Wave, Listen to Me! episode 1 anime review

In Wave, Listen to Me!, we’re dragged into Minare’s world: the world of a hungover and bitter adult, looking to regain some momentum in her life and ranting into the void whilst she waits.

Plot summary

Recently divorced waitress Minare spends an evening complaining about her ex, at great speed, to the random man that’s sat next to her in a restaurant. As fate would have it, he’s a radio producer, and he’s so amused by her story, or more specially, the deranged way that she tells it, that he throws her on-air to vent.

Is the Wave, Listen to Me! anime any good?

It takes time to get used to the sheer amount of words being spat forth by Minare: she isn’t the quiet, retiring type, but by the end, I was sold. She’s an endearing mess of an adult with a gale-force ability to rant. Wave, Listen to Me! reminded me of how I felt at first about the rakugo scenes in Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju; all of those weirdly long, meandering monologues, that slowly but surely pull us in. Over the episode, we’re dragged into Minare’s world: the world of a hungover and bitter adult, looking to regain some momentum in her life. Aren’t we all?

Wave, Listen to Me! anime production notes

I can’t say I knew this was an adaptation of a Hiroaki Samura manga, but suffice to say, I was pleasantly surprised! Only last weekend did I publish my end-of-series review of Samura’s Blade of the Immortal, a story that couldn’t be further from Wave, Listen to Me!! And yet here we are, 1 week later and another 12 episodes of a Hiroaki Samura anime to look forward to!

Speaking of odd fits, of all the anime studios out there to animate this, a comedy about a bunch of middle aged radio jockeys, Sunrise, the Gundam studio, would’ve been my last guess. I can’t complain though, they did a competent job, and lest we forget, Cowboy Bebop was animated by Sunrise too.

Finally, I just wanted to add that if you enjoyed Wave, Listen to Me!, I really recommend tracking down the live action Japanese film, Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald: a heartwarming comedy set in, you guessed it, a radio studio! It was almost certainly an influence on Wave, Listen to Me!.