Ranked #3412

Aoi Umi no Tristia

Aoi Umi no Tristia certainly would appear to have a lot things going for it, upon just looking at the picture you might feel its a cute shoujo with lovable characters and a heartwarming story, and while it does indeed have it in this two episode OVA, its a shame that it does it so by the book!

Story: 5/10
Well there isn't much to it, basically it has Nanoca (our young heroine) fighting battle after battle by way of her own huge mecha called Golems which she herself created, and at this point I was instantly reminded of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, but with robots! Which honestly, this series is basically a combination of. There really isn't anything else to comment on about it, basically she must prove her skills as the best of her kind by defeating her rival who challenges her.....and that's it! It can be said though, that if you love this kind of storyline (what with the one on one monster styled battles)then you will definitely be drawn into the story. I just wish they could have come up with something to give it a bit more distinction from the other titles like this, the Golems themselves just weren't enough to do so. To be fair though, there were a few scenes in this title that made me think: Hmmmmm, I wonder how she will get out of this pickle? I also feel I should warn some of you that in episode 2, Nanoca and her friends are enjoying their time at the bath house, and the animators may animate their little female bodies a bit too much for some viewers, so just expect there to be a little light nudity.

Art: 7/10
The creativity that went into the animation is nice, the artwork is pretty good to look at, though no where near as sharp or colorful as other titles out there. But the style of clothing and characters themselves (while some may feel lean more towards the generic side) are well detailed and fun. All the ladies have distinct hair colors, which is good because its pretty much the only way you distinct some of them from each other, since they don't play much of a part in the over story.

Characters: 6/10
Honestly the only ones I got to really know as far as characters went, was Nanoca and her rival, all other supporting characters would stay in the background, and seemed to only pop up when necessary. Their personalities are fair, but again its the same kind we have seen before. (ie. the main girl who doesn't have confidence in herself, the out spoken rival etc.) Their not bad, just lack style and substance.

Soundtrack: 8/10
The best part of the title for sure, it really gives you a sense of adventure and sea filled excitement. All done with large orchestral scores that fill the background for most of the two episodes. I swear, I was actually humming along to some parts! The opening and closing theme work well enough, but felt a bit out of place and seemed like they would have worked better with a romance dating title. (which this title contains none of) The character voices themselves were appropriate, but I never got a real thrill from them, as most sounded pretty basic and lacked an over all sense of excitement to them.

Bottom Line: 6/10
Aoi Umi no Tristia was a nice little experiment with the whole seaside theme and Golem style battles, it just never went to any length at being a better title than it could have been. I really wanted to love this series........I really did. Its an alright watch if your looking for something cute yet action packed to fill your time with. It just doesn't do any of it in a particularly memorable way. A descent enough watch though. read more

Aoi Umi no Tristia (Tristia of the Deep Blue Sea) is another example of a series that just throws together cute girls, mechs, explosions, fan service and hopes enough suckers will watch it. Consider myself hoodwinked.

The plot for Tristia starts off simple enough, with a domestic Golem (mecha) competition. Yeah it’s what it sounds like, robots doing housework... exciting huh? Of course it soon turns into mecha battles between rivals Nanoca and Panavia. Panavia seems to be bent only because she finishes second in every inventor contest the two of them entered. There is a mysterious man seemingly behind Panavia who is after information about Nanoca's mecha Tenzan. This might have proved to be an interesting plot element, except for the fact that there is no resolution to it! None, zero. So when the show is over it doesn’t really feel like it ever ended and leaves you with an unsatisfied feeling. Well that is if you could work up enough emotion to care about the story in the first place.

In addition to the bland unfinished story there is unrelated bath scenes, boob jiggle and other examples of pointless service. The action isn’t good enough to be noteworthy either. They aren’t exciting or interesting and the battles between the mechs have a feeling of been there, done that. The script is also pretty silly, with a lot of dialogue that will just make you wince. This could have been the translation, but call it intuition, I suspect it is equally cringe-worthy to native Japanese speakers over the age of 15.

The characters could best be described as bland. They are all stereotypes of personalities everyone has already seen many times over. While the girls are all cutely animated that’s about the most redeeming feature any of them have. We learn almost nothing about any of them, besides a little back story about why Panavia dislikes Nanoca and we get a little of her background mainly in passing. Honestly you will learn more about the characters and the town of Tristia by reading the plot summary than by actually watching the anime.

Animation is good but not great. The characters are cute looking and the backgrounds are pretty good but the fights and action aren’t spectacular. Despite having a couple of respected actresses, I would have to give low marks to all of them. Mostly due to the poor material they had to work with. I found the music, in particular the background sound to be really dreadful and cheesy.

In the end, Aoi Umi no Tristia has few redeeming qualities. There are a few laughs but overall it feels uncompleted and boring. It doesn’t have enough mecha action to appeal to fans of that genre nor is the fan service good or even plentiful enough to attract fans of that. Spend your time with something else.
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