‘Honey Lemon Soda’ premiere review: “Because I Met You”

A new year means new shoujo to watch! This year Honey Lemon Soda is the shoujo on the top of my list. Focusing on a shy protagonist and a flashy love interest,  I absolutely ate up the first episode. A nice slice of life romance anime that checks all the boxes for me is hard to come by, but so far Honey Lemon Soda is checking all of them from the start. 

What is Honey Lemon Soda about?

Uka Ishimori is a typical shoujo protagonist, kind of quiet and shy. She’s cute but a bit plain and that stands out against her flashier classmates. She runs into Kai Miura on the sidewalk as he helps her pick up some dropped papers, only for it to be revealed that they go to the same high school. When a couple of kids make fun of him at school one morning, he doesn’t say much of anything and instead sprays them with soda. Unfortunately, they manage to dodge the soda and Uka gets soaked with it instead. 

Fortunately, this gives Uka an excuse to find her confidence — and gives her a reason to talk to Kai after their run-in the year prior. There’s a little bit of secondhand embarrassment when Kai catches her practicing her good mornings. It’s fair to say that it verges on cringe, but Kai moves on from it without so much as a second thought. 

Initial thoughts.

The bullying that Uka goes through is almost too relatable. Her middle school classmates call her “Stony” because she doesn’t speak up when they make fun of her. It’s clear this is traumatic for Uka. She’s confused and apologizes when someone speaks to her. In an attempt to escape these bullies, she only ends up in the same school. But this time, she has friends that can back her up. The ending scene where she apologizes to Kai while smiling through the tears pulls on my heartstrings. 

This is shoujo so it’s likely the two of them are going to end up together. But the love shared between them as friends is important to highlight. For Uka, it’s implied that she doesn’t have any friends until that last scene of the episode. There’s a different kind of love in this scene and it’s obvious that Uka already has that love for Kai. I’d even say she loves the rest of his friend group as well for sticking up for her. This safe community full of care and love is exactly what Uka needs in order to change into the person she wants to become. All she needed was someone to say they were her friend. 

There is something about women manga artists and their ability to write in-depth characters and their dynamics with each other.. From the jump, it’s obvious that Murata-sensei is one such manga artist. She wrote a protagonist who knows her shortcomings and wants to change. But Uka isn’t boring. Instead, she’s a layered character with struggles that are difficult to overcome but she doesn’t give up. When someone finally reaches out to her, she’s able to hold onto their hand so she can finally start to change. The translation of this from manga to anime doesn’t always work, but it’s obvious that animators put a lot of effort into making it work for Honey Lemon Soda to get Murata-sensei’s intentions across.

Additionally, the animation calling back to older shoujo stylization is nice to see. The original manga began releasing in 2015, but it reminds me a lot of Ai Yazawa and CLAMP’s classic art styles. The big eyes, the pointy chins, the eyelashes. It’s reminiscent of the early aughts style that you don’t really see anymore, making it stand out from the other anime coming out this season. I know this style isn’t everyone’s thing, but the girls who get it, get it. 

Continue or quit.

Honey Lemon Soda is, at its core, an adorable trip down memory lane for someone like me who spent their teen years reading and watching shoujo. Uka finding a reason to better herself, even if it is for some flashy guy like Kai, is something that so many people can relate to. She’s a protagonist who makes me want to continue on the journey to see where she ends up. For a premier episode, Honey Lemon Soda checks all of the boxes. I can’t wait to see where season one goes. 

Honey Lemon Soda is out now on Crunchyroll.

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Images courtesy of Crunchyroll.