OKITSURA: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Know What She's Saying

High school student Teruaki Nakamura has transferred from Tokyo to a school in Okinawa. Here he develops a crush for local girl Hina Kyan; there is just one problem; she speaks on Okinawan and he can't understand what she is saying! Luckily Hina's friend Kana Higa acts as a translator; of course this being a romantic anime she soon develops feeling for Taruaki. While the viewer is enjoying the story they also learn how Okinawa is different from mainland Japan.

I thought this series was rather fun. The main characters are likable and fun to watch. There are plenty of laughs to be had and we also get to learn about Okinawa. The asides about cultural differences are done in an entertaining way and don't distract from the story. I liked how when characters spoke in Okinawan the subtitles didn't translate them unless there was also an onscreen translation into Japanese. The animation is solid and the character designs are good. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of anime romance and school age comedies.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.

This is a very cute and simple love story and you get to learn a lot about the dialect from Okinawa while watching. The problem here is, All the shows premise is around the fact that they speak in completely different dialects. And if you're watching this subtitled and you don't know Japanese, a lot of the humor is going to be lost. They do an okay job explaining some of it but a lot of the pronunciations are not going to make sense and a lot of the humor around the accent is also not going to make sense.

Regardless, I enjoyed the few episodes I watched and I think you will too if you're into simple romantic and comedic stories.

Most modern anime tend to focus on the same geographic areas of Japan, so the idea of showing us Okinawa and all its cultural differences is a great one.

The chosen format is quite simple and not very original: we've got a group of high school students, shy romances, and lots of first-time experiences-the usual. The one small twist is the use of dialects, since Okinawan Japanese differs a lot from the standard spoken in the capital. They use that constantly as a fun excuse to introduce interesting facts.

Although overall it's nothing extraordinary-technically average, with fairly generic character designs and a story we've seen a thousand times...

It's really fun! And if you have even the slightest curiosity about Japanese culture, it'll hook you and make you want to keep watching.