Sweetness & Lightning

Food really is the way to a person's heart

I am so glad I finally watched this! It's just so adorable and funny that you pretty much say "aww" and laugh throughout. Totally recommend!

If you like anime such as Flying Witch and Tanaka-kun is Always Listless, you'll love this done. It's a family friendly, feel-good slice of life anime, and you learn stuff from it too. Talk about win win.

Sweetness & Lightning is based on Inuzuka Kouhei and his kawaii daughter Inuzuka Tsumugi, and how they strengthen their father-daughter bond through cooking while making friends. Kouhei is a single-father and high-school teacher, and he doesn't know how to cook. So to get by he and Tsumugi basically ate store-bought bento everyday, whether at home or for school. One day he sees Tsumugi glued to the TV watching a food ad/show (I can't remember ^^') for a nearby restaurant, and that's how Kouhei's determination to learn to cook came to be. Helping him along the way is Iida Kotori, daughter of the woman who runs the restaurant featured in the ad/show, who turns out to be a famous cook. But Kotori doesn't know how to cook either, so she uses this opportunity to cook with Kouhei and Tsumugi and learn through her mother's recipes for dishes they want to make.

That is basically the whole of the story, with the addition of a few new characters along the way. They don't really add to anything, except that they join in on the cooking when Kouhei and Kotori try to make something new. Not that that I care about that; it's the relationship between Kouhei and Tsumugi and the food they make that take the limelight in each episode for me. The food looks so good and you could literally learn how to make the dishes since they go through them step by step. Sadly they don't give the quantities so you'd have to look those up. Can't get everything eh?

What I like about Sweetness & Lightning is that it's pretty much those two elements that the series relies upon to get things going. Like in some anime other elements are added in order for there to be character and story progression, but with Sweetness & Lightning nothing else is added, except for what happens in their lives outside of cooking, such as Tsumugi at kindergarten and Kotori at school. It's similar to Flying Witch in that sense; the series relies on the fact that Makoto is a witch and she's learning new skills in order to become a fully-fledged witch, and so lives with some relatives in the country. The same goes for Tanaka-kun is Always Listless; Tanaka tries to lead to peaceful and lazy life and sees if he can do so by limiting what he needs to and has to do, such as walking (he's carried around by hie friend). It is nice to come across anime that's laid-back and normal after watching a load of anime that's all about action, blood, twists and drama. For me that was Bungo Stray Dogs, Kuroko no Basket and a few episodes of Ace Attorney, the latter two which of course just have action and drama. And I recommend them all!

So Sweetness & Lightning is another one of those treats of an anime that you need after watching a lot of popular and action-filled anime. That break is welcoming and much-needed, and it's only 12 episodes! If the story doesn't persuade you to watch this, then come for the food. It looks delicious and you can learn new recipes! I want to learn to make crepes after watching one of the episodes, and hopefully I get round to making some in the next couple of weeks ^^. This is an anime I highly recommend!



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