Alternative title(s): Houkago Teibou Nisshi
Manga Adaptation by Doga Kobo
Streaming on Funimation

Premise

Tsurugi Hina has just moved to a coastal town with her family, just in time to start high school. She’s looking forward to joining the handicrafts club at her new school, but after a chance encounter with another student, she ends up joining the breakwater club instead.

Euri’s verdict: I was fully ready to use “Hook, Line and Stinker” so I’ll just complain about the show being okay actually

Doga Kobo, we meet again. It’s pretty well documented how disappointed we’ve been with some of their recent shows versus, you know, actually good ones they’ve done in the past, so I’ll cut right to it – this show isn’t complete garbage. It even seems like their other show this season, Sing “Yesterday” For Me, is another positive step away from their trashier offerings. Good stuff.

Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater is, however, another “cute girls do cute things” show, so bear that in mind if my introduction has made it sound like a complete departure from their usual works. Not to say that’s a bad thing of course, but it’s certainly a show that’s closer to their usual releases than Sing “Yesterday” For Me is.

But you know, cute girls doing cute things or not, I’m kind of down for a fishing anime? I haven’t gone fishing many times, but it’s something I’ve had a huge interest in to the point where I’d planned to pick my license up this summer – before all the COVID stuff happened, anyway. This is no replacement for the real thing, but a chill anime about a small-time fishing club? Yeah, this might be a good time for one of those.

I was pleasantly surprised that the show managed to set up the majority of its club members well in its opening episode, too; Three of the four girls had enough time in the spotlight for us to get to know them. I am hoping the fourth member doesn’t become a joke character, though. She’s a tall girl, and the show makes a couple of comments on this pretty quickly. If she joins in proper, and the club adviser we see in the ending credits isn’t some massive creep, we might be doing pretty alright here.

There was a scene I found odd though, where the older student in the club dispatches an octopus quickly by turning it inside out. This might sound a bit wild if you’re not too familiar with how you might actually kill an octopus after fishing for one, but it is a quick way of killing it. I’m absolutely not an expert on this topic, and perhaps someone more knowledgeable might be able to chime in, but I was always under the impression that doing this isn’t actually the most humane method – that it’d be better to stab them through the nerve centre in their heads. What they showed wasn’t wrong, I know that much, but if I’m correct I do wonder if this show might end up encouraging some bad fishing habits.

Nonetheless, it’s nice to be able to talk about a Doga Kobo show without feeling like I’m writing a content warning. It’s not going to be a surprise hit or anything, but it’s cosy enough that I might stick around and see where it goes.