Bermuda Triangle: Colorful Pastrale

If you're looking for a masterpiece of an anime, this ain't it.

If you're looking for an anime about cute mermaid girls doing cute things and can put aside the fact that physics will break in this and the mermaid aspect is nothing more than a reason to put tails on girls and have them float around, this is right up your alley.

I'm not sure what happened with the earlier episodes but both the sound and animation was incredibly mediocre early on. Around episode 4 this series started to up the swimming cycles in animation and also added more SFX that makes you "feel" ... like your underwater.

The story line is rather generic, just girls going around and some vague idea they're working towards along with some hidden potential plot that reveals itself later

Static visuals and backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous even if the character designs leave a bit to be desired and at times the animation itself feels lazy.

This isn't a fantastic anime, it's not a great anime either. It's a good anime that's cute and one that's not deserving of the harsh criticism it's receiving. After having now finished the anime, this anime is one you must give a chance if you're a fan of all things cute.

A cute anime! Maybe it breaks some physics and a lot of people are making that ruin their experience of the show, but don't let it ruin yours! the characters are designed well and you can tell them all apart from each other, but most of their personalities can be a little similar at times. seeing the mermaids interact with the adorable sea creatures is definetly my favorite part of the show. Sonata is my favorite right now, but all the bermuda triangle girls will steal your hearts for sure! Also, the OP is constantly stuck in my head. So, don't listen to the hate, ... just enjoy a cute show with some cute mermaids.

Bermuda Triangle: Colourful Pastrale is an extremely disappointing anime.

In the 8 years since it started, Cardfight Vanguard has created a number of unique and interesting clans that inhabit the world of Cray, in which this story takes place. These include: Robot Dinosaurs; Ninja Dragons; Angel Doctors; Ghost Pirates; the Insect Mafia; and many more, not least of which is Bermuda Triangle: a force consisting solely of mermaid idols. As you can probably guess, this clan is the primary focus of Colourful Pastrale, the first Vanguard series dedicated to exploring Cray itself, rather than the people playing the card game. And I must say, as a ... fan of both the clan itself, and of entertaining anime, my expectations were not met even slightly.

The story of Colourful Pastrale follows a group of 5 young mermaids as they revitalise and then run the local movie theatre. At least, it pretends to. In reality, the majority of the anime’s runtime is spent on watching the girls mess around and eat cake, with little to nothing actually happening. The characters are equally weak, the main difference between each of the main 5 being their costume and hair colours. They have no development, virtually no backstory, and very little chemistry with one another, which, for a genre focused primarily on character interaction, is even worse than a lack of plot.

But, most telling of all, it just isn’t enjoyable to watch. It’s mindless and terribly dull. For a show set at the bottom of the ocean, it’s ironically lacking in depth, and it comes across as incredibly joyless and by-the-numbers.

Don’t watch Bermuda Triangle: Colourful Pastrale. I’m sure there are hundreds of anime that do everything it does better, and without the shadow of wasted potential hanging over them.

If I had to sum up this show into a small sentence, it would be "A show with disappointing potential".

My scores on this show are all over the place, anywhere from a 3 to a 9 in different categories. It was incredibly frustrating watching this show throughout the season because I wanted so incredibly bad to enjoy it. It showed amazing things that I think did better than a lot of anime out there, but it just slacked so hard on other things that it was just heartbreaking or even cringey to watch at points.

Before I get into where I evaluate the scores, I want ... to note something. It is just an observation, but a lot of the voice actors for this show are pretty new to the scene. The manga itself wasn't very popular (at least over here). From what I can deduct, this show just didn't have much to lose. I mean, you couldn't just throw a popular manga like currently airing Kaguya-sama in the water like this. People would have been furious. I think this show was used as a stepping stone to help people get experience. This is, of course, giving the benefit of the doubt to the crew that worked on it. This is something I haven't really encountered before, but I will still judge it the same way I would for any other show. I genuinely hope this is the case because then it would fall under an honest attempt and it is good experience for people who are trying to get into the scene. Once again, shoutouts to the voice actors who got roles in this show and are getting experience. Onto my evaluation.

Story: 9/10 - Starting off on a good note, I thought the concept of the story was amazing. There were a lot of moments of testing friendship and overcoming some of the real struggles of life and the main characters worked through them. The dynamics and synergy that existed between them was written well. Definitely the most well-done part of the show in my mind. It made me want to love the show. Unfortunately, that isn't the case.

Art: 3/10 - The art was bad. Like, just real bad. It just looked rough and unpolished. The character designs felt rigged and not really the best to look at. The attention to detail was so minimal that I feel like I would have just scrapped the show if it were to go through my hands in the concept stages. When you have essentially a CGDCT show and it is visually unappealing, it really takes away what you are going for.

Sound: 9/10 - The sound was the other really good thing that came out of this show. With people that write music for BanG Dream (more on that in a minute), you can expect good music. The OST matched the setting well and helped with the story in a positive way. There is a certain song that has a correlation to another (won't spoil it) that is pretty important and it was the use of the two different styles of the song that helped make it effective as a watcher and listener. Music played an important role in this show and I am glad they got people with good musical experience in on it. Back to BanG Dream, the group Pastel Palettes did the OP and I thought that was incredibly cool and I am glad Bushiroad does that with their shows. Just look at some of the other shows they've helped with for more examples like Vanguard. The ED is incredibly fun and is just sung by the girls. Definitely one I wanted to hear more of!

Character: 7/10 - The characters were pretty fun if you don't pay attention to the art as I pointed that out earlier. Not as trope-y as I thought they were going to be but there were definitely moments that they were lacking. I think this isn't one of the categories where I was disappoint because I feel like it probably stayed pretty true to the source. Not disappointed, just felt average.

Enjoyment: 3/10 - Unfortunately the enjoyment of this show was where most potential was for me (art has to be fixed completely differently). There were decisions that had to be made for this show and I felt at every possible turn where a decision had to be made, they took the wrong one. I definitely don't think I could name them all but here are some... liquids in cups underwater, sandwiches underwater, baths underwater, electricity underwater, watering plants underwater, lack of buoyancy underwater, etc. Do you see the main problem? The whole being underwater idea is fine, but how they handled and tackled certain logical problems when creating this show just distracted from the show and just showed a lack of care for the show. It was things like that in the show (and not all of them had to do with water to be fair) that really brought down how good the show could have been. It was really disappointing. It was just a comedy show at some points because how poorly the show handled some of these issues.

Overall: "I wish this show could try again" 7/10

Earlier on, I mentioned that with how this anime in its earlier stages was obscenely prepared and paced, anyone can just pass this off as a subpar anime. Oh...how wrong (and right) I was.

Instead, it became another CGDCT-based anime...that is worth a breakthrough in human physics, with anthropomorphic humans in mermaid form, living in the underwater town that ain't the levels of the lost city of Atlantis, but still it's there. Great.

The aforementioned CGDCT based anime has but only 2 mediums: linear or non-linear story, and Bermuda Triangle forms somewhat of the former. Despite that, the producers must be ecstatic that their original idea actually ... came into fruition somewhat, and let me tell you, it (does) actually gets better than this.

Without much background of the overall series, in this Cardfight! Vanguard-esque universe of a spin-off sponsored by Bushiroad, the sea village of Parrel is home to the main cast of mermaid girls: Kanon, Serena, Fina, Sonata and Carol. Their main interest? To revitalize a theatre that has been long used but abandoned by townsfolk due to the deterioration of its equipment. Oh, and perform some songs too.

As simple as it sounds, it's actually a lot of work for these 5 cheerful girls to get the old theatre re-worked as brand new for the other Parrel townsfolk to visit yet again. And in the meantime, get ready for a whole lot of nothingness as these girls correlate in their daily issues!

The group of mermaid girls don't quite have any personality (and I'll admit it's hard to tell them apart), but what matters is their friendship with the other recurring adults in the same shop selling snack cakes. Seemingly, that's their main area of contact and conversation.

The main gripe I'll always have is how screwed up the character designs are, especially the appropraitely triangle-shaped eyes that always have me wondering how disjointed they always look. But regardless, I can see one-to-one with this show no problem.

Seven Arc Pictures actually made the WHOLE experience of Bermuda Triangle shine with its use of cheap but striking colourful art of pastrale and the wonky but smooth animation. WOW am I bamboozled by the results! The one thing on my mind has always been on the awful presentation of the entire town of Parrel with the adjacent figures, but surprisingly it was a rather good effort on the production staff to showcase (or rather, to sell) this show's decently beautiful and gorgeous world. Good job I must say.

OST is plenty fine, nothing that strikes as mediocre, but just meh. Both the OP and ED exhibits the sense of joyfulness that comes with colour and excitement, and sadly I'm just not feeling this, they sound OK to my ears.

Even without its original source inspirations, Bermuda Triangle is a show that can be stood on its own, and to a good effect. No, this isn't a good anime, but it stands in the "so bad it's good" category of anime: divisive but one that can be enjoyed if given the right circumstances and situations. As for myself, I can only get bored and sleep on this anime...if the worldbuilding was just as cool as the premise says and not fumble with its deliverance.

This review has been done with the context of its time and will be prefaced with the inclusion of details and information that is much needed for the reasoning behind the score. For context, Bushiroad is the company behind both Cardfight!! Vanguard and Bang Dream and will be referred throughout the review process. This show [Bermuda Triangle: Colorful Pastrale] showcases the process of creative burnout in Cardfight!! Vanguard, a sort of filler series that was designed to hold out what was the disaster of the released booster set in the Cardfight!! Vanguard trading card game.

First off, the animation quality is what I would expect ... for a Bushiroad product, but it feels very rough around the edges and will certainly have moments that become memes. The use of CGI is very present in the show which while it looks great in certain circumstances would be scathingly awful in the context of Bermuda Triangle. The sketches have a few moments of noticeable degradation, so please keep this in mind when watching. This segment gets a 3 for a very unrefined product that has been pushed out to the general audience.

Then, there is the music scene and sound design. The sound design for effects is generally regarded as one of the higher points of the show which speaks volumes. The underwater effects are just... fine. With the exception of Bang Dream, Bushiroad really did not push for much here, except to target a certain demographic of people playing Cardfight!! Vanguard. While not inherently a poor decision, the fact that this show uses Bang Dream as a backdrop already speaks volumes on how the direction of the show. For those without the context, this show was trying to tie in idol fans to playing the game. Where this show falls short is a reintroduction of Bang Dream into the general audience. This segment gets a 4 for a lack of creativity, but acceptable sound design and music.

And finally, here is the general premise of the plot: Cute girls doing cute things - Underwater edition. It is an extremely linear plot designed as a way for a focused and niche demographic to enter into Cardfight!! Vanguard. Honestly, this plot could have been used in the other properties in which Bushiroad had ties to and probably scratch the itch for most people in the demographic. You have an objective that is sorted out in the season, but not much else happening. This segment gets a 2 for not only lacking creativity, but also doing something that has existed and slapping a different label on the product and calling it a day.

In conclusion, this is a hyper-niche show that is designed with a product tie-in in mind and would not work for a general audience. If you are into slice-of-life with mermaid designs and did not mind that this is a Bang Dream show with a Cardfight!! Vanguard label, then this is the show for you. For everyone else, this is a hard pass.

Bermuda Triangle: Colorful Pastrale little can be said about this anime that when I saw it here to later see it, it did not catch my attention and I was not wrong since the story is not a big deal, and I do not understand how it started "" ALERT OF SPOILER "to first reopen a cinema" that the people already considered dead "and make everyone enjoy it again to become a group of idols leaving in" a very easy way "something in which they had only been already making an effort taking that point into account you will be able to realize that the ... story has no coherence also that it does not give you any indication that the girls "leaving canon aside" want or know how to sing, as in the development of the anime you do not they explain nothing in detail "although in some moments they try" but they preferred to give the girls more time and that we see their day to day "that at times it feels as if I were watching a cartoon that follows the starting pattern, there is a problem, whatresolve and end "

In general it is an anime that I would not recommend "unless you want to see something different or you have nothing to do with it" "like me" and as I always say, if you are a person who watches anime for its history and character development, this without doubt you will hate it with all your being and more if you do not like it or do not catch your attention the animes where the main plot is the music "although in this one it is not so notorious"