The Sweeter Life – ‘Chio’s School Road’ Episode 10 Review

What’s the show? Chio’s School Road, Episode 10.

So what happened in this episode? There’s been a subtle, but nonetheless noticeable change happening to this show the past three or so episodes and now, with episode 10—the transition is more or less complete.

What are you talking about? From where this show was in the first few episodes; that is to say a gag-driven, almost sketch type comedy show. To where it is now, a character-driven comedy show, it may not seem like a big change but it’s kind of important to note.

Can you give some specific examples of this change? Of course. So, side-characters like Momo are being integrated more heavily into the narrative, expanding Chio’s circle of friends—the antics they get up to feel less over the top and outlandish and the comedy is driven from character interactions and knowing their personalities rather than outright ‘gags’. That’s not to say that things aren’t still silly and random, it’s just there’s less of a reliance on that.

And is that a good thing? Depends. I’ve seen a few comments complaining the show isn’t as funny as it once was and that’s a fair observation—it’s not as directly and immediately laugh-out-loud funny anymore. However the refocussing of this show on character development, world building and an overall more cohesive narrative experience ~feels~ like the right approach going forward, although…

Although? It’s the right approach for an ongoing series—for the manga for example, but this show’s about to end and presumably won’t be getting a second season so whether it needed to change is probably more the appropriate question. But if it happened in the manga then it’s only fair it happened in the manga—even if it feels late.

So what’s this episode about? Well Chio and Manana run across Momo the head of their school’s morals committee and she’s got a problem—she wants to buy some sweets and eat them immediately before school rather than saving them for later—something apparently rebellious. They stop into a small sweets store and it turns out that Momo is a completely different person under the influence of sweets. Basically it’s just a silly and cute segment of girls on a sugar high.

Momo’s version of “cutting loose” is adorably quaint.

And the other segments? In another segment that ties some previously disparate characters together—Chio comes across the butt-poking girl from Episode 7 and she discovers that she’s actually Ando’s little sister! And she’s on a mission—to find the girl who made her once tough big brother quit his motorcycle gang… and kill her! There’s a fun misunderstanding where little sister Chiharu thinks that the reason he quit the gang is because the girl was so good at “the sex”. And I mean what’s more interesting is the idea that they’re leaning into the possibility of the relationship between Chio and Ando—which I’m more and more okay with despite their age difference. (Turns out he’s only in his early 20’s…not that that’s legal, but it’s a bit better than I previously thought.)

I love how this anime censored the word ‘sex’ but didn’t censor the c-word back in Episode 2.

Right… so final word on the episode and how the show is progressing on the whole? I’ve already said a lot on it but I will add that I’m not ~quite~ as enthusiastic about the show as I was previously, while I’m more than happy with the character development and world building I think it’s sacrificed a little of what made it unique in the first place, which was this feeling that anything could happen. I’m still happy and enjoy this show every episode—just maybe not as much as I had been previously.