In case you're not familiar with Okinawa's place in Japanese culture, the US has a convenient analog: Hawaii. Like Hawaii, Okinawa was an independent nation that was annexed by a larger and more militarized empire. Its geographical distance from its colonizer allowed it to maintain its distinct culture; however, it struggles to survive under the threat of fetishization and commodification by mainlanders, and the language especially is in danger of going extinct. Okitsura: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Knew What She's Saying is something like if a boy from Los Angeles moved to Hawaii and fell in love with an indigenous girl who speaks Hawaiian pidgin.

Of course, it doesn't get into the hairy politics of colonialism and critically endangered languages that I alluded to just now; it's a cute slice-of-life romcom-cum-edutainment series about daily life in Okinawa. The main character, Teru, has recently moved to Okinawa from mainland Japan and has a crush on his classmate, Hina Kyan. However, Kyan mostly speaks in Uchinaaguchi, the traditional language of the island, rather than Uchinaa Yamatu-guchi, which is closer to a dialect of Japanese with features borrowed from Uchinaaguchi. Fortunately, Kyan's best friend Kana is usually on hand to translate, but Kana has her own crush – on Teru!

The romcom elements aren't much to get excited about. Teru, Kyan, and Kana are nice kids and all, but not very interesting. All three's personalities are off-the-rack without any modifications to make them feel distinct other than their environment. Teru is a nice boy who's eager to get to know the girl he likes and learn about his new home's culture in the process, Kyan is energetic, and Kana is more reserved. They spend time hanging out, and every so often there's a comedic misunderstanding, most often because of cultural differences. Nobody ever makes a move, but every so often they get blushy and bashful.

No, the real star here is Okinawa and its language. To Okitsura's credit, it avoids feeling like a promotional anime by focusing on cultural facets of everyday Okinawan life. Every episode is interrupted several times for a brief discussion of a bit of linguistic or other trivia, narrated by a cute, cartoony little shiisa (Okinawan mythological figure). This makes the episode's pace odd, rarely lingering in a moment before rushing off to explain its context. Instead of, say, going to Shuri Castle or Churami Aquarium, Teru visits exciting local hotspots like the drive-in A&W, in the process learning that Okinawa is the only prefecture in Japan that has no trains. Rathering than trying to drum up tourism, it feels like the series comes from a sincere love of the local language and culture. It's all extremely charming if you're the kind of person who loves learning about this things, but no doubt a little dull if you aren't.

It's also a localizer's nightmare. Kyan's Uchinaaguchi dialogue came with Japanese subs, so fortunately whoever was in charge of the translation didn't have to muddle through a completely foreign language on their own, though they did transliterate it. Crafting an accurate, readable experience for English-speaking viewers required a huge amount of cultural knowledge and understanding of technical linguistic terminology. Outside of the clunky title with the inconsistent tense that I suspect was forced through by the Japanese licensor, they did an irable job, even if it's simply not possible to fully replicate the experience of the Japanese audience.

The primary trio is voiced by some of the Miyuri Shimabukuro, say, may not have the star power of the actress who voiced Jolyne Cujoh, but she's experienced and has proven herself to be more than capable of playing a lead character while also hailing from Okinawa herself.

Okinawa is a stunning place, which makes it all the more impressive how Okitsura resists the urge to focus on its famous scenery and instead set most of the action in the suburbs. After all, the items stocked in a department store clothing section and local products in the supermarket are far more relevant to daily life in the prefecture. There's still plenty of beauty to be found, but here it's found more in the mundane, such as the shiisaa statues that decorate the landscape. The most exotic thing about the production is easily the soundtrack; the background music and even the theme songs are dominated by sanshin, the three-stringed lute that is integral to the sound of the islands.

Here is where I it that I have a bachelor's degree in linguistics and Japanese, and often bring up linguistic trivia I just learned as a form of small talk; as such, a series like Okitsura is pretty much made for me. If you don't share my peculiar intersection of interests, however, there's not much about the show that's appealing. The characters are flat and basic, more delivery devices for cultural trivia than interesting in their own right. The animation is bright and colorful, but rarely impressive and eschews scenery porn of its famously scenic setting. No, you have to be the kind of nerd who finds digressions into the phonetics of a dialect fascinating to get anything out of this.