The first episode of Kiniro Mosaic is out of this world when it comes to cuteness overload. Here we follow a young Japanese girl named Shinobu who, one day, decides to do a homestay in England. There, she meets the young and shy Alice.
The two children do not understand each other, however. After all, one is speaking Japanese and the other English. Despite this, they manage to break the language barrier and become friends for life.
This is a wonderful way to start Kiniro Mosaic. It shows how close Shinobu and Alice actually are, while telling the sweet tale with very few words. Many scenes only feature a magical soundtrack to tell the story of two foreigners forging a friendship.
Once upon a time, I actually had a similar experience myself. When I was young, my family and I travelled to Hawaii. At the place we were staying, I met another young boy who was around my age. He spoke English, while I spoke Swedish. At the time, I had just started to learn English, so I was far from good enough to actually speak with other people.
But this did not hinder our communications at all! We could play around the few times we met, and we actually battled in Pokémon too! It was not many times we met, yet we could communicate by visually showing what we meant. In addition, by speaking our own languages we could pick up on smaller details such as tone.
As a result, Kiniro Mosaic resonated with me during its first episode. My experience may not have been as amazing as Shinobu’s, but it is still a memory I fondly remember for what it was.
If you can only watch a single anime episode this year, then Kiniro Mosaic might be it.
Unless you have something against cuteness overload, that is.
Anime Viking 
The show’s greatness is for different reasons besides language barriers and semi culture clash. Although some may find it hard to believe, the theme was ongoing after the first episode.
Yes?
One of the best opening episodes of this year. That was something I tried to pick on in my UK post and failed miserably. Coming from England I loved how they got the little things spot-on such as Shinobu’s train ride…they could have chosen some old-fashioned steam train, but instead they chose an electric train (and the correct network for that part of the country, I discovered!) But I suppose one thing that bothered me was Alice’s English accent (which was instead American). That was a bit of an annoyance, but I soon got over it.
But as for the language barrier? Absolutely. I think it was a fantastic idea to have a good part of one episode about all this as opposed to what actually happened in the manga where there were only a handful of yonkoma detailing it all.
Seems like they did their research, huh 🙂
Her accent is understandable, though, since it’s the Japanese VA as far as I know.