Arata Kangatari

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good manga, bad anime adaption.

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