Sakura Trick 1
This was such an empty experience that I'm not sure what to make of it. Ostensibly a yuri anime, but the lead couple are stock moe non-characters of the lowest and most bland, homogenized order; formless conglomerations of saccharine childlike traits that just happen also to be maybe-lesbians. It is such that even the lascivious portions are no more erotic than watching a pair of kittens frolic together. I am no expert when it comes to being able to discern what makes a "good" yuri couple or narrative, but in this show the characters' lesbianism is clearly not integral to their identities; it's just vacuous throwaway smut that's too overbearingly kawaii and underwhelmingly safe and vanilla to fulfill even that purpose. I also personally find that the character designs employ an aesthetic that I don't think "works" with yuri, but that's not so much a criticism as it is personal preference. The physical proportions aren't adult enough and every character has the same face.
This is all made even less tolerable by just how very perfunctory Sakura Trick feels as an adaptation; there is no attempt to obscure the 4koma nature of the source material. The episode is not cleanly divided into "skits" and yet so little effort was put into adapting the material for a full-length-episode animated format that you can effortlessly see where each panel begins and ends as you watch. Most of the "jokes" don't even have punchlines; it's almost all dreadful SHOUTING MAKES ANYTHING FUNNY anime humor. I credit the attempt to spice up the visual presentation with Hidamari-like use of patterns, colors, and abstract/minimalist imagery to represent states of mind, emphasis, and punctuation (the director is a Hidamari vet, to my knowledge), but the overall direction is not strong and some scattershot stylistic quirks are no substitute for actually good content.
tl;dr avoid if you demand something from your yuri even slightly above and beyond the mere presence of two girls kissing. It's dull.
