Anime original by Yostar Pictures
Streaming on HIDIVE
Premise
Minami’s favorite gacha game has reached end of service and she needs a new hobby. After failing at every possible after school activity, she has a chance encounter at a driving range that sparks her interest in golf.
Jel’s verdict: This Is Not Birdie Wing and That’s OK
At it’s core, Sorairo Utility is another low stakes “Cute Girls Do (Activity)” show, but I appreciate they try really hard to do it well. The characters are brimming with charm and personality, with the really smooth and detailed animation doing a lot of heavy lifting. Minami isn’t instantly good at golf and probably won’t be, and the prospect of learning from her cool senpai and some old men at the driving range is a fun twist on the setup. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but when you watch you can feel the care and attention to detail that went into it.
It’s funny that Yostar (best known for the Arknights and Blue Archive games) of all people are telling people to stop playing gacha and go touch grass. Sorairo Utility was originally a fifteen minute OVA made back in 2021, their first foray into non-game related animation. It’s interesting to see the progress they’ve made a few years later, with the OVA looking like a really high quality fan animation to the TV series looking good enough to be produced by Dogakobo or A-1 Pictures. I’ll be curious to see what they make in the future.
Getting back to this episode, I don’t really have much more to say. You can figure out the plot from reading the description, so your enjoyment is really going to hinge on how much you like the vibes when you watch it. The ceiling is low, but I think Sorairo Utility is on track to be a solid, charming comedy that might be worth watching more of. It does make me miss the chaos of Birdie Wing though…
