DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ComedyNami yo Kiitekure

REVIEWS

• 

  AnimeDweeb

  70/100
  "Wave, Listen to Me!" deserves to be heard.

  

  Nami yo Kiitekure, which I’ll be calling “Wave” for short, is quite the sleeper in my books.

  If it weren’t for such unprecedented times and the resultant cancellation of shows from Spring 2020’s catalog, Wave could have quite easily fallen by the wayside, hovering under a MAL score of 7 for its first few episodes. And what a sad scenario that would have been, as Wave has been a refreshing experience through and through. Here’s my (mostly) spoiler-free thoughts on Wave and why I think this show is most certainly worth your time.

  

  Minimum wage never looked this evil.

  Wave is told from the perspective of the fast-talking Minare Koda,

  a cynical woman struggling to make ends meet. She works at a curry shop in town with a gay^ manager who’s clearly only keeping her around for cheap labor, has a hard time keeping her apartment’s landlord happy, and recently sunk in a considerable amount of money into a scumbag boyfriend who promptly took off with the cash. A shitty boss, money problems, a bad breakup - all these problems led her to the right bar on the right night with the right man to rant to… or so it seems. As it turns out, the man she met was Kanetsugu Matou, a director of a local radio station in Sapporo. He was so impressed with her stutter-less delivery and abrasive takes on men that he recorded her epic rant that night and broadcasted it all over Hokkaido, to Minare’s shock. Matou-san then offers to sign our stunned amateur on to the station, offering her the opportunity to hone her craft the recording booth. Because she has virtually no name recognition and thus has no backing by sponsors, Minare is roped into improvising experimental sketches in the dead of night, allowing Matou to see how far he can push the limits of traditional radio programming. Alongside this new endeavor Wave continues to put Minare’s experiences front-and-center, showcasing her plights with her day job and zany life experiences. If you’re still unsure of what to expect, I would say Wave is decidedly an adult comedy, full of pop culture references and absurdist humor with some crude material in the mix.

  

  The approach Wave takes is a welcome change of pace from your typical slapstick or slice-of-life

  that you’ve probably grown accustomed to. Wave packs in a ton of jokes and references with influences from both Japan and the West. Yes, the localized gags involving stuff like Japanese pop singers and such went over my head, but there’s still plenty of solid material here. I, for one, enjoy comedies that come at you with everything, and Wave does just that by also throwing in some unexpected absurdist sketches that had me laughing my socks off. The radio sketches are a fun opportunity for the series to explore strange concepts and creative laughs, and there’s a sense that the writers are passionate for their love for radio and popular tropes. However, jokes can only carry a show so far, so it’s a good thing that Wave has the perfect vehicle for them. Minare Koda owns this show in every scene she’s in with her raw energy and great timing. This success is in large part due to her voice actor; relative newcomer^^ Riho Sugiyama’s energetic line delivery easily puts her alongside the heavy-hitters from Kaguya-Sama S2 in terms of the best VA performances this season. The jaded Minare jumps to conclusions left-and-right, and her hyperactive monologues invite us into that erratic thought process. Be it in the recording booth or out, a bulk of my enjoyment with Wave comes by watching her sweeping changes in intensity and how they elevate the observational humor in every episode. With her relentless overconfidence, sheepish embarrassment and animated commentary, Minare keeps me coming back to Wave week by week.

  Now, as enjoyable as Wave is,

  it does have a couple of criticisms that I’d like to share with you. First of all, Wave is very much the Minare Koda Show. That’s by no means a bad thing on its own, I think I’ve gushed over her enough so far. However, the rest of the cast don’t really stand out to me and it’s not for lack of trying. These side characters are present in the narrative but have their conflicts either relegated to the background or in service of Minare’s OTT reactions. While I had a blast watching Minare carry practically the entire show on her back, Wave’s supporting cast needs to be explored deeper should the story receive future instalments. The other aspect worth noting is the overall tone and writing throughout the series. When it’s not busy doing radio bits with exes and/or extraterrestrials (see: Exhibit A), Wave can seem unsure of the kind of comedy it wants to pull off in a given scene. Wave’s curious mix of observational humor and more surreal set-ups doesn’t gel as well as I hoped at times. It is possible to balance out the two elements in a satisfying way and render me LMAO for full minutes (which is does often). But the show has a bad habit of attempting to paint scenes in a realistic light when they would have worked better as comedic moments^^^. Likewise, there were points where Wave undercuts more grounded moments with anticlimactic, throwaway jokes. I feel that this balance of Wave’s two halves is skewed in favor of a more plausible perspective, leading to the show stumbling over itself and over-explaining certain scenes. I’d be glad if the show grows more consistent in working out this formula, ‘cause what we have is already so enjoyable. Before I wrap things up,

  Here’s a lightning round covering all the other criteria I missed:

  the animation is serviceable, the art and presentation gets some good moments, I think the insight into the radio industry was digestible and fun (reminiscent of Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! 's many tidbits about animation), the songs and sound design fit the show nicely. I don’t intend to half-ass on these topics; they just didn’t factor into my viewing experience all that much.

  

  Exhibit A: See, I wasn't kidding.

  Tl;DR:

  Nami yo Kiitekure is quite likely to have you in stitches. A simply stellar performance by Riho Sugiyama brings our lively lead to life. Minare nails every joke with an energetic, ballsy delivery that would make isekai protagonists quiver in their pants. Not all the comedy works, but the show’s fun take on observational & absurdist humor makes for a welcome change of scenery. Wave, Listen to me! absolutely deserves to be heard. 7/10~

  STRAY RAMBLINGS (SPOILERS):

  • ^The show sort of gay-bashes the manager, and it’s a recurring gag that never really works. I’m thinking it could be an issue of dated material, as the manga was first published back in 2014. Still, the homo stuff wasn’t made in good taste here, so have this mild trigger warning.
  • ^^My jaw dropped to the floor when I caught Minare’s rap edit in Gigguk’s Spring 2020 video. Immediately added Wave to my watch list and found her profile on MAL. Said jaw then proceeded to fall further still when I learnt that she has less than ten VA roles to date! I’m definitely rooting for her to nail more parts in the years to come, fantastic effort.
  • ^^^Let me share an example with you. My favorite joke in the entire show was that of the crazy coincidence in episode 5 where Minare was doing an improvised sketch from the POV of a woman who killed her partner. Meanwhile, it turned out that the exact same occurrence was taking place as Minare’s broadcast was aired, and the eerie parallels between the two scenarios and the reactions from the killer and hostage were funny as heck. The whole scene was insane but it functioned perfectly as a one-off joke that came and went, and I was happy to leave things at that. Unfortunately, it turns out that the scene is actually a major plot point, as it’s revealed that it was Mitsuo, Minare’s ex, who was tied up that night. The show tries to give a wonky explanation for all this, but it only highlights the contrivances necessary for this to have taken place and lessens the fantastic gag that came before it.
  • Matou’s seeing Minare as a mirror image of Sissel Komei, a woman from his past, is a plotline that shows up every now and then. I just don’t think Wave really goes anywhere with this? It’s just sort of there, and I’m not sure how this thread plays into the show’s themes. Isn’t the story about Minare being her awesome self and bringing that personality to the airwaves? If so, what good is there in attempting to make her character more artificial by selling this idea that she’s a carbon copy of someone else? The only guess that comes to my mind is that she could show up later on in the canon, affecting Minare in some personal way. Oh well, I guess that might count as world-building, so I probably shouldn’t complain.
  • BEST GIRL: Mizuho. Just this once, Minare has good taste in romantic interests ;)

  

  • IN A NUTSHELL: Good Morning Vietnam meets Fleabag (If you’re a fan of Minare, I guarantee Phoebe Waller-Bridge will win you over in the same way).
  • Lockdown does weird things to people, so I guess I blog now! Thanks so much for making it this far. If you happen to like my verbose over-analysis, come check out the other reviews I’m putting out this season. Also, feel free to leave any feedback for me; I’m still trying to figure a lot of this stuff out. Stay safe, see you in the next one, peace!
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• 

  planetJane

  65/100
  under the Hokkaido sunrise.

  *All of my reviews contain __spoilers __for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.*

  ---

  *“This program is for people who’ve caused countless troubles for others…”*

  The second-messiest watch of the 2020 Spring season, Wave, Listen To Me is not a show easily classified or dissected. Wave is a situational dramedy with only an intermittent head for drama and good jokes only about half the time. It's hardly a bad series, but "uniquely frustrating" might be a good way to put it.

  

  Despite having one of the most promising opening episodes of the season, Wave often feels hesitant to explore its own central premise--loud, motormouthed, opinionated woman has a graveyard shift radio show broadcast across Japan’s northern province--in favor of flaky attempts at romance, hacky gay jokes, spotty dramatic arcs, and a number of other things. Part of this comes down to the show’s unusual main character. Minare, the aforementioned radio show host, is the rare anime protagonist who is an adult woman. Indeed, anything else you could or couldn’t say about Wave, it goes through no pains to sexualize its lead, and both of these are things to be commended. Minare is a fascinating, complicated character, but Wave does not always seem to know what to do with her, and how well the series actually uses her and her many layers varies. Not coincidentally, so does its general quality, and you will find that the two have a more or less 1 to 1 correlation.

  In the show’s weaker arcs, Minare, and the fact that she is an adult woman who is also wildly dysfunctional, feels like the butt of a joke. She is at various points forced to save face at the restaurant she works at, gets into a massive misunderstanding where she thinks a neighbor murdered someone, and so on, and so forth. These are the show’s weaker arcs by a wide margin and it’s a shame they take up a good half of its runtime, and it doesn’t help that they’re pockmarked by grody, occasionally downright problematic jokes. Conversely, when the show gives Minare an equal and opposite. Such as her equally dysfunctional (and much scuzzier) ex Mitsuo, it does much better. The moment that concludes that arc, where Minare almost falls for him again, only to realize he hasn’t changed at all and then promptly throws him over her head with her legs, is one of the show’s best.

  By far though the best episodes are those few that take place mostly in the radio booth, and sadly it really is just a few. These episodes (which include the premiere, possibly its strongest episode overall) make the full use of voice actress Riho Sugiyama’s powerful timbre and rapidfire delivery, and they’re as much an audio treat as visually. Sugiyama’s voice is a gift, and any time she gets to fully wild out as Minare it’s a pleasure to hear.

  

  The other aspect of Wave is that it’s intensely regional. The series takes place entirely in Hokkaido, and the show’s finale emphasizes the strong communal spirit of Japan’s northernmost island. This, too, is intriguing, though it’s only explored intermittently.

  In general, Wave is at its best when it has a strong focus. Otherwise, it tends to meander in a less-than-flattering way. Of the many side-plots, only that of Mizuho, Minare’s sometimes-roommate and also sometimes-girl crush, and her tentative grasp at her dream of becoming station director is terribly compelling. Even this, due perhaps simply to Wave’s source material being in-progress, is not actually resolved in the series.

  

  The arc, such as it is, of Mikie Tachibana, a profoundly odd restaurant coworker of Minare's, also almost gets there, but there's just not enough time spent on it for it to really connect. And that's really just Wave's core issue. It wants to tell all of these stories, and more, but commits fully to none of them, and is ultimately done in by the limitations of TV anime as a format. There's only so much you can squeeze into 5 hours.

  It's not all squandered potential though, by any means. The finale, where Minare must keep the show running through a sudden, unexpected natural disaster in the form of a strong earthquake, provides an interesting glimpse at where Wave might go if it gets another season, casting Minare in a more even-handed role as a grounding rod for the station’s many listeners. It’s worth wanting. As scattershot as Wave, Listen To Me! often is, Minare is a hell of a compelling character, and she deserves another twelve episodes to stretch her legs. That much, we can hope for.

  ---

  And if you liked this review, why not check out some of my others here on Anilist?

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• 

  Pockeyramune919

  65/100
  Wave seems to not know what it wants to say, making it hard to listen to.

  This Review Contains Spoilers for Wave, Listen to Me!

  I think the creators of Wave, Listen to Me! put too much stock in the phrase, “first impressions mean everything.”

  

  In the first ten minutes of the series we follow our main character, Minare Koda as she apparently hosts a radio program while on Mt. Sapporo in Hokkaido. We're immediately drawn in by her cadence: natural-sounding and rapid-fire, sounding wholly unlike the standard anime fare. Soon, Minare finds herself face-to-face with a bear, but, as they say, the show must go on, so she continues with her segment. We cut to Minare in a sound booth, reading a script as her co-workers and technicians look on. She gives relationship advice in tandem with her pretending to fight a bear, all gorgeously animated, mind you. Even when this bit ends, Wave, Listen to Me! is still committed to viewer engagement via interesting situations. We flash back to a drunken Minare impassionately complaining about her ex-boyfriend to Mr. Mato, a "total stranger she met forty minutes ago." The next day, while at her restaurant job, she hears her voice on the radio. She then storms off to the studio that played her voice. She discovers that this "Mr. Mato" is a radio producer and as she storms in, they saddle her with a new, live segment. This episode was perfect.

  First impressions are important, no doubt. It's why it's called a "hook;" you want something to snag your viewers or your fish. And with the right bait and the right wiggle motion, the hook will be too tempting to pass up. But then you have to reel them in. You can't just walk away from the line and expect your audience to just sit through the entire thing because of first impressions alone.

  Oh, sure, I did, but that's only because I'm insane.

  After a strong start, Wave coasts by. It's never bad per se, and there are moments that reminded me why I picked up the show in the first place, but those are unfortunately few and far between, leading to an anime that has little to write home about at the end of the day.

  But what are those things in the letter?

  The best, most consistent aspect of this show is Riho Sugiyama's performance as Minare. Apparently, when she was first starting out as a voice actor, she was told that she couldn't get into the industry, for she lacked an "anime voice." It's a good thing she didn't heed their criticisms, because Sugiyama was absolutely made for this role and it's precisely due to this so-called "lack of an anime voice." The energy needed for Minare's voice would be bungled by any other given voice actor/voice direction. Her rants and tirades sound powerful without dipping into the over-the-top territory that most anime operate in. Minare sounds like a real person that you'd bump into. You'd find her voice humorous, yet oddly mesmerizing, as the listeners to her radio show no doubt do in-universe. Minare talks a mile per minute and I applaud Sugiyama for her performance. The show should be based around Minare and the unique voice that Sugiyama provides. When everything takes a step back to facilitate this, Wave truly shines. I get chills listening to Minare say “Mitsuo, I will kill you even if I have to chase you down to the end of the earth.”

  

  I've heard this show described as an "adults do adult things" ala this season's Sing "Yesterday" For Me. I disagree. For one, I initially thought Yesterday handled this so well that Wave really wasn't much of a contender in this regard (keyword: initially) and two, I actually liked the show more when it focused on radio. Wave Listen to Me! can serve as an “in” to real careers and aspirations that can feel worlds away from us. Ping-Pong, drawing, chess, and tennis are all things that many of us might write off as boring, or at the very least, "not for us," yet the passion that the characters in these shows exhibit will draw us in. Radio personalities aren't really anything I think about. It's nothing Minare herself thinks about: prior to getting roped into the field, she had the perception that radio was dying. I picked up Wave, in part, because I felt it could be an entertaining "in'' to a real-life space I hadn't been exposed to.

  

  I also kind of shy away from praising this show as an "adults do adult things"-type show because it's the exact opposite of what I felt so compelling about the initial episode. While the show is often more subdued and grounded than your standard fare (Kureko vapes for crying out loud), I believe Wave excels at being absolutely insane. Minare begins the episode pretending to fight a bear. I apologize for being uncouth, but I could care less about her woes at the restaurant. Give me the bear! Give me a blend of navigating the world of radio while Minare cooks up/gets into hijinks. This show can be laugh out loud hilarious at times and most of the laughs are garnered from the radio portion. This is easily the most entertaining part of the show.

  It's a somewhat minor point, but, for whatever reason, I found myself intrigued at the fact that this show takes place in Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido. Anime generally take place in Tokyo (Tokyo is essentially to anime what L.A. or New York is to Hollywood), occasionally other places in Honshu, and rarely in Hokkaido or Kyushu. If you're interested in seeing an oft unexplored setting depicted, then Wave, Listen to Me! might be worth your consideration.

  

  The art isn't anything too crazy, though it gets some points for uniqueness and also being committed to this realistic direction.

  So if that's where the show excels, where does it fall flat for me?

  Everywhere else, unfortunately.

  The second episode largely focuses on the restaurant that Minare works at as it prepares for an upcoming Summer festival. I really didn't care for this focus at all. I found that I didn't mind the restaurant's role in the first episode because I assumed it would simply serve as the set-up for Minare's radio gig — here's where she worked before she found herself flung into the radio business. I was dismayed to see the show returning to the restaurant because I didn't find this aspect of Wave interesting. It's not simply because it's not what I signed up for; that would be fine, but it's often quite boring and doesn't bring with it the energy or passion that comes with the radio segments. I guess you can gleam some enjoyment from this part of the show if you enjoy Wave in an "adults doing adult things" capacity. I however, found this aspect unrelatable, and, infinitely more damningly, boring. Hurting things further is the fact that this aspect of the show often takes it over, shoving the radio portion to the side. It's one thing to have an aspect of the show that I don't care for. It's another to have that aspect actively cannibalize the other aspect. Unfortunately, this is only an appetizer. The entirety of Wave is out to lunch with itself on the menu.

  

  Wave Listen To Me! seems to have an identity crisis and at the end of the day, I'm really not sure what exactly, if anything, the show was going for. You have the radio aspect of Minare's career. In addition to being in the booth, this also categorized as obtaining material for her show. Then we have the events surrounding the restaurant she works at. Then we delve deeper into this to focus on her co-worker, Chuuya Nakahara and his attempts to run the restaurant in his indisposed boss' stead and this eventually develops into focusing on the relationship between him and Makie Tachibana, the daughter of the man who caused his boss' accident. You would be forgiven if you mistook Nakahara for the deuteragonist of Wave, considering how much focus he gets. I'm not done, by the way. Then we have Minare's assistant director and roommate, Mizuho Nanba and her dreams for advancing her career. Then we have this weird love triangle (I think?)/ will they/won't they involving Minare, Nakahara, and Makie. Then there's the situation with Minare and her ex. There are other things that I'm forgetting, but the point is that there are a lot of moving parts to Wave and they rarely seem to work in tandem. Once again, the radio aspect of the show is often buried under everything else and I'm left frustrated.

  

  I said earlier that the show "coasts by." I say this due to a combination of the aforementioned identity crisis combined with the pacing. The show seems to languidly meander through, abandoning the speedy pace of the first episode. Interestingly enough, Sing "Yesterday" For Me also features a meandering quality. I actually think it works in Yesterday, as it effectively emulates the character's indecision and the lack of notability seen in most of our day to day lives. Unless you count pursuing the characters' love interests a concrete goal, the characters in Yesterday aren't really aiming for anything. Wave however, gives us a clear goal; a carrot on the stick. "Here's this high octane, zany radio program. Minare is to pursue it, thus our show is to focus on it." But, for whatever reason, it takes its sweet time pursuing said goal. It gets distracted by all the different parts and I distinctly remember being unsure of what the show was trying to achieve. There were times where I questioned why I was watching the show.

  The characters generally aren't very notable. At best, they're somewhat one-note, though comedic. At worst, they're one-note and boring. Makie's character can be described as being quiet. Nakahara is dense and takes his job very seriously. Mizuho is competent and sweet. While there may be more to their characters that I'm implying, it really doesn't seem like it, and, at the end of the day, I don't quite care. Throughout its run, without contest, I found Minare the most compelling and fun character. She generated the most laughs and I was genuinely interested in her life; from her relationship with her father to her situation with her ex. She too, unfortunately finds herself buried. This is despite the fact that it's her show.

  It's a minor, petty point, but Minare's skit segments could be a bit too silly. There would be an outlandish concept that was somewhat dark and comedic, but the show would take it a step further and throw in ALIENS or the like and it would make it so over the top that it ceases to be funny. It's the feeling of cringing at someone trying too hard. At least Minare acknowledges the incredibly lame plots, I suppose.

  

  As I touched upon at the beginning, Wave doesn't completely eschew the elements that I loved in the first episode. For example, I love the episode in which Minare and Mizuho go to investigate the former's neighbor and cook up an insane conspiracy involving him (to be perfectly fair, the reality they based the conspiracy on was pretty wild). I loved the part where a would-be murderer abandons her would-be victim because, while listening to Minare's program, she inexplicably describes exactly how she is going to kill him. I love the bit where Minare's father tells Minare a story of how she got her name. Even though it wasn't as funny, I loved the episode where Minare goes on a date with her ex. All of this makes Wave a hard show to put down. Most of it was a Certified Slog™ for me, but, quite insidiously, there'd be just enough of what I came for that I'd feel like I was missing out if I dropped this show completely.

  The final episode is a perfect example of this. I found the beginning so boring that I was more compelled to start my laundry than watch it. I was on my phone as the episode played before thinking, "Oh, right. I'm watching this subbed." But then, towards the end, there's an earthquake and Minare must use her skills to professionally yet entertainingly calm her listeners. While the episode was filled with things I didn't care about, at the end of the day, it contained something I enjoyed, preventing me from dismissing it entirely.

  With all this said, I'm wary of writing off Wave, Listen to Me! as a bad show. It's certainly a show that bored me more times than not, it's certainly a show that seemed confused, but a lot of this can be explained as the various aspects of Minare's life having an impact on her radio show. While I came for the radio aspect of the show, I'm sure some can find enjoyment in the other aspects. I'm not sure I'd call Wave an inept show, but it's one that I often struggled to find enjoyment in.

  

  Wave, Listen to Me! is the only (kind of) show I've reviewed that I don't know what to make of, in terms of recommending it to others. On one hand, I personally didn't enjoy it all too much, so it really wouldn't feel right to recommend it based on my personal experience, but on the other hand, the things I docked points from are probably fine, just not my cup of tea. For this show, I'll defer readers to the other reviewers of this show; I can tell you what I didn't like about this show and they'll be better equipped to tell you what they liked about it.

  While this show might be great to some, at the end of the day, I felt that the show as a whole used too little of what I loved about the first episode. The things that worked are certainly still there, but you'll need to do a bit of digging to get to them.

  
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