Arata Kangatari

The concept of two people switching places in each others worlds is interesting, particularly when nobody recognizes the person as being a different person. Problem is you really can't sympathize with the main characters when the conflict that shows up between the characters in the series is completely unrealistic and not grounded in how people would react in reality. In fact, it seems horribly forced just so the series could have some kind of conflict to it.

For example, the main antagonist was bullied when he was in middle school and he's just getting back to living a normal life only to find himself bullied by ... another person. While it is true that people do bully because they are jealous of other people, Kadowaki's animosity towards Arata doesn't seem any bit grounded in reality, particularly since the two used to be friends back in middle school. I say this because he got angry at something so trivial. Even though his father is the way he is, it honestly doesn't justify his personality problems as well as his persecution complex.

Another example is the conflict between Kannagi and Akachi. It's an argument that could have been resolved through simple conversation to find out what the actual situation entailed. Perhaps that is one of the major things that is lacking in this series, the inability of the characters to actually communicate with each other. One or two is understandable, but this is the majority of the cast that lack in the communication department. Which is why all of the conflict ends up being forced.

Because the conflict is forced, what amounts to an interesting idea ends up being bogged down. The story line is also bogged down with this need to have characters submit to another character. The whole concept is bothersome even with how Kannagi eventually puts it to Arata. It almost feels as if it is down playing war and trying to stuff it into a bag where the victor ends up being able to win without killing. Which in turn is completely unrealistic.

On top of this Arata... the one from a modern world... is horribly annoying with his poor pity me attitude. I know that he was abused, but while we see the bullying occurring, the justification for the bullying ends up being non-existent as there seems to be no realistic reason to justify Kadowaki going after Arata. Which means that the bullying is thrown in there to make Arata come across as a character needing to grow and not because the creator thought out the plot device enough.

As for my enjoyment... I liked the start, I liked the style, I liked the sound. There are a few characters that caught my attention to the point I might watch a second season if it comes out, but it's honestly not the most enjoyable thing in the world.

I started watching Arata Kangatari as soon as it began airing and being pretty interested in it, I also started reading manga. I am happy that this part of the show was totally along the manga storyline, which I find quite enjoyable. There are few bad parts of the series, but nothing extravagantly bad, I believe.

STORY: Story is pretty much cliche, which I find to be one of the "bad parts". It is a typical shounen "I wanna save the world" storyline, so nothing new. Some powers do seem refreshing and there is some character growth (I believe especially when it comes to Kannagi), ... but overall the idea is pretty much already used up in countless of similar shows which air every season. I do like the setting and the intersection of two worlds (even though this is deja vu also), so I can't say that I am a total hater of the storyline. It is not refreshing or innovative, but it is not boring either.

ART & SOUND: I gave high marks for both of these themes. Arata Kangatari has a typical bishounen art, I believe, so it isn't hard on the eyes. Body proportions, scenery, weapon and fight scenes are pretty much well done and manga is drawn nicely. It is not really Pikaso's artwork, but I don't find any great faults when it comes to art style. Sound is pretty good as well, imho. I really loved the opening scene (which is rare, I tend to skip them a lot).

CHARACTER: If I had to choose, I would say that characters are my favorite parts of this series. There are some really dull characters, but majority of them is quite enjoyable and easy to relate to (hence the mark 9, not 10). The dull characters are the main pair, Arata and Kadowaki. Arata does grow as the series progress and when he peels out of his whiny skin, he becomes interesting as well. Kadowaki, on the other hand, hasn't witnessed so much character growth so far. I have to bring to light Kannagi, Kugura and Yataka though, as they are really interesting in my opinion. Especially Kugura, whose story is seen in manga, because he depicts real problems that everyday human can relate to, insecurities and complexes. Another very interesting part when it comes to characters is Kannagi-Yataka relationship, as it is comedic and encouraging in the same time.

ENJOYMENT: When it comes to enjoyment, I gave it 8/10. The mark is pretty high, mostly because Arata Kangatari can get your adrenaline high in some moments and it is quite enjoyable. On the other hand, there is nothing new, therefore it didn't receive 9 or 10. Storyline can become repetitive and main ideas fall into the cliche category, which can become nerve wrecking sometimes. But as the series progress, you can really get to like characters and forgive most of the storyline faults for both storylines (Earth and Amawakuni).

the purpose of this review is to give a concise,detailed,subjective view on this anime with little of my personal opinions as possible, and avoid using strict numbers.

Story:Good (about a 7)
The concept is pretty unique i will say. The idea of switching roles with a different character, in a different world gives a refreshing perspective on the characters and you can feel their reactions and experiences because of this. However, the story progression is sometimes slow and the fight scenes are kinda dull. But that aside, its not a bad storyline.

Art:Fair (about a 6)
the art style is kinda generic, like what you might expect in most ... anime, but it isnt bad. The character animations are sometimes stagnant and you get the "moving mouth" talk scenes, but that isnt too often. The main reason i give it this score for the art is because you can tell the animation is lacking in an" intense" fight scene. But you will find that the backgrounds are done nicely and that helps quite a bit.

Sound:Fair ( about a 6)
the sound of the main characters are fine, and actually rather suits them though sometimes there can be a lot of screaming which you may or may not find annoying. The supporting characters, well some of them didnt sound too pretty. The OST is not too bad, it has a badass ending theme for the first part, the second half....still good, but not as appealing, since these are both OLDCODEX songs, you will find yourself subconsciously singing them in your head, i know i did. Other than that, the other music played in the backgrounds were rather forgettable, not really bad, you just are just apathetic to it.

Characters:Very Good (about an 8)
the characters is probably the strong point of this series. not necessarily because each character is done quite amazingly or that they are extremely dynamic, but their relations to other characters is wonderful. Some people try to say that Arata is a wuss or that these characters are annoying, but i disagree. Arata's character is done very well. I mean, i dont think you will be all macho and brave if you just suddenly dropped into a strange, foreign world. Of course you will be scared and freaking out, i know i would, and especially all the hell they put him through. But because of this, you can really see his psychological state and it was enjoying to watch him make decisions and take decisive action. The only character i kinda have issues with is Kadowaki and thats mainly because he really REALLY has some serious issues (you will understand it if you watche, or had watched the show), but maybe, a second season could clear that up. The remaining characters are done quite nicely, and you just have to find Kotoha adorable and sweet. However, like i mentioned earlier, the Bonds or relations between characters is this anime's best appeal. I can say that the background stories for each character and how it is carried out in the show is top-notch. You can understand why characters cling onto other characters and you understand each character's motives (despite how absurd) very clearly. Heck, i would watch the show just for that.

Enjoyment:Very Good (about an 8)
this is a rather enjoyable series to watch. most of the reasons have been stated, but i shall reiterate. To see how the characters react in this foreign world is great to see, especially since its done, rather realistically. Next, as a result, watching each character go through different psychological states adds flare to this show and makes the story progression feasible. Lastly, mentioned before, the interactions and background stories for characters is great and likely, most anyone would enjoy it.

Overall:Good (about a 7)
overall this isnt a bad anime, but dont take my opinions for granted, just watch. its not the most amazing anime i have seen,but its one thats likely to give you some entertainment and a few laughs here and there. The thing about this series, is when you watch it, dont try to be too critical or harsh, just go with the flow and enjoy.The storyline, characters, andeverything else, taken together as a whole, makes this a rather fun series to watch. though i will say...it can get kinda slow here and there and sometimes the characters do get you pissy, but thats not the whole show.

Thank you for reading this review and i hoped it helped out.

Arata. It's one of my favorite mangas, and I was excited to see an anime was going out. It was disappointing.

Sure, in the anime Arata is still a guy who wants to win without killing, but he isn't that much of a wimp.

Besides, in the anime the relations between the characters are worked out way better, for example between Akachi and Kannagi.

The main thing that bothered me is that they completely cut out my favorite character who was in fact part of the main cast; a crossdressing female. The reason she is crossdressing is because she is from the hime clan but doesn't ... have healing powers. This will eventually end up in a much larger plot involving the real world. In the manga there actually happens more in the real world too, making everything a lot more interesting. Will this still happen in the second season? Possibly. But seeing how Mikusa is cut out, big parts from the plot will be missing.

Good manga, bad anime adaption.

This is an enjoyable watch. The fantasy elements don't feel completely contrived, and the characters are above average on the believability scale. The main character is never the whiny little baby that some people will portray him as (though he does have some issues), and he does grow and change as a person throughout the show.

To those who found Kadowaki's hatred unbearable, I can only say this: I found it very true to life. Hatred seldom follows a logic others would understand (a concept that Jigoku Shoujo explores both thoroughly and believably). Someone may hate you for the ... smallest of slights, for being kind to them, or even for no reason at all. Once this person has decided to hate you it can be very difficult to avoid making things worse. If you ignore this person, he may hate you more and more. If you attempt to reconcile, your efforts may only feed his spite.

some other notes:
I'm still wondering why the switching thing was necessary. Effectively the same story could have been written with only the fantasy side, and the story doesn't do much with the Japan side.
This isn't exactly the best soundtrack to come from Outani Kou...

I will keep this short because there nothing to complicated about this series so let's review ( Arata Kangatari )

Story : Okay the story it's okay i went see what will happen to Arata is he gonna save the country if the princess still be Alive ..... But there something that i hate and that Kadowaki wants to kill Arata because he didn't beat him in a race and ( correct me if i am wrong please do ) but if this true will i have to kill my friend for not beat me in call of duty will over role it's an okay ... beside i think it's gonna be a second season so yeah will see


Art : well i don't very much to say about the art expect it's very good Special in fighting scenes in character dynamic


Characters : Will the main character has the most development of the others and there is others each on of them got a little development and this a 12 episode series so it's a good thing


Sound : well for me i didn't like any of the opening and ending and the music in the series it's self it's not bad but for me it's not memorable


Overall : the series is good i enjoyed watching it i hope they make another season overall it gets ... An 7 Out 10 ..... so i recommend you to watch it

As much as this is my ultimate favorite anime, I will try my best not to make this biased.

First of all, I found Arata Kangatari very enjoyable. I could look at the characters as friends, I could understand their decisions, and I could enjoy the story that was presented. I won't say it wasn't kind of childishly optimistic at times (for example, how easy some Shos submitted to him), but I didn't mind it.

> Storyline & Setting 9/10
Okay, a lot of people seemed to have trouble with this anime because they found Kadowaki's reason for hating Arata dumb. However, I'd like to say that ... to me it seems that the reason wasn't only that Arata let him win in a race. He was venting out his anger on Arata. (Kadowaki's family background, his competitive nature, never being cared about, etc.)
It's indeed kind of funny that they brought their drama to an other dimension, but I guess it made it interesting that way.
The story advanced maybe a bit too fast, some things weren't focused on enough (like fantasy world Arata), but you can't blame them, they only had 12 episodes to work with (and a pretty tight budget).
I could accept everybody's reasoning. Some people might disagree with me on this, but if you don't like something, then you don't. Personally, I find it awesome.
I also really like the whole trust and believe concept. It was a really good idea, and I think they made it all work out really well.
The only reason I give it 9 and not 10, is because, apparently, it failed to convey its meaning to the general public. I don't know how, because I could totally get with the flow...

>Soundtracks & Seiyuus 10/10
The. Best. Ever.
The soundtrack was composed by Ko Otani, and I was literally shaking sometimes, it was THAT good.
The voice actors also did a terrific job. I could have imagined someone else for Kadowaki, but it was okay. Arata's voice actor also helped the anime a lot.
The opening and ending themes were all wonderful, I listen to them a lot. I think they match the genre of the anime pretty well. Maybe a bit too generic for some people, but I found them perfectly fitting and epic. ( Ah, and in the final episode, where the second ED just floated in ;u; )

>Graphics & Art 6~10+/10
Hmmm... on one hand, the graphics were out of this world beautiful. The colors, the whole world that it was set in, the outfits, the character designs, everything was mesmerizing. I really, really loved those. The Sousei no Hinowa scene... I can't even describe it was so breathtakingly gorgeous. 10+/10
On the other hand, ... uuugghhhhh... I was so, so, so sorry to see this anime go from absolutely acceptable and colorful to "holy hell how can their nose be that big" and "how many frames is that, 1 frame / 3 seconds or what?"
But that was really the budget's fault, I believe. 6/10

>Characters 9/10
This seems to be the biggest point to nitpick on when it comes to haters. They say Arata needs to grow a pair, Kadowaki needs to chill his tits, etc. etc. I think these guys are realistic, a lot more realistic than your average shounen heroes I liked how in the final episode Arata didn't just say he didn't hate Kadowaki, or anything. Indeed it could help a lot if the two talked it out - or so I thought, until the final episode. You simply >can't< negotiate with Kadowaki. He is way too obsessed with smashing Arata already.
The one and only thing that I could nitpick about, is that I couldn't find a favorite character. None of them stood out much to me, I liked the whole thing in general a lot more than I liked each character individually. (Though this also kinda means that there wasn't any character that I didn't like. This could perhaps be the reason why so many people say that the show didn't keep them interested...?)

Overall I give the show a 9. In my heart it will always be 10+/10 absolute favorite, but I will also take into account that it had its ... hmm, "interesting" parts and that the graphics went full retard after the first few episodes (unfortunately)

Arat Kangatari, a anime about a young boy in high school who gets bullied a lot by an old ex friend and people who he thought are his friends get bullied as well into not being friends with him. Basically making the main character's life pretty miserable and to the point where he wants to disappear. Which in a sense . . he does, just he gets transported to another world or dimension, whichever you prefer to call it.
Arata our main character gets transported into another world and replaces another guy named Arata. Yet they see him as the Arata from their world, they don't ... see him as a high school boy who isn't tan and has black hair. Which he keeps it a secret from Kotoha since she was fascinated with Arata and has no idea he's someone else. Which soon later they start developing a little traveling group which consists of : our main character, a young girl who can heal, a bandit kid, and a cast out of the 12 cool group of warriors.
To give my opinion quite bluntly and honestly: this anime was a disappointment in my eyes. Take note I haven't read the manga yet, so I am uncertain if they even go into more details about anything. Though when I say this anime is a ' disappointment ' I am merely just disappointed at the potential that it held yet it felt like it was wasted entirely. You have a sword that is supposed to be the ' greatest ' and our main character holds that sword, but all it does is produce a simple barrier and not do really . . anything. That was a big disappointment, until the end of the anime where it actually does something different, yet it still didn't really improve much in the end except do some pretty looking rainbow moves.
All swords though that have special abilities were really unique in their own ways, which I really liked and enjoyed. Seeing how it'd be total bore if they were basically all the same and looked the same etc etc. Yet, they didn't really explain all too much about anything for the swords, if they even have a purpose, they didn't even give much information about the princess and what her purpose was. Or why they even did what they did to her in the beginning as well. It just made you sit there and think all the time ' And the purpose of this was . . ? '.
The story though was still good and pretty decent. It just seemed like a couple of times there was a couple of parts that were pretty unnecessary to have in there. Other than that, the story was completely fine. All stories have faults so there's nothing much you can do about that. The characters have some pretty good character development going on for them all as well especially our main character of course. His enemy though, well there's just not much going on for him. His enemy is just his old friend who hates his guts just because of a silly reason. To the point where he's fully willing to kill him, which brings another question, why is this guy so crazy about this and to the point where he wants to take up a sword and kill him ? The enemy's drive to fight Arata just seemed . . . like a completely weak reason to have any sort of hate toward him, bully him, or want to kill him. There wasn't really any drive at all it just seemed completely empty. It seemed like they were completely wasting the potential of a good enemy character, where they just give him a silly completely wasteful reason to come after him.
All in all, the story was good, it was perfect, but it was still good. The characters were also very good and I enjoyed each and one of them. All the enemies had a different outlook to them and it was very enjoyable. Enjoyment ? There wasn't really much enjoyment for myself as it seemed like most of the time it took all of my effort just to get through one episode. Things didn't really get interesting or good until the end which also just . . kind of ended in disappointment with what happened. I can only pray the manga goes deeper into the things that feel like it's missing and need to be explained. So overall I gave this anime a 6, it was a pretty good fair decent anime.
Would I recommend it ? Maybe. It would just depend if this anime is the sort of thing you're looking for and you wouldn't mind the issues that it had. I wouldn't say don't watch it though, as it does have some pretty good points to it such as the characters and development that it held. So if you're up to it, go ahead and watch the anime. Will you end up disappointed or not though would be up to you completely.

I am enjoying the series a lot and for the person bellow me saying how irrational and unrealistic how thee protagonist and Antagonist are actin toward each other is closer to a middle school teenage life than I have ever seen an anime go through. Those who say it's not realistic has obviously never experienced bullying and how irrational and idiotic it can get but being young, children are incapable of understanding and handling their emotions hence Kawaokis emotions. AT any rate, I enjoyed this anime series a lot and I am so glad I found it because new anime these days are getting very...weak ... and weird. I grew up watching anime and all the anime I have recently watching in the last 2 years is appalling.

The plot itself is unique and one of a kind. The difference in manga and anime is and will always be quite far from or close to. It's sort of a draw so do not expect the manga to be like the anime.

BOOKS WILL BE BETTER THAN THE MOVIE, MANGA WILL BE BETTER THAN THE Anime.

I haven’t read the original material, so I cannot say anything about how well/bad adapted it is, but I have a few things to say about this anime.

You have probably already read the summary; this anime is supposed to be a symmetrical Isekaï with two characters from different worlds switching places. One world is modern Japan, the other one is common magic-based fantasy universe.

Let’s say most of this anime revolves around the concept of TRUST, FRIENDSHIP and BETRAYAL. How can you trust someone? What does it mean? After being betrayed again and again by the ones you trusted most, would you be able to have ... faith in someone again? These are the questions you will continuously hear in this anime.

Despite having a quite original and very promising double-Isekaï structure, making people expecting the plot to take place equally in the two worlds with two MC, the show is mainly centered in what happens in the magic-based fantasy world, with only very few stuff actually taking place in the “real world”, and that is too bad because this anime could have been so much better…
I have read a few other reviews, and I understand that this is precisely what many reviewers, having read the manga, give it grief for ; some elements taking place in the “real world” have been set apart to prioritize what was supposed to be the main plot.

12 episodes for this anime is too short, it could have deserved a 24 episodes season. (Well probably a second season was originally planned, but they unfortunately did not proceed with it.)

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OK and now you ask: “cmon you have rated it 8/10 but so far you only have regrets/criticism for this anime, so is it really worth-watching?” DEFINITELY YES, this anime has very few members rating it, and most of them are probably manga readers disappointed by the adaptation, resulting in global 6.5 rating which is not really fair in my opinion.

Art is good, so is animation. Fight scenes are quite rewarding and the rhythm is fine. The character development is fair for the MC and his “rivals” Kannagi and Kadowaki. Overall, this is good anime, far better than most 2018/19’s Isekaï and definitely deserves above 7 global rating. I would personally rate it 7.5, so it will be 8 to increase the global.