Kids on the Slope

## Kids on the Slope **Kids on the Slope** (坂道のアポロン, *Sakamichi no Apollon*) is a 2012 music drama anime produced by MAPPA and Tezuka Productions, directed by Shinichirō Watanabe with music composed by Yoko Kanno. Based on the award-winning manga by Yuki Kodama, it stands as one of the finest music anime ever made — a deeply felt story about jazz, friendship, and coming of age in 1960s Japan, shaped by the same creative duo responsible for *Cowboy Bebop*. It is 1966 in Kyushu. Kaoru Nishimi is a studious, reserved boy who has moved so many times due to his father's work that he no longer bothers making friends. Arriving at his new school in a small seaside town, he expects more of the same — until he encounters Sentaro Kawabuchi, a boisterous delinquent who happens to be a prodigiously talented jazz drummer. Their bond, forged over late-night sessions in Sentaro's uncle's record store basement, draws in Ritsuko, the shop owner's daughter who has loved Sentaro for years, and upends the quiet emotional walls Kaoru has spent his life constructing. Set against a backdrop of social upheaval and the arrival of American counterculture in Japan, the series moves through first love, jealousy, grief, and the transformative power of music played from the gut rather than the score.