March Comes in Like a Lion

Rei Kiriyama is seventeen years old and a professional shogi player. He lives alone in an apartment, has virtually no personal connections, and carries a depression so heavy that some mornings the simple act of getting out of bed feels insurmountable. March Comes in Like a Lion follows Rei as he slowly, painfully builds a life worth living, finding unexpected support from the three Kawamoto sisters who adopt him as something between a stray cat and a family member, and discovering that the game he’s played his entire life can be more than just survival.

Shaft’s adaptation of Chica Umino’s manga across 44 episodes has been widely acclaimed as one of the finest anime of the 2010s. The show earned recognition from outlets including IGN, which listed it among the best anime of the decade. Community response has been deeply enthusiastic, with particular praise for the show’s treatment of mental health, its visual creativity, and the second season’s handling of bullying. The pacing is deliberately slow, which aligns perfectly with the show’s themes but may challenge viewers who need more narrative momentum.

Shaft’s Visual Poetry of Loneliness and Warmth

The animation in March Comes in Like a Lion is unlike anything else in anime. Shaft uses visual metaphor as a primary storytelling language, depicting Rei’s emotional states through water imagery, shifting color palettes, and abstract sequences that externalize internal experiences. When Rei is drowning in depression, the show literally shows him underwater. When warmth reaches him, the visual palette shifts with an immediacy that makes the emotional transition visceral. This approach transforms a story that could feel static into something visually dynamic without betraying its quiet nature.

The Kawamoto sisters, Akari, Hinata, and Momo, provide the emotional counterweight to Rei’s isolation. Their household is warm, chaotic, and unconditionally welcoming in a way that makes every scene set there feel like a refuge. The show earns this warmth by making the sisters fully realized characters rather than simple nurturing figures. Akari’s quiet strength in running the household, Hinata’s fierce loyalty, and Momo’s uncomplicated joy create a family dynamic that feels genuine rather than idealized.

The treatment of depression throughout the series is remarkably honest. The show doesn’t romanticize mental illness or use it as character decoration. Rei’s depression is depicted as exhausting, isolating, and resistant to easy solutions. His recovery isn’t linear. He has setbacks. Good days follow bad ones without clear cause, and the show respects this reality rather than imposing a neat narrative arc on a process that doesn’t follow one.

Yukari Hashimoto’s soundtrack moves between delicate piano compositions and more energetic pieces with precision, matching the show’s tonal shifts without ever overwhelming the quiet moments that define its character.

The Second Season’s Bullying Arc

The second season’s extended storyline about Hinata Kawamoto being bullied at school represents the show’s peak. The arc examines the mechanics of social cruelty with unflinching detail, showing how bullying operates through isolation, how institutional responses often fail, and how the experience affects not just the victim but everyone who cares about them. Rei’s determination to support Hinata gives him a purpose that accelerates his own growth, creating a narrative structure where helping someone else becomes a pathway to helping yourself.

This arc has been singled out by viewers and critics as some of the most powerful storytelling in anime during the 2010s. Its impact comes from the show’s patience in developing the situation across multiple episodes and its refusal to resolve it through simple confrontation or easy justice.

The Pace of Healing

March Comes in Like a Lion moves slowly by design, and that design choice will not work for every viewer. Episodes frequently prioritize mood and internal experience over plot progression, and the shogi matches, while thematically important, don’t always connect viewers to the game itself the way the best sports anime connect audiences to their respective sports. The show rarely explains shogi mechanics in detail, relying instead on the emotional states of the players to convey what’s at stake.

The tonal balance between Rei’s heavier material and the Kawamoto household’s comedy can feel uneven to some viewers. The show shifts between deep depression and slice-of-life warmth with a frequency that mirrors real emotional experience but can feel jarring in a narrative context.

Should You Watch March Comes in Like a Lion?

If you value emotional honesty in storytelling, appreciate visual creativity, or want to see depression depicted with genuine respect and nuance, March Comes in Like a Lion is essential. The second season in particular delivers storytelling that transcends genre categories. Skip it if slow pacing is a firm dealbreaker, if you need to understand the central sport to stay engaged, or if stories centered on depression and isolation are too close to home.

The Verdict

March Comes in Like a Lion is anime at its most compassionate, a show that looks at loneliness, depression, and the slow work of building human connections and treats all of it with extraordinary care. Shaft’s visual storytelling creates a language for internal experience that’s uniquely powerful, and the characters, from Rei’s painful isolation to the Kawamoto sisters’ fierce warmth, feel like real people whose stories matter beyond the screen. It’s not a show for every mood or every viewer, but for those who connect with it, March Comes in Like a Lion offers something rare: the feeling of being deeply understood.