あひるとくらす 1話

Extremely cute slice of life with a Duck theme

(Using volume 1 to review the whole series)

The first chapter of this series is completely dialogue-free which had me expecting more of a slapstick 4-koma style comedy, but this is actually a very cute and even educational slice of life story about a farmer who has a pet duck, and his interactions with his friends and family as they take care of the farm and the duck.

Despite the silent opening chapter, I was actually caught off-guard by how technical some of the words in this are. It's clear the author either did a ton of research about ducks or possibly owns ducks themselves, as the Duck information was very accurate. I was impressed to see a whole page explaining what Bumblefoot is and later on there's a scene where the duck wears duck shoes and duck diapers, which are real products that duck owners buy to keep their ducks indoors. In addition to the litany of bird and duck words, there are also lots of words pertaining to health, food, and even ballet. I get the feeling the author is writing from experience with these topics, as the attention to detail on those topics is just as in-depth as on the duck matters and at one point you even get a whole lesson on how to make dried tomatoes.

The story is simple, but also deeper than I expected. The farmer, Michio, lives on the farm with his duck, and his older sister, who teaches at a ballet school, brings an injured student to the farm to recuperate. The student, Futaba, helps out with duck and farm-related activities and we learn a bit more about what the slow country life means to both Michio and Futaba. If I have one critique, it's that Futaba leaves the picture pretty abruptly at the halfway point and while you kind of get a feeling for how things are going to go, I'd have still liked some more closure on him, though his departure does let the story take a more central focus on the duck, who is more of a background character in the first half.

The duck itself is great, it's funny but in the way real ducks are funny rather than being played up or cartoonified. The artist clearly spent a lot of time looking at ducks because the poses and behaviors it does are spot on. The only duck-related inaccuracy I can think of is that the duck should really have a second duck to keep it company, it's generally advised against to have just one duck, though Michio spends enough time with it that it's probably okay.

The artwork is simple, but effective. Characters are expressive and both humans and animals have lots of personality. The scenery looks great with particular attention to detail given to foods (and indeed there's some pretty great cabbage art as is anime law). I also loved the backgrounds, the winter chapters in particular had such a great cozy atmosphere it made me want a cup of hot chocolate.

This is a charming little series and anyone who loves ducks or animals in general will no doubt fall in love with it. I was thrilled to find that not only is there a sequel series, but also a third duck series currently going on, so hopefully we'll have more duck adventures for a good while.