While anime with lots of exciting action is always fun, sometimes we need to slow down and smell the roses. One show I’m enjoying is Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku, aka Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, a relaxing slice-of-life from CloverWorks. Keep reading to see if this show is for you!
Akebi Komichi is a happy and energetic girl living in the countryside. She has one dream: to be accepted to Roubai Academy middle school, because that’s the school her mother attended years ago, and because she loves the school’s kawaii sailor uniform. Imagine her shock when she learns that the sailor uniform she so looked forward to wearing has been retired in favor of a modern “blazer” uniform, and she’s the only girl in school with the old uniform type. Can she manage to not stand out as a weirdo for having a different uniform from everyone else, and attain her goal of making 100 friends at school?
Why Do I Love the Akebi’s Sailor Uniform Anime?
Akebi-chan no Sailor-Fuku Makes Me Want to Become an Anime Girl
Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku is what’s known as an iyashi-kei or “healing” anime in Japanese. The beautiful scenery we see as we get to know the characters is extremely relaxing, and it seems nothing can ever be bad in the world they inhabit. It would be so nice if we could all have a simple and earnest life like Akebi-chan.
The Show Makes Me Wish Hana Kanazawa Was My Mother
One of the best characters is Akebi’s mother, voiced by HanaKan. The loving care she shows, raising her two daughters while her husband is away working, is really sweet. I especially love the scenes in which she chooses the fabric to make her daughter’s school uniform by hand with her own sewing machine. Anime moms are the best.
I Had an Experience Like Akebi-chan
Years before I came to Japan to found a hentai empire, I lived in New Zealand back in the 1970s, at the age of six. New Zealand is a country with British-style school uniforms, but my mother, bless her soul, didn’t know this. So not only was I the only American in the school, I was the only kid not wearing a proper uniform like everyone else. For an entire year.
In reality, school uniform culture in Japan can be a lot more flexible than it might seem in anime. At my son’s high school, students were required to wear “a uniform” but it could be any type they liked, and most continued to wear their uniforms from junior high.
Let’s Learn about Education In Japan Through Akebi’s Sailor Uniform!
Education systems can be very different across different countries. In the U.S., “public schools” are the normal elementary, junior high and high schools operated by local school districts in each city, and “private schools” are something rich kids attend. In the U.K., Wales and New Zealand (Wikipedia tells me), municipally-operated free schools are called “state schools,” while the term “public schools” refer to expensive private schools. Confusing!
Here’s a rundown of how education works in Japan:
- First, there are locally operated elementary and junior high schools that provide education to everyone regardless of income. Pretty much everyone attends whatever school is closest to them.
- Private schools exist and offer a more prestigious option for parents. Often these schools have a long history dating back to the Meiji Era and have roots as missionary schools. Although Japan isn’t really a Christian nation, the junior high school my daughter attended was, and so she received education in the Bible in Japanese in addition to her other courses.
- Private schools always require a difficult university-style entrance examination, even for junior high-aged kids. Akebi-chan’s Sailor Uniform cutely captures the madness of this intense study period, which affects the whole family. Smart parents will find a school that lets their children pass an entrance exam once, then stay inside that system until final graduation, sometimes all the way to university.
- High school is not part of compulsory education in Japan, and is “optional”…though the social stigma of being chuu-sotsu or only having a junior-high-school education is huge, so most students attend. But there are many different kinds of high schools available: high schools that prepare you for university, and high schools that teach you a trade like agriculture, engineer, or (in one case I saw) to service commercial aircraft.
- Mrs. J-List happened to go to Isesaki Commercial High School where she learned all sorts of useful things like bookkeeping and accounting, which help us run J-List successfully. By random chance, her school can be seen in Nichijou.
- In the show, Abeki-chan is excited to go to a big school where there are “more than ten students” in each class, because she’s in a super rural area in which she’s the only student. This sounds extreme, but J-List’s onahole and DVD buyer went to a rural school that had just 16 students in his grade.
- Homeschooling isn’t a thing at all in Japan. It’s considered joshiki (common sense) that students will go to school to learn and socialize with all the other kids.
What Akebi’s Sailor Uniform Can Teach Us About Uniform Culture in Japan
But why do school uniforms even exist, with students all required to buy the same shoes, uniforms and school backpacks as all the other kids? Let’s let the great modern philosopher Kobayashi answer that question:
“It’s to erase the differences. Differences between boys and girls, or Japanese and foreigners, so that everyone is exactly the same. That’s important.”
Put another way, school uniforms are a kind of “great social unifier” that makes all students the same in the context of education. It might be one reason why an incredible 92% of Japanese describe themselves as being “middle class,” despite some of them driving nicer BMWs than others.
Want to learn to draw? J-List has dozens of great books, including how to draw school uniforms! Browse them here!
Like many things, Japan’s school uniform tradition came from the late 19th century when the country was closely following “Great Britain-senpai” in all things. Basically, the British practice of dressing up children in sailor uniforms seemed ridiculously kawaii to the Japanese of that era, and they adopted this as their school uniforms starting in 1920. Sadly, as is indicated in the Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku anime, sailor uniforms are mostly on their way out, going the way of the old-style school swimsuit in favor of “blazer” type uniforms.
Thanks for reading this blog post about the adorable Akebi’s Sailor Uniform anime. What shows are you following in the new season? Post below, or reply to us on Twitter!
We’ve got great news! All the new anime magazines for the month are in stock and ready for you to browse and order! As usual, they’re filled with gorgeous illustrations, with 18+ posters for you in Megami Magazine, great posters and other visuals in Newtype, plus a complete 2022 shimapan calendar in Dengeki Moeoh. Browse the new magazines here!
