her unique circumstances. That said, a show like this which hinges so heavily on its premise will need to do a lot to keep things interesting. With a weekly reset, the show risks becoming too formulaic if it’s just Yuki and Kaori doing something different every week without any tangible shift in the narrative. Still, One Week Friends has done a great job of setting the scene, I look forward to seeing where it goes.

Aqua’s Verdict: Twelve Weeks Enjoyment?

Regular readers will probably know that, in spite of my relentless cynicism, I am quite the sucker for cutesy, melancholic shows — at least if they don’t dare my patience. Different genres require different standards, and while One Week Friends does some things that cross the border into cliché even for a show of its ilk, the heartwarming atmosphere and unique premise make it into the most rousing show about aggressive befriending since Kamen Rider Fourze. Our two leads, Yuki and Kaori, have a tangible dynamic and over the course of a single narrative week, the show manages to rather quickly create a believable bond between the two, neatly avoiding the pitfalls of anime characterization. Yuki is a lovable dude, whose persistent pursuit of friendship is extenuated by his altruistic motivations, and  underneath Kaori’s justifiably cold exterior lies a gentle heart anyone’d want to be friends with. Furthermore, their friendship is entirely lacking in comical violence, accidental groping or embarrassing secrets to be found out — but solely built on their mutual quirks bouncing off of each other, and with the aid of some noticeably expressive animation and strong work by newcomer voice actors Sora Amamiya and Yoshitaka Yamaya, all the more genuine for it.

Evidently, all these touching moments have to lead to a dramatic twist. The revelation that Kaori suffers from a rather particular form of amnesia — in fact, it might be a rather needlessly particular form; why not just give her anterograde amnesia? — sets up the premise as a rather interesting take on the established anime formula of befriend-someone-new-every-week. Yet this idea’s strength stands or falls on how well the writing staff can shake up the formula and come up with different enough ways for Yuki to get Kaori to open up to him. One Week Friends risks locking itself into a fixed order of episodic events so formulaic, it robs itself of the opportunity to develop its characters or their relationship in any significant way. With this episode doing such a beautiful job of hinting at Kaori’s affliction, I was a bit disappointed at her simply telling Yuki what would happen. If Yuki didn’t know, his finding out his new friend has lost all of her memories of him would be much more dramatic, let alone would it allow the show to make her revealing her affliction to him for the first time have a much bigger impact, as it would show she starts to trust him more and more despite the regular memory wipes. Then again, I’m not the writer. Who know what’s going to happen? … Not a fat lot, huh?