Nagi no Asu kara

"No, things can change. But things don't have to change. Whatever is fine." -Sakishima Hikari

Change is a constant in our lives that can drastically alter the way we perceive the world. It is necessary for us to grow and evolve, even when we don't want it. Nagi No Asukara (凪のあすから）was a show that was overlooked by a large portion of people at the time of its airing. At face value, it looks like the typical slice of life anime but hidden underneath is a show that tells a heartfelt coming of age story of children who face the scary reality of growing up. Like ... any anime, things are heavily exaggerated but the emotions expressed in the show are ones that all of us have encountered at one point in our lives.

Story: 7/10
The story takes place in a fantasy world where the people are divided in to two groups: the people of the land and the people of the sea. We follow the adventure of a group of 5 children from the the sea as they begin their new school lives at a middle school located on the land village Shioshishio. The two factions (the people of the land and the people of the sea) have been at odds for quite some time, and the discrimination shown by both groups is a common point of conflict throughout the show. The show contains subplots of romance/drama, which only complicates the conflict our main characters have as the show progresses. The series is split into two arcs, the first arc spanning episodes 1-13 and the second arc episodes 14-26. From the two, the second arc presents a much more serious tone as the anime dives deep into the characters' emotions after a major event that occurs at the end of the first arc.

Art: 10/10
If only I could rate this higher. This series is animated by P.A.Works, a company known for their beautiful animations and settings. You immediately are taken by the beautiful scenery in episode 1 and I believe gets betters as the anime goes on. The characters are well drawn and have a good design, and the amount of detail put in to this is astonishing. Nothing more to say.

Sound: 10/10
Another strong point of this anime. What makes the scenes so powerful and emotional in this anime is the OST. Each track is composed beautifully and they are placed in at the right time to the have the greatest effect on the viewer. You could listen to each individual track and you would love each and every one of them. The OP and ED for both the first and second arc are probably the best openings I've seen and heard. They both match the theme of each arc perfectly and is animated beautifully. The first OP is very light hearted and happy, which relates to the beginning, but then the second OP has a much sadder tone to it, emphasizing the seriousness of the second arc. It's just a very good OST.


Character: 7/10
The characters in this show are very good. All, except maybe with the exception of two(Manaka and Tsugumu), always develops every episode. One thing NagiAsu did right was develop the side characters as well. You get to see everyone grow and and change throughout the course of the story. I can't say much more about the characters, as it might spoil the anime, so I'll leave it at that.

Enjoyment: 7/10
I did enjoy the anime as every episode aired, but some episodes were just so packed with dialogue that it got boring on some parts. If if you aren't a fan of dialogue-heavy shows, I would recommend skipping this show.


Overall: 8/10
Overall, Nagi no Asukara was a fantastic anime. Almost everything was done right and the story kept you intrigued and interested the whole entire way. You really grow close to some characters and the way the show deals with deeper subjects is handled quite well, aside from the high school drama that is mixed in. This anime was overlooked and brushed over when it was airing, so if you happened to miss it back in 2013, I HIGHLY recommend watching this now, because you won't regret it.

Nagi no Asukara is a story filled with love, both the painful side of love and the wonderful side of love. The pain of not being loved by someone you love, the pain of loving someone who love someone else is what is portrayed in the story. An aspect of loving others and caring for others more than their own feelings. Both fullfilled love, and unfulfilled love that turned out differently is being amazingly shown in this anime.

Nagi no Asukara is also filled with adventures, surprises and unexpected love between the seven main characters in the story. If you are expecting development between characters, romance, ... tragic and happiness this is the anime for you.

The main reason for me writing this Review was the fact that this is the ONLY anime by far that had made me cried thrice through out the 26 episode story. I love how amazing I was moved by this anime.

--- CAUTION! THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SOME MINOR SPOILERS! ---

I don’t know what I was expecting based on the synopsis when I started watching Nagi no Asukara, but I sure didn’t expect this.
Of course, I knew it wouldn’t be dark and mysterious like some other anime, but I never knew I would wind up watching slice of life - one of the genres I avidly avoid because my action-longing heart just can’t take it. Or, maybe I’m too immature. Whatever.

In brief, at the start, Nagi no Asukara seemed to be just a slice of life with a little bit of fantasy and too ... much romance in it. Something that made me want to bang my head on the table. I support that, still, but only for half of the anime. But, let me elaborate on that in a less confusing way. So, as tradition goes, let us start with the story element.

What I’m going to do for this review, in particular for this story part, is divide the anime into two parts. Part one, episodes 1 - 12 and part two, episodes 13 - 26. I have to do this because the parts are vastly different in many aspects.

Let’s start with part 1. As I said before it’s a slightly boring slice of life with a little bit of supernatural in it - there are some people who live in the sea. This causes some minor complications such as prejudice, getting a fish in your knee and Ena drying up.
There were also some interesting but seemingly useless plot line points such as the preparations for the Ofunehiki which felt like plain filler. Well, not exactly in that sense - I felt like they were trying to use that to establish character relations, which may be a good thing, I guess.

What was abundant in this anime was romance, so I will be focusing on this a lot. Whilst I did like it some of the time, the thing is that it was plain annoying the rest of the time. Right from the first episode a guy in my anime club said, and I quote, “Those damn love triangles.” And that’s from the first episode.
In truth, it’s waaaaay past love triangles. As I like to say, love pentagons, but it’s actually love heptagons. Seriously. All the characters have some ties in between them, drawing a complex web. It’s very, very annoying, and I hate it. It had me bashing my head on the table and exclaiming “Seriously?!” more times than I can count, especially at times when nine year-old girls fall in love with fourteen year-old boys at first (okay, okay, maybe second) sight. That, I cannot accept.
There was also an overload of mush in both parts. Characters talking about their complex feelings for other characters which just plain pissed me off.
Sometimes, the romance did lead to other points - such as the apparent tabou of sea/surface relations - but once again, tastes like filler, not entirely, but mostly. Not that I’m complaining though, because in the end, it does serve to something, I guess.
To finish off my rant on how I hate romance, I’ll say this: it wasn’t all bad. Some parts were cute. I admit it. *tsundere style* But it’s not like I enjoyed it or anything…
Overall, I found the first part of Nagi no Asukara a slice-of-life anime, which however has some complications coming up. I wasn’t forcing myself to watch it, but the first episode didn’t quite meet my expectations, and it didn’t contain any of what I call the OMG factor. This is the thing that leaves you hanging at the end of one episode and you just have to see the next.

On the the second part. This is where things take a drastic change for the better. It suddenly acquired a good dose of mystery and thus OMG factor.
Firstly, it’s not really slice of life anymore. It has more of the supernatural element in it and whilst the love heptagons still stand, I guess it’s not as bad. It was great seeing some of the characters grown up.
This was far more interesting because, as I just said, it abandoned the slice of life part, and added a little bit of mystery, I daresay. There’s the whole element of the forced hibernation and the snow and all that. It is great when characters start reappearing again, but I find it a little weird that of course it’s the main protagonists who show up. Why not the others? But then again, that would probably lead to some more wasted episode time.
Episode thirteen is pretty much a bridge between the two parts, and it did get more interesting. I have a few complaints on the cliché-ness of the show which I just have to mention here, because I hated how Manaka offered to be the Ojoushi-sama. That ‘unexpected’ heroism has been done about a thousand times before.
Back to the topic. Whilst the general plot of the second part was a lot more interesting (incidentally I won’t elaborate on it much because I would have to recount the whole story), it still had several issues. One was the Ena. I swear, suddenly all the characters have it. Just jump in the sea and almost drown to get free Ena.
Another issue was that Miuna became the main character. It’s not that I don’t like Miuna, but she became really annoying, especially how she keeps thinking about her love with Hikari and how he doesn’t love her back and yadda yadda yadda tears and torment etcetera. I understand she is in love with Hikari, that was decided in the first part, but she just became so annoying with her thoughts that I felt like either shouting at her to shut up (or stop thinking) or slap her. Of course, I could do neither, so I bashed my head on the table instead.
The final issue is the romance - it hasn’t changed much. Hikari is overly obsessed with Manaka. Almost all the girls are in love with Hikari. No one but Sayu loves Kaname, who in turn feels like a third wheel (hahahahahaha third wheel). Everyone doesn’t realise that someone else loves them because they are too obsessed with someone else. There is a general soppiness and love tangle, but not as bad compared to the first part.
There also was one point where I just smacked myself on the forehead because pretty much the same thing was going on as in an earlier episode, but I won’t elaborate for sake of spoilers.

To summarise the plot part in general, I feel as if I have been too sarcastic. Whilst it may not be exactly the genre that I like, it was slow-paced at the start and I found myself exclaiming “Seriously?!” a number of times, the plot was quite good, very sweet and funny at times (I laughed a fair bit), sometimes, especially in the second part, I felt very strongly about certain things. All in all, I did not force myself to watch it by any means. I really cannot decide on what I feel about the story. At the start, it wasn’t so great, but I really enjoyed the second bit. I give the first part a 6 and the second an 8, which makes an average of 7.

Art was really high quality - the animation was good, scenery was absolutely beautiful, characters as well. I absolutely loved the eyes. Some of the characters were so cute! It also fitted the context.
I was impressed with the art and thoroughly enjoyed it - for this, I give it 9.5.

As usual, I don’t have all that much to say about sound. It was good, and although I would have loved to hear more music, the music that was there was beautiful. Some of the themes were quite emotional.
One thing that did bug me was some of the voices. Like how Miuna’s voice is deeper than Akari’s, who is an adult. But, since it does happen in real life (kind of), I’ll let it slide. I really hesitate between 8 and 9, so to avoid too many decimals, I'll give it a 9, because I really did love the music.

On to characters.
Character development was very good. I feel like I got to know a bit about every character. Nevertheless, I feel like I just can’t put my finger on some of the characters. Like if someone asked me to describe Chisaki’s or possibly Kaname’s character, I wouldn’t be entirely sure what to say. For this reason, I just can’t be 100% happy. Also, I didn’t develop a favourite character until much later in the show, which isn’t a very good thing.
Another problem was how the characters were a little too similar. This isn’t entirely true, but sometimes I just felt like they possessed too many similar traits.
The final issue for me with the characters was Manaka. She was cute and nice and all, but I just could not stand her childishness.
Making sure to include the positive things, let me say that I did feel quite strongly for the characters after a while. For instance, I was dying to see Hikari cry, for some reason. I also think I understand why all girls are falling for him. :3
I would give characters an 8 because they were quite good, and I liked them (in general), however I feel as if they could have been so much better. Because of this, I lower the score to a 7.

Enjoyment wasn’t all that high at first, I would give it a 6 or a 6.5, because as I said, it was a slice of life, and there was so much fluff that sometimes I felt as if I was eating cotton balls. However, the second part was much better, and I enjoyed it a lot. I watched quite a few episodes in a row every night and couldn’t wait to get home from school to keep watching. Once, I even watched an episode at school. I would put enjoyment at a 7.5.


Overall, to sum up everything I said in this review:
This anime wasn’t quite up to scratch for the first twelve episodes, being very slow-paced and sometimes a little melodramatic in my opinion, and there were a few cliché elements, but after that the story became much more interesting. The romance was a little bothersome considering there were so many love triangles I was bashing my head on the table, but it wasn’t all bad. Characters had good potential and good development but could have been better. Art and sound were great, but I wish there was a little more music. Enjoyment went up with the plot line. I’m glad I watched this anime, and I enjoyed it.

Story: 7/10
Art: 9.5/10
Sound: 9/10
Character: 7/10
Enjoyment: 7.5/10

Overall: 8/10

A/N: I was actually originally planning to give this a 7, (and actually still think that maybe I should do so) but after having to rewatch a few episodes because my internet was really slow so it kept pausing every 5 seconds, I was surprised to realise that I actually liked it more than I had originally thought.
Thank you to animele220! It is thanks to youthat I found out about this anime! *clap clap*

Oh, and thanks to all who take the time to press 'Helpful' or 'Not Helpful'. If you have some time on your hands and pressed the 'Not Helpful' button, please comment on how I can improve my reviews! :3

The whole premise of Nagi no Asukara is truly captivating. The story takes place in a setting fully involved with water, which is so cool. The animation / art style done by P.A. Works with the water is outstanding. The show is completely BLUEtiful and there are some scenes that are just straight up gorgeous. With so many characters in the show, each character gets amazing development, thus leading to amazing attachment to the characters. Not to mention the amazing soundtrack this show has, which I can not get myself to stop listening to. The transition from the ending of an episode to the ending ... is extremely beautiful and catchy.The romance in this show is done very well and can sometimes lead to happy moments, and sometimes lead to very dramatic moments. Though the story may seem like it starts off very slow at first, I took it a little casual. Halfway through, about ep. 13, I was hooked with the suspenseful plot and had to marathon it. This show is definitely a 10/10, and it is at the very least, a must-watch.

Nagi no Asukara was by far the most unexpectedly amazing show I've ever seen. The shaky first episodes made me think about dropping it, and I'm really glad I didn't. It's a spectacular show, and without a doubt the best romance anime I've ever seen.

Story: 8/10

Here's the plot synopsis, if you haven't read it:

"Long ago, all humans lived in the ocean. But some who longed for the land abandoned the ocean, casting off the special raiments granted to them by the sea god to adapt them to life under the sea...

Though mankind was divided into sea dwellers and land dwellers, each with different ways of ... thinking, they were all still fellow humans, and they continued to maintain contact as time went on.

Sakishima Hikari, Mukaido Manaka, Hiradaira Chisaki, and Isaki Kaname live in an undersea village, while Kihara Tsumugu lives on land.

When these middle school second-year land and sea dwellers meet for the first time, their hearts begin to undulate like the tides.

The youthful fantasy tale of these young people's lives unfolds in a strange and beautiful world."

Basically, a small group of children from an undersea village called "Shishishio" begin to attend school on the land. They possess "Ena", which allows them to breathe underwater. The show follows each of these people, and has some interesting twists and turns throughout the way. The story is something new and interesting, and it is for the most part very good. However, it's far from perfect. There were times, especially during the end of the show, where it felt like the story wasted a lot of its potential. It's hard to explain in detail without spoiling it, so I won't try. Basically, the story is good but isn't the best thing about the show.


Art: 10/10

If you're familiar with P.A Works, you already know what this show is going to look like. The art, especially the backgrounds, is absolutely spectacular. The underwater setting led to some of the most beautiful backdrops I've ever seen in anime. If you're into watching shows for the art, look no farther than NagiAsu. You won't be disappointed.


Sound: 9/10

I've given the soundtrack a few listens, and it's extremely good. Dewa Yoshiaki does a great job, and the music complements both the emotional and cheerful scenes almost perfectly. The cheerful music is pretty repetitive though, which I think is something I only noticed because I replayed the soundtrack over and over. Overall, excellent sound design.


Character: 9/10

The characters in Nagi no Asukara are developed masterfully. The main character, Hikari, starts as an insufferable prick and becomes increasingly interesting as the show goes on. The same can be said for most of the other characters. There are, of course, a few exceptions. There is one character who is important to the story and doesn't change at all throughout, and a lot of the characters can grate on you and get annoying at times.


Enjoyment: 9/10

Nagi no Asukara struck a lot of chords with me, and I enjoyed it immensely. The fantastic presentation always kept the show interesting, and the story was interesting enough to have me coming back every week wanting resolution. As stated previously, the characters can be annoying, which kept my enjoyment from a 10.


If you're looking for a romance anime that's more than a little out of the ordinary, then Nagi no Asukara will be a great watch.

To describe this anime with a word, it would have to be "breathtaking". Nagi no Asukara, or Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea is a heartwarming tale about breaking the limitations of society and going against what is commonly believed in. While the story may seem similar to many other titles, Nagi-Asu takes an alternate method of telling it, by taking the perspectives of a wide but extremely charming cast of characters and allowing us as viewers to experience the thoughts, emotions, and values that each character holds so dear.

Visually and audibly, Nagi-Asu does not disappoint, with stunning backgrounds and a beautiful soundtrack, further ... adding to the appeal of the anime. From the very first episode, the artwork of Nagi-Asu can easily be compared to those of a photograph, providing an über-realistic representation of the supernatural setting, which allows viewers to truly immerse themselves in the story.

So if you haven't yet, drop whatever you're doing and go watch Nagi-Asu, as an experience like this doesn't appear very often.

Just sit back, relax, and allow yourself to be immersed in the breathtaking masterpiece that is Nagi no Asukara.

Change is something that exists as a part of everyday life. One day is different from the next, and people all over the world must adapt to the different circumstances or problems that are placed in front of them, such as having to deal with a suddenly harsh winter, food shortages, and the loss of a family member. As one of the few shows from the Fall 2013 season that had a large episode length, Nagi No Asukara, or a Lull in the Sea, explains the topic of change extremely well, as contrary to its name, a lull it is not.

Writer's ... note: There will be a lot of water metaphors, puns, and stuff like that in this review.

Story (8.32/10): The story of Nagi No Asukara has a rather simple idea that its masterful plot stems from. The story follows the lives of 4 kids who are Sea People named Hikari, Manaka, Chisaki, and Kaname. Due to their school being shut down and having nowhere to get their "edumacation" from, the 4 must go up to the surface and start going to school there, all the while, meeting someone named Tsumugu who becomes part of their group.

Before I get any further, I feel as though I should explain what a Sea Person is. A sea person in this anime's rendition, is someone who lives in the sea as any normal person on land. The only difference between a sea and a land person, is the fact that the a sea person has something called Ena existing as a thin, transparent, covering over their skin, which allows them to breathe water. (They can also breathe air too.)

When you look at an idea like this, the first thought that can come to one's mind is slice of life, seeing as how the story is about the lives of 5 kids, 4 of which have a very close relationship. This however, is not the case. The expansive 26 episode length of this series is broken down into 2 halves, entailing what I dub a "prologue", and the "real story". (I will cover each one of these separately)

The first half of the story, or "prologue" is what the synopsis implies. The first 13 or so episodes of the series introduces the audience to the characters and a base idea of the story. The way it was designed is very reminiscent of childhood, seeing as how the characters are very innocent and unknowing of what is to come their way.

What I like about the first half of the series, is the fact that it gives the characters room to grow. In pretty much every episode of the first half, the some of the characters are given more of a three dimensional feel and are more aware of the different and more major things that happen around them. It gives the characters a simple taste, a flavoring of what is to come, as they all have to deal with situations and circumstances, that they are not aware of.

On the other hand, the first half does have its problems. First off, some of the characters don't get much of a three dimensional feel. Some of them do, seeing as how they react to the situation, and are affected by what is happening, and other sort of just stand to the sidelines and watch everything happen.

The second half of the series was quite a big surprise to me. I had my jaw drop when it happened because I was so into the story, and I was literally speechless. The second half of the story takes place five years after the first half finishes, and truth be told, I was a bit skeptical. In my time watching anime, the timeskips that I saw in certain anime, did not help at all because of the copious amount of missing information that we, the audience never get to see. Nagi No Asukara pulled a marlin out of the water with this one, seeing as how this timeskip was handled EXTREMELY well, making the series benefit so much more from it.

I explained how the first half of the series had some tensions that I found to be quite interesting in an anime about middle school children. (Yes, middle school.) If the first half was a wave, the second half is a torrent, a hurricane, a tsunami of emotion. This is the part where I found the series to be even better than it was before.

With no change in cast and a completely different rendition of the setting to put them in, this second half was the pearl of the series. Some of the supporting characters turned into main characters, the majority of the supporting cast disappeared, and the focus of the series narrowed itself down onto focusing onto a total of 7 or so people with little to no distraction or side plot from any members of the supporting cast. This part of the series focused solely on the interactions between the cast with this timeskip in place, which provided some excellent character development and a very, very good plot line. It's to the point that I even questioned myself while smiling, "Am I still watching the same anime?" Because it was such a shocking twist to the series that I had once knew. In a way the second half is like how Anohana plays itself out, but without anyone dying or having have died beforehand.

The end of the series I think was a very fitting end. Everything came together nicely, the series itself came to a wonderful close, and it made the story end on a very good note without any hope for an abrupt end, as everything calmed down into a nice, still pool.

Throughout the series, there is actually a story of lore from the Sea people that at first, I disregarded as a simple explanation for certain elements of this anime. As the series goes on, this story of lore becomes a more prominent plot point, that ends up affecting the characters, and adds in more and more development. The lore was a nice addition to the story, as it mixed in well with the flow of the story, making up the final episode of the story and making it so much better.

Another thing to note is the fact that in pretty much EVERY episode, there will more than likely be a cliffhanger. As someone who viewed the series on a weekly basis, the cliffhangers I found were very surprising as they were quite unexpected, and to be honest, made me want to watch the next episode even more.

However, like any pristine lake or ocean, there will be a bit of pollution here and there. The main fall of this story however, was its pacing. Setting aside the two completely different arcs that the story is comprised of, the story overall had a varied pacing, some with very fast currents, pushing us through a load of detail and content, while others were slow moving, gently moving us with the water's movements. Because it had 26 episodes, the anime had a lot of time to create the story it wanted to, and in the end it did. However, I felt as though the content didn't fit 26 episodes, more like 20-22 episodes, as some of the episodes felt really draggy and slow, focusing on one thing for the entire episode, while others pushed us through waves and waves of detail an emotion, ultimately making the viewing experience a little uneasy, but not unwatchable.

In the end, I found the story of Nagi No Asukara to be one of the better written ones for a romance anime, as the mix of love, change, heartbreak, emotion, lore, and life all came together in a wonderful, and extremely satisfying solution.

Overview
+ Very good overarching story
+ Impressive amount of character development
+ Excellent use of time skip
+ Brilliant integration of anime lore
- Unbalanced pacing
- Some characters left underdeveloped

Characters (8.41/10): When you have a good story, it's only natural to have good characters to back it up. Nagi No Asukara accomplishes this goal, but there were still some doors left opened.

Hikari as the main character of this story is introduced to us as a very stubborn and narrow-minded kid. He only thinks of certain values in life, and anything he doesn't like, he dismisses it in a harsh and reckless manner. It's a very negative outlook on life that he has, and it's quite unsurprising to see how he acts at the beginning of the series. However, this all changes. By the end of the series, all of these traits that is mentioned before no longer exists by the end of the series. Over time, you get to see how the life around him shatters and melts away, and how he has to deal with the new changes and additions to his life while he tries to grip onto the life that he once knew and loved. He gains the biggest character development in the series, being the main focus, and overall, becomes one of my favorite characters in general due to the fact that he does a complete 360 on his outlook on life, and his goals and aspirations, while still maintaining the personality that is Hikari. He always takes things to heart, and he always looks out for the ones that he loves, and I feel like that is what makes him so good as a character.

Manaka as the main female lead of this series is introduced as a crybaby in this series. Manaka is portrayed as a very weak character, relying on her friends, mainly Hikari, or Hii-kun as she calls him, in order to get through much of anything. At the beginning of the story, Manaka can be easily hated, seeing as how she follows the "weak female lead", needing the help of other people to live and prosper. That is, until the creators pull a "haha you regret hating her don't you moment" at the center of the series. While personality-wise, Manaka isn't the best female character in this series, she does play an extremely pivotal part of the story. Mostly, in the way of Hikari's development. She drives the story in a way that I thought was near impossible, and really adds to the story in a very good way.

Chisaki as the other female member of the original main cast is rather interesting. For the most part, Chisaki rarely takes the spotlight, but when she does, she does it well. Chisaki, although quite cheerful, has the fear of losing the ones she holds dear. It doesn't matter who it is, anyone she's close to, she fears losing. While for the most part she plays a more supporting role in the main cast, Chisaki displays how her life has been affected by the changes that she never wished for, affect her, thus adding in more of the emotional tension of the series.

Kaname and Tsumugu are the final two main cast members before the timeskip, and overall, get nowhere near as much development as the other cast members. (Notice how the amount of text for each character was shrinking?) These two are more or less the short ends of the stick, with Kaname being the supportive guy friend to the cast with not much else to him, and Tsumugu being the emotionless person that he is. Tsumugu is my most disliked character in the series, due to the fact that there are many unexplained parts about him, and some of the development that he receives, feel somewhat forced and fabricated because of how ungenuine it felt coming out of him. He rarely talks out of a kuudere-esque tone, and I personally don't like how he was created due to these facts.

As for after the timeskip, the characters known as Miuna and Sayu get added to the main cast. While Sayu serves as much purpose as Kaname and Tsumugu, Miuna becomes a very prominent character later on. (I'm not going to go into much more detail to avoid spoilers.)

The supporting cast for the most part don't serve too much of a role. Other than a select few that have some plot significance, a majority of them become plot devices that explain what is going on, or just further exemplify in the latter part of the series that yes, time has passed. Nonetheless, the supporting cast does do their job very well, and I in fact did enjoy some of its members seeing as how fond I am of this cast. (except you, Tsumugu)

One thing that the cast doesn't have, is equal character development. Rather than splitting the character development into equal parts among the main cast, the greater majority of it, goes to Hikari. While yes, he is the main focus of the show, the fact that basically 75% of all of the character development that happened in this series goes to Hikari, is a bit unfair. Still though, the cast of Nagi no Asukara is exceptionally crafted, with the main characters for the most part, becoming more three dimensional and life-like. They all have interactions with one another, and there isn't any "dense" or "dim-witted" characters that are completely oblivious to one another's feelings. Also, there are a lot of shipping that can occur in this series because every main character has at least one person they like, with 1-3 people liking that character back. It's a love web essentially.

Overview
+ Great main leads
+ Well done supporting cast
+ 3-D characters
- Unbalanced character importance
- Lack of character development for the majority of the cast

Art and Sound (10/10 and 9.88/10): No, your eyes are not tricking you, those are the real numbers.

P.A. Works, you are a godsend. The art in this anime is outstandingly gorgeous. If you don't believe me, watch the first opening. You know the phrase, "you can tell if a game/show is good based on how they animate water?" This anime answers back a huge yes. The fact that P.A. works could make droplets of water look good is an amazing feat in and of itself.

Aside from the amazing water, the series has incredibly detailed backgrounds for both underwater and on land. Because the series has two towns as its setting, one on land and one in water, the animators created two completely sceneries and looks for both of them, each which have their own beauty and charm about it.

On the note of character designs, we have a rather simple look to them. The characters themselves aren't overly complicated, and they all have this light blue tint around them that adds in to the water imagery sort of deal. Their eyes though, that's a different story. All of the characters are quite distinguishable if you forget where they come from, since people from the sea have blue eyes, and all of them have these oceans, these ponds for eyes that sparkle and shine. The amount of detail that they have for their eyes is amazing. The actual flow of the animation was very flowing and nice as well, with no sign of any choppy parts. Nagi no Asukara by far has one of the best aesthetics that I've seen in an anime for a while, and it was so refreshing to see such beautiful artwork to compliment an already well thought out story.

The music is also an extremely high point in this series. Like a lot of series' that have a somewhat long time span, Nagi no Asukara has 2 OST's and 2 ED's. All of which, are fabulously composed and written.

Let's start with the OST #1. This song is the main theme for Nagi no Asukara and is it's most noticeable track. The song has a very watery and bright feel to it, sort of reflecting off of the childhood innocence and joy in which the half of the story in which it is played. I like this track a lot due to how happy and calming it can sound, as if it could wash all of my troubles away. The ED #1 is its contrast, having a more reminiscing and yearning tone to it, as if someone was crying out in anguish over remembering things in life that they regret. Overall, the first half of the main tracks was set of very rememberable pieces that I still remember to this day.

The OST #2 and ED #2 do the same job as its first half counterparts. The OST #2 has a very sad but somewhat hopeful tone to it as reflective to the tone of the half of the series from where it is aired. While personally, I'm not as big of a fan of it as I am with the first opening, the second opening is still a very good track to listen to, and is still beautifully composed. The ED #2 on the other hand is the contrast to its partner OST, having a very hopeful and bright feel to it. The fact that this anime has such clashing sets of music, is brilliant. It sort of reflects the tone of the story and the way the characters are dealing with the situation, and turning them into the OST and ED respectably.

All in all, the music of this series is beautifully composed and I personally would listen to it again and again like any other anime OST's and ED's I listen to.

The voice acting gets special mention in this. Aside from the main characters that don't have any emotion in their voice pattern, the voice actors do a really good job at conveying the proper emotion and feel to the situation that goes on in the anime. None of the voices felt off, and overall, I felt like the voice casting was pretty top notch.

Overview
+ OUTSTANDINGLY beautiful artwork and character designs
+ Dat water
+ Memorable soundtracks
+ Majority of voice acting very good
- There are none for this category

Personal Enjoyment (9.87/10): Rather than watching the hyped anime of the fall 2013 season, Kill La Kill, I settled down my time to watch this show instead, because it had to do with romance, it had to do with the ocean, and it had to do with beautiful artwork. Three of my favorite things. As I got into the series however, I was very intrigued by how this seemingly innocent story was playing out. Sure, it felt a bit side story at the beginning with the main focus being on a character that wasn't a part of the main cast, but I didn't care.

What I liked though throughout the whole series was how they made the character relationships a main focus. They constantly asked one another who they liked, what was going on, and made the experience very real feeling in this environment. Above all, they had some really good cliffhangers that kept me hooked on the show. With addition to the great storytelling, I found myself yelling at my screen to not go to a certain person as I had grown attached to these characters and felt somewhat furious when my ships sort of failed to come true. (Yes, I am that kind of person.)

All in all, I found this series to be a whale of a time, an enjoyable wavecoaster of 27 weeks, itching for the next episode to come out as I finished the most recent one. Personally, I feel like this show was pushed to the side, (as kill la kill was taking over anime essentially), and I think that on the subject of romance animes, this is one of the best ones that anyone can watch. If you are a fan of good drama, romance, artwork, and characters, this is definitely an anime for you.

Overall Score: (8.89/10)

Writer's note: Sorry this was such a long review. I've just been itching to write this review, and I have a lot to talk about. Heh heh...

Going to a new school is never easy. Having to uproot your life and leave behind everything you know just to satisfy whatever reason your parents have that you’re too young to understand is hardly fair for anyone, even though sometimes there’s no choice in the matter. But what’s even more unfair is when your family’s situation has nothing to do with it... When your school closes down, and without a formal establishment left to provide you with an education, you have to either go to a neighboring school where you’ll have the immediate disadvantage or to home school where you may ... never have opportunities to see your old friends again. this is the dilemma that’s been posed to Hikari, Manaka, and their friends Chisaki and Kaname, who’ve been forced to abandon their failing Nami Junior High and migrate to Mihama Middle School, and to make matters worse, they face discrimination the minute they set foot on campus... Not because of the color of their skin or the way they speak, but because of WHERE they’ve come from... Shioshishio, the village under the sea.

No, that’s not just a bizarre local catchphrase... Our four heroes are basically amphibious mermaids without tails. They can breathe with ease both in and out of the water, but need to be periodically drenched in salt water to keep themselves from dehydrating. At Hikari’s insistence, they all come to school wearing their old uniforms, a show of pride and resistance against their new day-to-day environment, which is an attitude their new classmates are all too willing to share, making comments about them smelling fishy and rejecting them as inhuman beings. On the surface(Pun not intended), this separation could be seen as a good thing, because if a surface dweller and a sea dweller ever cross the line with each other, the latter will be banished from Shioshishio and forced to live the rest of their lives as a human, which is a curse that has become all too common in the recent past. With vitriolic prejudice tormenting them on one side and the charms of one open-minded boy tempting them from the other, will these four fish out of water be able to balance their lives between home and school, or are both surf and turf headed for a new ice age hundreds of years in the making?

While Studio Bones may be my favorite animation studio in terms of content output, PA Works is probably the best one I’ve seen in terms of quality and visual consistency. I’ve commented before on how Kyoto Animation, Studio Gainax and JC Staff can put out great looking shows that break down and become really cheap looking whenever the budget gets cut too thin, but PA Works is the few where I don’t think I’ve ever seen this happen. I can easily say the same thing for their 2013 offering, A Lull in the Sea, because the budget doesn’t really drop until the second half, and even then, it’s a pretty difficult drop for the inexperienced to notice. Visually, this series is just as teeming with life as any ocean, and this is especially clear in the ocean, where there are schools of fish swimming around through the environment, in both the background, foreground, and once in a while they even interact with the sea dwelling humans on screen.

Character animation is also crisp and fresh, with little pieces of extra effort sprinkled in here and there to make their movements underwater feel more realistic, and to make their lack of practice moving above water feel a little more awkward. The character designs are nothing too extravagant, especially with most of the nameless adults looking more or less the same, and the only character who doesn’t look like he’d been pulled from the real world being the Sea God’s remnant, Uroko-sama. The kids look fairly generic, but for the most part, their personalities are so distinct that you won;t have any trouble remembering what each one looks like. Their facial expressions are also very fluidly animated, highly expressive, and full of either youthful passion or adult stoicism, depending on the character. I did of course mention the animation budget drops in the second half, and thankfully, there’s a canonical reason for this.

I won’t spoil what happens halfway through the series, but what I will say is that there’s a reason for the underwater setting to lose all of it’s fish and most of it’s people, and there’s also a reason for both sea and surface to a more intensely white color palette. The lack of underwater visual effects cannot be explained, however, but the lack of diverse expressions and extra movement can be traced back to a major shift in focus and tone, as there’s just a lot less going on in the second half than there is in the first half. More on that later, but I’m pretty sure a huge chunk of the budget in the second half must have gone to the 3D visual effect of salt-flake snow falling in both the sea and surface settings. All that aside, the point that’s most worth remembering is that the series may lose some of it’s flair, but it never gets so bad that it looks cheap, which is one thing you can always say for PA Works.

The soundtrack, for the most part, sticks to piano and string instruments, played in such a way that they almost sound like they’re echoing underwater. It’s music that, for the most part, that reminds you of the sea, even if it wasn’t attached to this series. There are some exceptions, like Ofunehiki no Uta, which draws upon a fictionalized Japanese tradition, and thus falls back on a much more traditionally eastern sounding orchestration, complete with backup singers and what might be the only wind instruments in the show. Another odd standout is Uroko Sama no Monogatari, a tune that plays around the character of Uroko-sama, and oddly enough, it almost sounds like the extended beginning to a country song. I can’t really say that it’s a memorable soundtrack, and there really aren’t any standouts that you’d get any enjoyment out of without having the show to put them in context, but there are quite a few of them that can move you to tears if you listen to them while remembering the scenes that they were used in, especially in the case of Ofunehiki no Uta.

The first opening, named after the anime itself, is a bit on the generic side, an upbeat pop song that you could find attached to pretty much any slice of life anime. The visuals, on the other hand, are nothing if not stunning. While the song fits the mold of slice of life, the video that accompanies it breaks that mold, offering a beautiful look at the two towns and their inhabitants, all while remaining consistent with the animation quality from that half of the series. On a related note, there’s water animation in this opening that could hold it’s own against Free!. The first ending theme, Aqua Terrarium, is also somewhat generic, albeit with it’s visual accompaniment being lingering shots of one of Manaka motionless in the sea. So, yeah, standard ending animation. The second opening, Ebb and Flow, carries a much more somber tone than the first one, and it’s imagery of time having passed can possibly tug at your heart strings for an episode or two, at least until you realize what direction the rest of the series is taking. The second ending theme, Mitsuba no Musubi, is just as unremarkable as the first, albeit with an unexpected shift in art style.

The english dub was produced by Bang Zoom, and I just want to say off the bat that I’ve been turning into a HUGE Max Mittelman fan lately. He’s still relatively new in the industry, but as I mentioned in my One Punch Man review, he deserves all of the lead roles he’s already been getting. He’s playing a character who starts off angsty and confrontational, and if we’re being completely honest, he’s also kind of an asshole. He develops over time to become much more reasonable and understanding, and throughout the whole process, he plays off of Michelle Ruff’s Manaka(Can I call her Monica from here on? Screw it, I’m gonna anyway) beautifully. While Monica is the target of both Hikari’s aggression and later affection, she’s no hapless Yamato Nadeshiko type character. She responds to his behavior the way any actual girl her age would respond to a close friend acting like a bully, by chastising him for being aggressive and threatening to stop hanging out with him if he doesn’t cool it. They become much stronger characters by the halfway point, and the actors have more than enough chemistry to pull it off.

Unfortunately, I can’t speak as glowingly about the rest of the main four, as Kaname and Chisaki aren’t quite as interesting as their floundering friends. They’re not unlikeable characters... At least, not at first... But it’s hard to describe them outside of their looks and their positions inside of the show’s love polygon. Brianna Knickerbocker and Bryce Papenbrook perform admirably in these roles, but still feel quite underused. Xanthe Huynh and Erica Mendez have a much more rewarding turn as Miuna, a little girl from a damaged home, and Akari, the woman who’s found herself tied by fate to Miuna’s single father. Their efforts to overcome prejudice and unchecked emotional turmoil in order to come together as a family is one of the biggest driving forces of the first half of the series, a fact that wasn’t lost on either actress, who put out some of the most genuine, raw emotion out of the show’s entire cast. Chris Hackney also does a commendable job as Tsumugu, a land-living boy who finds himself drawn into Hikari’s group of friends. He’s not the first actor to give a stoic character personality, but he still pulls it off pretty damn well. There aren’t very many standout performances over-all, but it’s still a solid dub that’s more or less on equal footing with the original sub.

At first glance, A Lull in the Sea may appear to be another slice of life romantic comedy, with it’s only distinction being it’s neo-little-mermaid gimmick. Thankfully, the writers waste no time whatsoever establishing that there are real themes at play here, and that they’re timeless themes to boot. At the beginning of the series, the people of the land and the people of the sea are not on good terms whatsoever. I’ve seen plenty of fictional allegories for racism in my day, and while most of them amount to angry strawmen claiming “We round people shouldn’t be getting mixed up with them circle people” to the Disney version of Pocahontas sporting a song that blatantly states “They’re not like you and me, which means they must be evil,” Lull takes a much more thorough approach. The differences between the sea people and the surface people has some serious depth to it, as it exists not only in real time, but stretching back throughout their long term geographicly close relationship with one another.

While it’s true that the setting does feel a bit underdeveloped, and the idea of an undersea village living as neighbors to a realistic, modern land village does bring up a lot of questions that never get answered, these flaws in world-building are easily over-shadowed by just how uncanny the plot’s resemblance to real life social issues can be. with the exception of the Sea God’s backstory, every single social injustice we see in this series can be drawn as a parallel to an issue that either occurs or used to occur in real life. The idea of middle and even high school students instantly rejecting and tormenting other students for the simple crime of being different has been happening since the dawn of time. It’s practically a rule of being adolescent, regardless of how adult international relationships may or may not be influencing it. For some minorities to want to rebel against this discrimination by being confrontational and having a bad attitude while others try to be on their best behavior in order to fight stereotypes through pacifism, and even for these two sects to clash with each other, is also disturbingly relevant to race relations in any society that’s managed to diversify itself. This is in stark contrast to Japan, a racially homogenous nation where this series oddly takes place.

Harking back to Hikari’s sister Akari(yes, those two names are put together in anime far, far too often), she originally had a job on the surface, until it was revealed that she was in love with her single father boss, and was harboring an intent to marry him. She was rejected outright from both sides, with her boss’s daughter not wanting the union to take place for certain spoiler reasons, but she was especially contested by her own people, including her father, because of a village rule stating that anyone who fell in love with a land lubber would never be allowed in the sea again. It’s later revealed that the legend of the Sea God was behind this rule, but even if he wasn’t, this attitude still rings true today, as there are tons of parents out there who would rather die than see their offspring wind up in a relationship that might compromise their heritage. Hell, one of my favorite scenes occurs long after the children have already put their differences aside, and the adults from both sides are coerced into a negotiation over a necessary ritual, which goes great until both sides start demanding apologies over perceived injustices of the past, an argument that almost becomes violent before the who kerfuffle is blamed on the kids, suggesting that racial differences are harder to get over for the older generation than the younger one.

If I hadn’t made it obvious to you by now, the two biggest recurring themes in this show(at least the interesting ones) and prejudice and desegregation, themes that are told primarily from the point of view of four sea-dwelling middle schoolers trying to fit in at a surface-dwelling school, but when you take a step back from them, you can see the issue from the perspectives of the human kids, the hopeful teacher, the adults who’ve lived through issues the kids can’t fully understand, the young star-crossed lovers and more. All of these different perspectives, almost all of which are realistic and relevant to the viewer in their own way, give the series a sense of depth and complexity that most slice of life shows can never even hope to reach. Characters grow and develop as their minds become more open and their hearts become more accepting, and yeah, even the bullies become likeable through the course of the story. There’s a sprinkling of developing crushes to add some spice to the main cast, but it takes a back seat to more important plotlines. All of this leads to a climax that’s equal parts inspiration and tragedy, and an ending that will have you crying your eyes out... Halfway through the series.

Yeah, this is pretty much where my praise of A Lull in the Sea ends, and the ravaging must begin. I’m going to try my best not to spoil the climax of episode 13, as I do believe everyone should be able to experience it blindly for themselves, but I will reveal some... stuff, from the second half, so here’s your warning. If I didn’t think it was important to talk about, I wouldn’t be spoiling it. For example, there’s the fact that episode 14 starts off with a five year time skip. One of our four main characters has aged naturally, but the other three are still 14, through some means I don’t feel like explaining. Considering how the first half ended, this isn’t the worst way to continue the series, and there is some potential for the story to develop under these circumstances, but here’s the problem... The racial tension, by this point, has been completely resolved. The people making the show must have realized they’d written themselves into a corner, and the only way to continue was to abandon all the depth of the first half and instead focus on the love-polygon, which quickly becomes a love-dodecahedron.

Going forward, a lot of dumb decisions are made to get the writers out of their corner, but the one that instantly had me doing the hardest head-desk of my life was when, in a flash-back, we hear nine year old Miuna getting jealous over Hikari, a character she’d never shown any special affection for throughout the first half. I did the math on the time skip, and guessed on the spot that this show was about to rely on one of the creepiest, unrealistic, sexist ideas that anime has ever come up with. To get a vague yet still accurate picture of what I’m talking about, picture Keitaro Urashima, the boy who’s pursuing a girl he knew from his childhood. Now, instead of a male character falling back on a memory because he can’t get a girlfriend through any other means, picture a female character who COULD get a boyfriend, but refuses to because she’d rather end up an old maid than betray some dude she hada crush on as a child. It’s bad, and a lot of anime do it, but most anime don’t go the extra mile of using a time skip to make the girl and her old friend the same age so it’ll be okay. Only it’s not, because it’s still creepy.

Oh, and it gets worse... Her friend, the mischievous moppet Sayu, falls in love with another 14 year old because... Get this... He patted her on the head and called her a good girl. Ooh, scandalous, right? That has to be the most laughable catalyst for an “I WILL NEVER LOVE ANOTHER” that I have ever heard. I wish I could go into deeper spoilers, but I’ve already said too much, so let’s summarize this: The second half of the anime exists for two reasons. first of all, it exists to explore and conclude the love dodecahedron, which it doesn’t, and it also exists to ret-con the conclusion of episode 13 so that the series can end on a happier note, which... Unfortunately... is executed in a very fanficcy way that tears a massive plot hole in the lore of the story. Basically, the entire second half of the anime didn’t need or deserve to exist, especially since the first half ended on the perfect note, a beautiful tragedy that warranted no farther than one epilogue episode to wrap things up. You came close, Lull... You came close.

A Lull in the Sea is available stateside from NIS America, which of course means it’s ridonkulously expensive. Luckily, it’s also available in both dub and sub form on Crunchyroll for subscribers. The original manga by Project - 118 is not available stateside, nor is the follow-up four-panel manga from the same writer. Personally, I recommend the Crunchyroll subscription, if you can afford it. I had to cancel mine after paying 1000 dollars on a car bill, but then again, i’m an old ass adult. Subscribe with your parents’ money, kids!

A Lull in the Sea is kind of like The Big O... I fell in love with the first half, and then found my jaw dropping farther and farther to the floor as what was previously awesome and enjoyable became huge disappointments once they got over the hump. Also like Big O, I wish to God that MAL would separate the two halves into their own entries, so that I could judge them separately instead of lumping them together. Why does the second half of this show exist? What was the point of it? I’m not going to sit here and stream the manga, so I have no idea how well this show holds up against it, but if they did the second half just for accuracy, then maybe they should have broke away from the source material and found a way to end it with episode 4. None of these love interests needed to be resolved, which... Oh, by the way, they weren’t. Nor did the perfect ending, which happened at the show’s halfway point, need to be repeated under dumber circumstances to force a happy ending. This show could have been good. It should have been good. Yeah, a bad first half can be saved by a good second half, but a bad second half can destroy a good first half. This is a damn shame. I give A Lull in the Sea a 5/10.

What is change?, Do you want to change? Do you want to stay same as forever? I really can't fully understand nor stop the changes happening in my life but I know its happening. The core theme of this show is it talks about the changes happening to the character
where they are unable to stop it and has to adapt and accept it just like the sea where it is constantly moving and not always calm.
The four characters who are dear friends to them and loved each other doesn't want to change and stay as it forever just like a calm sea but it ... is not going to happen, changes is going to happen to make them grow, once they accept it as a force of nature the sea will begin to move again and once sea is move again it is not seen as scary it seen as something beautiful.

The art style, the ocean blue theme of this show its one of the best looking anime out there having the classics PA Works looks which I loved it.PA Works really love details, this show is full of details you can see the grunges, wear and tears on the environments in the show, which shows how detailed and tailored to make the world believable.

Finally I really recommend the show, It is worth your time take it slowly and enjoy the show.

The first time I watched Nagi no Asukara (from now on, NagiAsu), I thought it was the best thing ever. I gave it a 9, putting it in one of my favorite shows ever. I waxed poetic about the deep messages, the compelling story, and the well-developed characters.

Then I watched it the second time and I peeled my eyes to look for things I could say to convince others to watch it. I didn’t find any. My opinion of the show dropped through the floor. Why? I didn’t notice this the first time, but NagiAsu is actually ... the most annoying show ever.

First, the good parts: P.A. Works is probably the best studio, in my opinion. Its art features a level of detail and fluidity unmatched by any other studio, save for maybe ufotable. Where it excels past ufotable is in character design: ufotable’s characters look like they are mannequins, but P.A. Works’ character designs are just perfect. As a result, NagiAsu’s production values are exceptional. In addition, the story has one of the best settings I have ever seen. NagiAsu is set in a modern world where a segment of the population lives in the sea, since they can breathe underwater, and the other segment lives on land. It’s a setting that is brilliant, and P.A. Works really makes it come to life in the beautiful backgrounds it makes. Finally, NagiAsu has one of the best soundtracks I have listened to.

Where NagiAsu fails is both in its plot and its characters. I thought the story and the characters were good the first time around, but on second thought, they were actually just annoying. Here’s an outline of what goes on during the show:

1. Peace
2. Some character has to start shit
3. Drama ensues
4. Drama resolved
5. Return to beginning

There are interesting developments happening behind this that are related to the amazing setting of this show, but in the end, the plot revolves around this outline. So the characters ruin the plot and the plot ruins the characters. It’s a never-ending cycle of doom. However, rather than getting you to hate these annoying characters for doing annoying things, they invoke the power of cute girls/guys and convince you that they are actually nice people. But the moment you start asking “why”, you’ll find it all deeply unsatisfying. People are crying, things are sad, you feel bad for them…all until you realize it is entirely their fault and they actually deserve it.

It’s annoying how so many anime use cute as an excuse for problems in the show. There’s nothing wrong with cute; I like cute things, but it shouldn’t be used as something to cover up flaws. It should be used more like a finisher, a topping. But if cute is continually successfully used to cover up flaws, what are writers assuming about us? I don’t like that they’re looking down on us like this. We’re not this easy to impress. We want actual quality.

If you get annoyed at people being annoying, don’t watch. If you’re tolerant toward bullshit drama, by all means watch.

Nagi no Asukara is a true diamond in the rough. I've watched hundreds of anime over the years that were mediocre and filled the anime craving in my soul - but Nagi no Asukara was what I'd really been looking for.

What really makes Nagi no Asukara stand out are two main things. The first is the outstanding artwork and character development. The scenery porn in this anime is unbelievable and will have you gazing into the background of the main focus many times. On top of that, Nagi no Asukara's character development was extremely fulfilling and there was a strong sense of completeness in ... the journey the viewer goes through in watching the characters develop. The second stand out reason that Nagi no Asukara is a must watch is the connection it shares with the world we currently live in. With the future of our planet being called into question with issues like Climate Change, rising sea levels and the impact it will have on future generations - Nagi no Asukara really hits home with a relevant and important message.

Nagi no Asukara will have you smiling, laughing, crying and yelling at your screen throughout all 26 episodes. As someone who couldn't stop the episodes from playing and binge watched all 26 episodes in a 24 hour period - give this anime a chance and it will fill your soul.

This anime is simply amazing, I thought that Your Lie in April would be the best anime I would see but this anime blows it out of the water. (See what I did there?)

===Story===
Now I gave the story a 9 for the fact that it was not the main driving force (by story I mean the whole sea god being angry and wanting to destroy the surface) while, yes, it was a big part I feel like the characters where a bigger driving force. Now one but I didn't like was how it ended with uncertainty but at the same time that is a positive, ... I mean, of it ended with a "they lived happily ever after" I would've thought that would be worse than how it ended.
I'm not to bring up YLiA very often but I have one gripe with YLiA which is the lie (don't worry I won't into spoiler territory) which was in my opinion unreasonable, like, I know that lie was the driving force behind the story but I still feel it was unreasonable, but with this anime I only have a semi-gripe (a gripe which was the best way to handle it.)

===Art===
I may never have been to Japan but I can still appreciate how detailed the Art is especially on the backgrounds where the details are breathtaking, it shows little details that you see in real life but nearly never in animation. The character animation is good and they don't stand out from the background, the eyes on the people from the sea (I just realised I never summarised the plot... Ehh it has a summary up above) look a little weird but it does make them stand out from the surface people, if only slightly.

===Sound===
I have never heard/seen an anime where the sound was terrible while I can't judge the Japanese voice actors amd I haven't heard the dub the sound of the sea,cars and basically everything besides the voices is easily a 10.

===Characters===
As mentioned in the story section the characters seem to drive the characters to do what they do more then the actual plot, all the characters have their own personality and they feel real, I can imagine this characters as real people and they grow, especially the main character which is probably because he got the most screen time, and the love... Mess, I heard someone say that if you tried to draw a chart showing who loved who there would be too many arrows, which, to me, makes the characters feel real because you may love someone who someone else also loves and it won't be a clear, this person loves this person, in real life it would be a mess, at least I think that's what it would be like, I don't know because I have never experienced a relationship or even love, only childish crushs. For the characters I give this a 10

===Enjoyment===
Overall I enjoyed this anime, and there were a couple of twists I wasn't expecting which made this series really fun to watch, so again this was a 10 to me.

===Overall===
this kinda ties into Enjoyment because this is a 10, and I honestly say check it out, if I gave scores like Glass Reflection I would give this a Certified Frosty. So check it out, I'm sure you'll love it like I did.

Robert's Too Late Reviews rolling through again! Get the tissues out for this one folks, because it's a total tearjerker. I am, as tradition, reviewing the dubbed version. Nagi no Asu kara has such movement, such deep character arcs and tense drama that I wholeheartedly recommend this anime to anyone. Let's go fishing and break this thing down.

Story: 10
As the synopsis states, this series is set in a time when humanity, who were all native Sea People, have split off to live their lives on the surface. This migration of people from the ocean to terra firma causes a deep, and lasting, schism between ... the two groups. When our cast of characters, who are Sea People, are forced to attend school among Surface Dwellers, the rampant prejudices reign in the hearts of both groups. The Sea People feel that it was wrong for the Surface Dwellers to leave the waters, giving them an arrogant and elitist view of themselves. The Surface Dwellers are angry at such treatment, and also take pride in the lives they have built for themselves on dry land.

This is very much a commentary on racism. The two groups immediately and pointlessly hate each other, for no other reason than that's what they've always done, for each group being slightly different from the other. This hatred is so ingrained that no one thinks to question it or try to find a way to move past these negative opinions. This is further ingrained by the fact that there exists 'interracial' relationships between Sea People and Surface Dwellers. When a person of the sea falls in love with a person on land, the sea person is banished from the city of the Sea People, and forbidden to ever return. Even on the surface, the people there also harbor resentment at these mixed couples and what they represent.

This is so reminiscent of my country's (the US) reactions when it comes to mixed relationships. There have been times, not far past when a person of color marrying a white person could be actually physically dangerous, with acts of violence carried out to protest the union. This is not some long past situation in my country (and I suspect many parts of the world) that we can just look on as the 'dark days'. My mother, who is alive and well today, remembers clearly the days of segregation, Jim Crow laws, and proclamations of parents everywhere saying things like "don't bring that (racial epithet) to my home" and "you think you're too good to date your own kind". This is still a problem today, much to society's shame.

I have spoken before in reviews about my personal experience with racism because I'm a white man that was in a long term relationship with a Hispanic woman. How we both felt shunned by our respective 'people' and resented by in-laws, so to speak. This is a major plot point in this anime, that there exists this level of foolishness that in the end it nearly destroys everything that both groups hold dear. Their irrational hatred of each other causes them to care less about their own impending doom than throwing around the most impressive insults.

Of our cast, the person I would name as the main character in the ensemble (Hikari) seems to be the worst in carrying around the racist grudge. Even when chances for him and the other three Sea People to have positive interactions with the Surface Dwellers, he allows his hate-clouded vision to ruin it. A minor SPOILER here, this kid's older sister falls for a man from the surface, and has every intention of spending her life with him, which not only means banishment from the ocean city, but after a little time, she (and all Sea People) lose their ability to breath underwater, so she couldn't go home even if she wanted to. This infuriates her little brother, but also helps to open the door of his heart, even only slightly.

Complicated alliances, complex feelings, and confusing dynamics all smash together and help break the cycle of hatred among the two groups, with the younger people having to force their elders to change. There are holdouts on both sides, but after much effort, the Sea People are able to convince many of the Surface Dwellers to put aside their hatred and perform a religious ceremony dedicated to the Sea God. This does not go off as planned, partly due to still lingering racial resentment, and because they didn't truly understand the symbolism behind the ritual itself.

In the middle of this, one character is struck a sudden and powerful blow, becoming cursed in a manner that is not only heartbreaking for the character, but throws the entire dynamic of the cast into chaos. Secrets are revealed, feelings come forth, and many of the characters suffer terrible heartbreak. These setbacks cause the cast to once again attempt the Sea God ceremony, and the outpouring of love that has developed between the Surface Dwellers and the Sea People moves the Sea God in such a way that the impending disaster is averted, and the deity blesses both groups once again.

The story is played out in such a manner that I found myself emotionally invested in the characters very quickly. Within a few episodes I was already seeing events unfold that threatened to bring tears to my eyes. It brought anger and despair to my heart as I watched the two groups carry on their racial grudge. It sent me soaring as I watched the brave young people come together, in spite of the hatred they had been taught to have, and give everyone a chance. I choked up as the power of love overcame the villainous darkness of hate. And in the end, it wraps in a way that is somewhat unexpected, but also satisfying. It is easy to make predictions on who dates who, but likely those predictions will turn out to be wrong. But the end brings it all together in a beautiful package, and plays out as one of the best anime I've come across.

Art: 10
I loved the art in this show. There's a lot of muted colors, soft and pastel-like at times, which makes absolute sense because we're dealing with the salty ocean (both beneath in Sea People town and above in the village) and it's ability to fade colors and give everything that 'washed out' look. This is of course very fitting for the show's setting. Under water, the sea life is bright and vibrant, and the architecture has a very natural flow to it, as one would expect from a group of people living underwater in such a way.

The characters themselves are interesting, and are visually distinctive for the most part. There's an event that happens towards the end of the show that did occasionally make me mix up two characters (Miuna and Chisaki to be exact) but otherwise, it's a looker. The eyes are amazingly expressive, the backgrounds are very fitting, and it comes together in such a pleasing manner.

Sound: 10
The music really guides our emotions through the series, with beautiful piano pieces and such bringing heightened tension, or moments of pure release, or even serenity to appropriate scenes. The score was very well done. Now the big question: does the voice work sound good? For the most part yes, everyone sounds as they should, and the voices seem to match the characters really well. Monica, one of the Sea People, has a bit of a pitchy voice that can get grating at times, but not enough to make me bite my nails or anything. The mysterious Surface Dweller kid has a really well done voice, in that he sounds so very wise beyond his years. From where I'm sitting, everyone sounded great together and the voice acting was well done. The theme songs are as pretty as one would expect with this being a drama romance show, but they weren't enough to knock my socks off either. Good, but not really very memorable.

Character: 10
Here's where it gets good. We have all kinds of love triangles going around, as one might expect, but the cast is bigger than just a guy and a few girls, there are several male characters who all have their own motivations for what they do and how they act. There are layers on layers built upon the foundations of these characters, leading us to never quite be certain how or if a particular relationship will play out.

By giving the more 'supporting' cast romantic roles deepens the complexity and gives it a lot of realistic weight. Love is a complicated thing, and there are always difficult dynamics involved. Oftentimes our hearts wants something that not even our minds realize. The exploration of these intertwining feelings and relationships serve to augment the theme of love, loss, and longing quite well.

It is because of some of these relationships that the younger characters break the cycle of hate that their elders were so determined to keep. By getting to know each other, love blossoms and then the truth emerges: it doesn't matter where you're from, what you look like, or anything like that, because we are all people in the end, and that's what matters.

There are several twists in the feelings department that did catch me a bit off guard. I thought for sure things were going to go one way, only to have them not. I don't mean this as a complaint, I mean it as a compliment. It wasn't as predictable as most. Usually by episode 4 you know who's going to be with who and all that. Not this time around, at least not for me.

The characters are more than background props, they are all fully fleshed out and stand well on their own. This gives the show a much more organic feel to it.

Enjoyment: 10
I just adored the whole experience with this show, and if you like things like 'Your Lie in April' or 'Anohana' or even 'Aru Hara Ride', you should be quite at home here.

Best Girl: Sakishima Akari. Akari is brave enough to step out and live the life she wants, even if she does waver here and there about the decision. Her relationship with the guy she falls in love with helps embolden her little brother to take action to bring the Surface and the Sea together again. For breaking the cycle of hate, she's the best girl.

As I said, I was misty-eyed quite often throughout the series, and found myself on the edge of my seat a few different times. It was compelling without feeling forced, the twists seem shocking but make sense when pondered, the message of love thy neighbor permeates through and through. Jump in the sea, the water's just fine!

With the famous love pentagon ending, the hype for it was over lasting and captured fans with its beautiful art and concept of underwater and land living people. Coming from P.A Works the art was beautiful and never did drop in quality. The underwater scenery was beautiful and the land counterpart was nothing less than spectacular.

The rising trend of romance is prominent in today's time, but this takes it to another level. With the love intertwining to make drama happen and issues through out the series, the characters feel heart break and happiness. They're all really well developed and really shows true character development in ... the way they feel towards the differences between the two ways of living and their friendship grows overall. The second half led up to a really good time skip which is usually over done and fails to show purpose in most anime. With it coming to an end it made an impact on the slice of life genre and an innovation in romance.

Well, you're going to see my score and think to yourself, this person is pretty much insane. How can this person not see how "beautiful" this anime is? Well, please allow me to write up a review that may or may not justify my score.

STORY: (3/10) The premise is actually what pulled me in, and seeing that it had such a high score on MAL as a romance anime and was brimming with 9 or 10 starred reviews, I went in thinking I wouldn't be disappointed. The first thirteen or so episodes actually don't disappoint, and I kept waiting for them to explain pointers and ... plot lines which, unfortunately, to the end remain unexplained. As you can read in the synopsis of NagiAsu, the premise is very interesting, what with people who live on land and in the sea, but as the episodes progress you begin to notice the plot holes that just continue to become bigger and glaringly obvious to the point you can't just ignore them and that is the downfall of NagiAsu.

The second thing is the romance, it is one of the most poorly done romances I have ever come across in anime. There is NO development whatsoever and every episodes just seems to add new characters to the list of the complicated as heck "romance". The romance of this anime doesn't move an inch from the first ep through to the 26th ep. No. Frickin. Development. It's all just a very big, very complicated LOVE OCTAGON if I had to summarize it.

Also the romance completely shadows over the actual plot and everything is so half-baked and sloppily handled in the story department I don't know how it ranks on #160.

If there is redeeming feature about the plot, it is the feels that this anime sometimes manages to provide. Of course if you love the romance, you'd find yourself getting feelsy over it loads of times, but what got me to shed a tear; one tiny little tear was a certain incident concerning Akari and her dad.

That's about it.

ART:(10/10) The art to say the least is breath-takingly beautiful with the backgrounds and the character designs showing such detail and intricacy it makes you wonder if they ended up focusing on the art rather than on the story.

SOUND: (6/10) The sound was decent. The OP and ED songs might be considered beautiful and touching by people who enjoy slow songs but I don't so that's that I guess.

CHARACTER: (7/10) In my opinion, the feature that saved this anime from being a complete train wreck were it's characters. They aren't anything original what with Hikari being your typical tsundere who yells at anything and everything but he gets better; though not completely cured of his jerk habits. He is my least favourite.
My most favourite character is Chisaki because I could relate to her in a way I didn't relate to any other character. Everything she stands for as a person, I find those traits in myself which makes her a character close to my heart.
In the same way, the other characters were all somehow relateable and you don't particularly end up hating anyone except if you have no patience for indecisiveness you might end up hating these characters alot.

OVERALL ENJOYMENT:(5/10) I can't really rate the enjoyment portion in a linear manner. The first 13 episodes have an enjoyment rate of 7/10; the later half rapidly deteriorates to a 4/10 because it just gets so annoying and frustrating, the stupid love octagon where everyone is in love with the other who is in love with someone else and so it just continues in this frustrating manner until a happy ending is slapped into our faces with an inconclusive love octagon.

In the end, a feature I forgot to mention, what was with all the "running away after learning a shocking truth" writers? It made me laugh and really destroyed whatever mood the situation had managed to get me in.

I enjoy watching slice of life rom-com anime. They sometimes tend to be relaxing, especially after watching something that is full of action. However I am always sceptical about watching romance anime. I always worry that the show will follow the path of every stereotypical series under that genre. So it's always good to see something different, that makes it just a bit more unique. Has Nagi no Asukara steered away from the stereotypes? Yes. Has it done it well? Definitely.

STORY

Long ago, humans lived in the sea. However many of them wanted to live on the surface, and so they moved, causing a split ... between the two groups.
Nagi no Asukara follows the story of four children from the underwater sea village, Shioshishio. Due to some reasons, their school closes, and they must transfer to the school on the surface, in a village called Oshiooshi.

It is a really good setting to the story, as the four characters (Manaka, Hikari, Chisaki and Kaname) begin meeting new people and slowly, but surely attempt to reunite the two villages.
For the first ten or so episodes, the anime is enjoyable, following the school-slice of life genre. It's around the midway mark, where the anime steers away from the stereotypes and continues with a darker tone.
The show is a bit slow at the start, but once it hits into overdrive near the halfway point, it has an effect, that will glue you to the screen. Can't say anything else about it without spoiling it!

CHARACTERS

Before the aforementioned turn at the halfway point, our main characters assume the roles of slice of life character archetypes. Manaka is the emotional one, Chisaki is the loving one, Hikari is the loud and energetic one, and Kaname is the handsome, smiling one. There's also Tsumugu, a new friend from the surface, who is the calm and collective type.
In the second half, the characters each become unique, leaving the cardboard cutouts that most slice of life characters are. Their true colors are revealed, and so are their emotions.

Because this is a romance anime, the characters have crushes on their friends, and I must admit, I did get a bit confused at one point, as there are love triangles, and there's this one thing that this show does, which I haven't seen much anywhere else. This anime will not give you the final "layout" of the couples very early on. The show likes to create moments where you think, "Oh no wait, she has a crush on HIM, and not HIM." As a result, we are left wondering how these affections will conclude. Really a good job on that.

This anime has no definite one main protagonist. The title gets passed around throughout the episodes, from one character to the next, which in my opinion is excellent, as it leads to brilliant character development, not just for the main five, but others too.

ANIMATION & SOUND

The animation... What can I say. Nagi no Asukara has the potential to have the best art style of any show I have ever watched.

The animation is a masterpiece.

The sheer amount of detail in everything! Rust on ships and old metal buildings, paint peeling off houses, the reflection of light off the water surface at night, snow isn't just a flat sheet of white, I could go on forever listing where there's a huge amount of detail.
In the first episode alone we are shown how well the sea village is animated. It is like something out of a dream, going around a little village, other people swimming past, living in a house with fish around you... It is perfect!
The characters are also really well animated. All residents of Shioshishio have the same turquoise eye color, as well as the shine of their Ena (a layer of skin that allows them to breathe and live underwater). When it comes to animation itself, I cannot find a single flaw. Full marks here.

The soundtrack mainly consists of piano and guitar music, and even though it isn't the best soundtrack in the world, it seems to fit the anime. The openings and endings are quite good too, I like the shows second opening, "ebb and flow" which is conveniently put in directly at the beginning of the second half. The beginning of this song really nails it, high reverberated piano notes with a smooth vocal.

I prefer the sub to the dub, even though I had a tough time deciding between the two. However as soon as I saw The names Kana Hanazawa and Ai Kayano, I decided almost instantly.

FINAL EVALUATION

Nagi no Asukara is an excellent anime. It has a similar approach to every other romance comedy anime, but steers away, and does its own thing. It really was great to watch, and the shows ending was very satisfying. Its animation is just a masterstroke, and gives this show its own charm.

9/10

Why would you watch Nagi no Asukara?
-awesome characters
-great story
-AMAZING art styles
-very good cast for Japanese dub
-a very good take on the romance genre
-if you enjoy shipping characters

Why would you NOT watch Nagi no Asukara?
-if you don't like the slice of life rom-com genre
-if you hate moe.

The first time i heard about this anime i was a bit let down because they told me that it was about a group of kids. I wasn't that interested because i thought i couldn't relate to a bunch of kids but after seeing this anime i have to say that it was really good. It is definitely a must watch anime. I enjoyed everything from the artwork to the story. The story is great and it had great character development. I was always interested in each and everyone of the characters and i was intrigued by the characters. The most stand out character ... and the one that probably has become one of my top ten anime girls is Chisaki. I was continuously confused about what she was feeling and yet i understood because that is what reality is like. The show was clearly a fantasy anime but the story of Chisaki and the other characters made everything believable and relatable. I definitely recommend this anime.

"Love is like the sea."

Love stories have existed for practically the entire existence of storytelling. They've been told countless times, in countless ways, with countless settings and characters. From the grand and epic quests to silly school rom-coms, the love story is the most enduring story of fiction, and even non-fiction in some cases. With that in mind, one would think that original ideas, or even ideas that haven't grown stale, are quite lacking in this genre. So, how does today's anime stand in the ... rankings of the great love stories?

Before we get into the romance aspects of this anime, I want to briefly recognize the intense amount of world building that went into this anime. Every ounce of exposition was weaved seamlessly into either dialogues or inner monologues and provided an inside look into just how this world functions. Watching the people of the sea interact with both each other and with the people of the surface was always an interesting matter despite not being the main focus of the story. By the way, on the matter of the sea village, I hope you're not a big stickler about the laws of physics when you're watching a fantasy series, because they really don't give a crap what you're laws says about buoyancy and gravity. However, I will say that they break physics in a way that still feels believable somehow, and it's a very minor quibble.

On to the main matter of this story, this is definitely one of the better love stories I've seen in a very long time, and I honestly didn't expect that considering how it's set up. This is one of those almost convoluted love stories where everybody is in love with someone, but then someone else is in love with them, and the chains of love keep piling on from there. It actually reminded me a lot of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the play that has practically become the template for modern romance stories. Normally I would find this kind of setup almost gag worthy because it's basically nothing but angst and teenage drama, but Nagi no Asukara seems to be fundamentally aware that this is an unavoidable problem with this kind of story setup. In the midst of wallowing in the constant trade-offs of drama, it also takes time to give us deep and drawn-out introspectives into what each character thinks about both themselves and their love interest.

One of the central themes of this anime is the concept of change and how each of the characters deals with the matter. Coupled with the fact that our main characters are just beginning to enter into the age of puberty, we get to watch as each character struggles with their own opinions on change and, of course, their resistance to it, and the mechanics of the story really help to drive this idea home. Without spoiling anything, something really big happens about halfway through the series, and it causes the entire romantic landscape of character relationships to change drastically, and both the change and lack thereof in their world forces these characters to mature in ways that are sudden and uncomfortable, but also cathartic and relieving. I do have one little complaint though, in that after that romantic formula has its drastic change, things start to shift back towards how they were before, and why I was initially slightly disappointed by this, the way everything came back together with its conclusion refused to leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Even aside from the romance aspects, the story touches on all sorts of themes relating to growing up and maturing, and the struggle of the children to both grow up and not grow up is palpable throughout the entire series.

As for the specific characters, there are some that I can't discuss due to spoilers, so we'll just focus on the main five for now. Hikari is the group’s leader and takes the bold and brash personality to the max, but his inner monologue still manages to make him feel sympathetic when he does things that I would normally hate any other character for. Manaka is the clumsy and childish one that Hikari is in love with, while Chisaki is the more mature girl that's in love with Hikari, but begins to loathe herself because of her strong friendship with Manaka. Kaname is the cool and aloof friend that seems to sit in the background a lot, and we actually get an insight into what that's like for him, and Tsugumu is a boy from the surface with an insatiable love for the sea. The chemistry for all of these characters is phenomenal not in how well they get along, but in how they don't, especially when confessions of love come out into the open, and this was probably my favorite part of the entire series.

The animation was produced by P.A. Works, and this is possibly their best looking anime since Angel Beats! in 2010. The incredibly detailed environments combined with the high-gloss and super-moe character designs are unbelievably pleasing to the eye, and this is definitely one of the best-looking anime this year. Even the CG looked incredible most of the time, though this is almost negated by the fact that this anime is filled to the brim with CG objects, from boats and cars to fish and waves. I understand though that even with such a high budget anime you have to make cuts somewhere (I couldn't possibly imagine having to draws hundreds of individual fish in a single frame), and this is definitely a step towards making me feel more accepting towards CG. HOWEVER, I will still stand by the idea that animating a walking background character in CG sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of someone's forehead, and is practically a mortal sin of animation.

There is no dub for this series yet, though I wouldn't mind a dub being produced. If it were to happen, it would most likely be a Bang Zoom! dub, and while I'm normally not super-excited by their work, I have a feeling they would be able to pull this one off well.

The soundtrack was composed by Yoshiaki Dewa, one half of the J-pop group Jyukai, whose only prior soundtrack work has been for Amnesia, yet his mastery of setting the right mood for every scene is nothing to trifle with. Most of the tracks consist of acoustic guitar melodies, a sound that I feel needs to be much more prevalent in soundtracks, though the occasional string swells and somber piano tunes add a nice contrast. Both opening themes "lull ~Soshite Bokura wa~" and "ebb and flow" were performed by Ray, and bring a relaxed singer/songwriter feel blended slightly with electronic ambiance, while both ending themes "Aqua Terrarium" and "Mitsuba no Musubime" were performed by Nagi Yanagi and play us out with some rolling ballads to heighten the emotional impact of each episode.

Overall, Nagi no Asukara is an excellent example of how there is a great deal of innovation and heart to be found in the romance genre, and it's certainly one of the hidden gems of 2014.

-SPOILER FREE REVIEW-

This is my first and probably only review of an anime and only because this is an anime almost any avid anime watcher must watch. I do not consider this to be a proper review by any means as I believe I'd have to spoil the anime for that. So for someone who hasn't watched this... I don't like cutesy romances AT ALL. This anime blew my mind and although it may initially seem cutesy... it's not.

To put it simply, this is a 'cute' romance that aligned transitions, animation and sound beautifully throughout the anime.

It is a character driven anime and is ... also significantly impacted my the plot. The best word to describe the plot is 'unique'. I loved it so much because to someone like myself who is extremely analytical, I wasn't able to predict what was going to happen in future episodes, which I personally love in anime.

There is one scene that I will never forget in this anime (end of episode 23) and it's because it was done so well that it was legitimate masterpiece quality.

I am someone who still hasn't and probably never will rate an anime a 10 other than it being in sarcasm. This is to me the highest quality anime I've ever had the pleasure of watching and I give it a 9 because of that, a definitely great anime which will give you feels but mostly appreciation for actual quality among other anime.

The main reason I want you to watch this is because it has absolutely brilliant moments which most other anime do not have. This was easily one of the best anime ever created which took full advantage of the impact transitions have in an anime, in both the domains of sound and animation.

Please watch, enjoy and appreciate the beautiful creation of Nagi no Asukara.

I have not yet completed the anime, so please let me sink in. However I am at a point where one of the major climaxes have hit and I feel that it will only get better from here so I will write this short review, and edit it after I have completed the anime.

When I had first started the anime I didn't really know what to expect. The synopsis had led me to believe that it was a classic romance anime with a twist, but I was completely and utterly wrong.

Getting into the anime, the first few episodes I was fairly right. This made ... me stop, don't get me wrong it was not because it was bad. But because I could not get into the mood of another "S-senpai, dai-sukiiii" moment. There were simply too many. However the story, the plot, and even the romance is much deeper than expected. There have been some scenes where I did not expect one to like the other. The romance was tremendously exceptional, I could not believe how deep and thought out the romance was. It was not the simple rooftop sunset "senpai, SUKIIII!!!" It was much more thought out, and had a much more deeper meaning.

Getting onto the story and plot. Again at first you will expect it to be a classic SUKIII anime. However later into the story you can feel the rising tension, the unexpectedness, the curiosity forcing you to watch the next episode. And once it hits, everything just shatters. Not in a bad way though, its more like an arrow. The further it travels the more of a force it creates, (or maybe I just play too many video games). The story, and plot, also go much further and deeper than I had ever even expected of this anime. Incorporated with the romance, it has officially become one of my top 10 animes, that is, to wait until I have finished it. Except, I won't be expecting anything less from excellence.


I've successfully finished the anime, and I must apologize. This anime is 10 times better than what I had predicted it to be. It did not fail, even at the last few seconds, to disappoint or fail me. As I had expected it had only gotten better from there. It does not fail to disappoint, the surprises, the tied connections that all lead to romance. Everything. Even the new Op had given the arch a proper feel to it, and what you were going to expect. As did the first Op. The whole show was amazing. Every scene was deeper and everything was much more complex but at the same time simplistic. Maybe it was simply simple with deeper meaning, and honestly, who doesn't prefer that. This had been one of the greatest animes I have seen and honestly if this isn't on your top 10, I don't know what else could be.