Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Volume 1: 06/18/21

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Volume 1 by Sumito Oowara is the start of a manga (turned into a single cour anime) that celebrates the creative process and the art of animation.

Eizouken is set in a fictional water bound city with the sort of illogical architecture of fantasy and science fiction. It's the sort of place that's begging to inspire art. Midori and Tsubame are long time friends. Midori wants desperately to be in the anime club. Tsubame has the business acumen and cynicism to make Midori's dream come true.

Then there's Sayaka, a child actress who wants to be a character designer and animator. Her parents have forbade her from joining the anime club. Tsubame, though, always sees a way around things. If you can't join a club, make a club.

Much of this first book is about the business of setting up the club and fixing up the club house — an abandoned, run down storehouse on the edge of the school. But each practical piece of the process is interspersed with the imaginations of the girls as they go on flights of fancy.

Volume two comes out in English translation on June 22nd.

Five stars

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