There’s a strange love to be found in small countryside towns. The silence of the streets, the mountains and fields isolating it from the rest of the nation, the older population typically wary of outsiders, the different speed with which time passes. The young tend to see such place as a boring hell, the old as a place to find peace of mind and rest. It is the same thing be it in Japan, US, Brazil, or anywhere in the world.

Sakura Quest is a tale tackling that aspect. Young Koharu Yoshino is desperate to find a job in Tokyo so she can avoid returning to her small hometown where nothing happens. Her attempts, however, seems fated to failure, and in her desperation she ends up accepting a job without knowing exactly what it is about. Well, it happens that this job takes her to Manoyama, a small rural town seeking to revive its tourism and attract a younger population. There she is stuck for an year to play the role as the “queen”, an ambassador tasked with promoting the town and attracting tourists to the place that was once known as the Kingdom of the Chupakabra.

Holy… what?

Yeah. Queen and Kingdom of the Chupakabra. You read it right. This small town made some success years ago by promoting itself with such name, but those years are long lost. It falls to Yoshino to be the head figure in this attempt to reclaim lost touristic glory. This premise leads us to a slice-of-life tale of a rural Japan where a group of young women, aided by some older citizens and other support characters, try anything possible to promote the small town.

It’s a charming tale

Sakura Quest is a light tale around this town and its inhabitants. They will promote festivals and events, try to sell goods, argue with conservative elders, and meet people with the desire to help the town find better years. It is a tale fitting to its animation studio: P.A. Works. If you’ve seen Tari Tari, or more importantly, Hanasaku Iroha, you know exactly what to expect here.

It has charming people

A slice-of-life cannot succeed without a decent cast, and fortunately Sakura Quest offers a solid group of diverse people to fill the screen. They are gorgeously animated within the stunning scenery of rural Japan and are backed by interesting personalities and tropes. Angry geezers, rebel teenagers, a wandering bard with the name of the author, and many more offer a support to our five main girls, all of them young women with decent everyday personalities who only fails when they end up acting more like high-schoolers than young adults.

It’s refreshing though

There’s a decent positive value in the age of the leading characters. Their hormones are not at sky-high levels as in high-school shows, so our five girls most often deal with problems using a perspective and a trail of thought more akin to the young adults they are. You get to know each of them throughout the show without the old-style dedicated episodes. Instead we have a development of this cast largely spread across every episode, giving a better sense of satisfaction with each of them and also rarely overflowing your screen with the same theme for multiple episodes.

It loses momentum though

Sakura Quest’s start is a joy. It offers a natural comedy aspect to it, the presented elders are funny people, the jokes are rarely forced and the only exaggerated elements are details, such as the absurd skill the IT girl has to develop websites and apps within a few days or how no one ever bothers with payment or bills. The charming start, however, grows stale around the middle of the show, when there is no major event at sight and you have already seen enough about each girl to understand them. It grows a bit tiresome, but…

It gets better

The second half fortunately change focus to the elder people of Manoyama and the lost past of the city. This change of focus is a refresher and helps the show to build momentum once again as you are presented to the lovely stories of Ushimatsu, Chitose, Daku, and also some other people. Comedy gets back to its natural state and there’s a decent amount of drama in this part, which can succeed in giving teary eyes if you are prone to them.

An amazing balance

The most important thing Sakura Quest does, however, is achieving a superb balance between the silliness most girls-only shows have and a lack of sexualization around the female part of the cast. It is always an entrancing show, much like Tari Tari, but hovering themes that are much wider and more interesting to an older audience. It evens get some nice dramatic moments by the end, but most of its successful parts are more about passing to you the natural sense of accomplishment of the cast as they complete their tasks.

This. This is the closest thing to the spot-on slice-of-life in recent years. Sakura Quest may feel silly due to its premise, but it ends up being an enjoyable ride where you never get truly pushed and is always gifted with charming events, satisfying closures, and a solid natural comedy. It gives you a good insight about the life in rural Japan, the hardships of citizens of small towns, and much more. Its silliness and carefree approach offers a good contrast to some of its realistic and well-performed happenings. Those who had a chance to experience something similar may find additional joy in this show.

You could say this is like a natural progression from Hanasaku Iroha, a show with similar aesthetics yet filled with plenty more lewdness and silliness, especially because the main cast always approached things through the mind of your typical teenager. Sakura Quest’s intriguing and charming cast is a true refresher against the hordes of high-school shows and, although sometimes they lose their young-adult behavior, it’s damn good to see a tale about people not going through puberty.