Tag: Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater

Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater

Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater

Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater anime series cover art
Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater

Series Overview

Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater (Houkago Teibou Nisshi / 放課後ていぼう日誌) is a slice of life series in the “cute girls doing cute things” subgenre. The series centers on four high school girls who make up their school’s breakwater fishing club.

In case you aren’t sure what breakwater fishing is, it’s basically fishing off a pier or other structure along the shore that the waves break against. But, this actually isn’t the only kind of fishing that the club partakes in. It’s the most common, but they also fish on the beach and in canals.

That’s really all you need to know to understand the premise of the show, so let’s just take some time to discuss the Japanese and English titles and logos for the series before moving onto the characters.

There are a lot of anime that I think have bad English titles despite having good Japanese titles. Usually, this comes about in one of two ways. Either the English title is a direct translation and doesn’t account for how awkward a lot of Japanese sounds when translated directly into English. Or, the English title deviates from the intent of the Japanese title.

This isn’t one of those series. I actually like the English title more than the Japanese title in this case. Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater isn’t a direct translation of Houkago Teibou Nisshi, but it doesn’t change the intent of the Japanese title either. Yes, it’s a little long, but it’s not overly descriptive like some isekai light novel titles are.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true of the logo. The Japanese logo is really good. And the English logo looks like an intern created it using MS Paint.

Breakwater Club Members

One of the great parts about CGDCT anime is their extremely limited cast of characters. Having a lot of characters can be good for longer series, but these series are generally limited to a single cour. So only having a handful of characters is optimal so they can each get enough development.

There are four main characters, two supporting characters, and then maybe four nearly background characters. The four main characters are the members of the Breakwater Club. The Supporting characters are the club advisor and the owner of the fishing gear shop. And the background characters are the parents of two of the main characters.

The Breakwater Club members from the anime series Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater
The Breakwater Club members

Hina Tsurugi is the protagonist of the series and the newest member of the Breakwater Club. She’s afraid of touching fish or being near bugs, such as those used for bait, so she’s not someone you would expect to be in this club. She actually wanted to join the Handicrafts Club but was talked into giving the Breakwater Club a try instead.

Natsumi Hodaka is Hina’s childhood friend and one of the two people who initially get her to try out the Breakwater Club. Unlike Hina, Natsumi is extremely outgoing, energetic, and tomboyish. She has no problem with touching fish or bugs and seems to enjoy doing just that.

Yuuki Kuroira is the club president and the other member who got Hina to join the club. Despite being the president, Yuuki generally sits in her chair and watches the other members fish while plotting some evil scheme rather than fishing herself.

Finally, Makoto Oono is the strong, silent member of the club. She’s an expert at fishing, gutting and cleaning fish, and cooking fish. She always wears a life jacket just in case she falls into the water.

Cute Girls Go Fishing

Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater is one of the better CGDCT anime I’ve seen. The only one I can think of that I would rate higher is Laid-Back Camp (cute girls go camping), and I don’t think that saying Laid-Back Camp is a good anime is a very controversial statement.

It’s definitely better than Afterschool Dice Club (cute girls play board games) and Rifle is Beautiful (cute girls shoot rifles). I would even say it’s better than both Comic Girls (cute girls draw manga) and Anima Yell! (cute girls do cheerleading) despite the fact that I very much enjoyed those two.

But what makes a series about cute girls going fishing so good?

Hina Tsurugi from the anime series Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater
Hina Tsurugi

With CGDCT anime, the activity the girls are performing isn’t as important as you might think. For example, I’m not interested in camping or fishing myself, but I enjoyed the anime that were about those activities. The characters and how the series presents the activity are what matter.

Using Afterschool Dice Club as an example of a bad CGDCT, I didn’t really find any of the characters interesting or entertaining. And while it was interesting to see games I wasn’t familiar with explained, they’re still playing board games — something I can do right now.

Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater has much more dynamic characters. And, breakwater fishing isn’t an activity I can just do right now, which makes it more interesting to learn about. I don’t know how to fish, I don’t own fishing gear, and I don’t know where the nearest breakwater is.

To me, that’s part of what makes anime like this so good. They’re not just slice of life series; they’re slice of life series that teach me about new activities.

Conclusion

Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater is a 7/10 from me. There usually aren’t that many anime I watch weekly that I look forward to watching the new episode of each week. But, this was one of the few. Every week, I knew I was going to be in for some good fishing content.

The OP and ED for this series are also both good. I think I prefer the ED though. I really like that song, and the chibi visuals are pretty cute. Also, the fact that every episode ends with a poem (always referred to as a haiku even when they aren’t) is a bonus. Some of those poems, like the one about life jackets, were really good.

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