Shiroi Suna no Aquatope

After leaving her idol career behind, Fuuka Miyazawa finds herself on a spontaneous flight to Okinawa instead of returning home to her pity party in Morioka. Bearing a heavy heart and nowhere to go, she aimlessly wanders around the area until she stumbles upon Gama Gama Aquarium—an aging aquarium on the verge of closing down.

With a lack of visitors and costly but necessary repairs needed to keep its doors open, the director is faced with shutting down the establishment for good by the end of the summer. The director's aquatic life-loving granddaughter—Kukuru Misakino—cannot stand the thought of the aquarium closing and is determined to make enough money by the end of the season to keep the doors open.

Seeing the unique magic of the aquarium, Fuuka begs Kukuru for a job; however, she soon finds that her lack of experience makes her more of a hindrance than anything else. At the same time, Kukuru realizes that her ambitious goal might be more than she can handle. With mounting pressure from all around them, will Kukuru and Fuuka be able to save the one place they hold close to their hearts?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Misakino, Kukuru Main

Itou, Miku Japanese

Miyazawa, Fuuka Main

Aida, Rikako Japanese

Yakamashi, Kuuya Supporting

Azakami, Youhei Japanese

Kudaka, Karin Supporting

Lynn Japanese

Shimabukuro, Kaoru Supporting

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Nakamura, Kai Supporting

Tsuchiya, Simba Japanese

Haebaru, Chiyu Supporting

Ishikawa, Yui Japanese

Teruya, Tsukimi Supporting

Waki, Azumi Japanese

Maeda, Akari Supporting

Yasuno, Kiyono Japanese

Ojii Supporting

Yanaka, Hiroshi Japanese

Nagatani, Takayuki Producer

Ogata, Mitsuhiro Producer

Usukura, Ryuutarou Producer

Oomori, Shinji Producer

Reviews

Apr 6, 2025

Sakura131

Recommended

I always forget to not judge a book by its cover. I added this to my list thinking it would be a mere cute story of girls trying to save an aquarium.

Instead I experienced an anime that depicts themes of loss and grief. Some accept it, others blunt the pain by staying occupied, and a few build a memorial. It shows how some run away from their problems while others are determined to work through them. It shows what it means to follow through on a dream. It’s also a coming-of-age story where the main characters transition from teenagers into hard workers, discovering what ... they value in life.

A classic "leave the city for the countryside" anime, I found it heartwarming, cute, and yet sometimes sad. Maybe its a hidden gem. It's worth a watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 19, 2024

mushi_Jyou

Mixed Feelings

Too beautiful for this plot.

Story
Subpar. Honestly, wasn't enjoyable. The beautiful background and scenes are wasted on this story. Story has 2 distinct parts. First half is on the Main Characters interactions revolving a small, closing down aquarium. All the main characters love this place, and tries to salvage it from its imminent demise. Hence the first half is about the main characters finding themselves and bonding over their efforts and intentions for this small aquarium. All intentions and wishes were very reasonable. But the actions are a little too weak. The story just goes on about how they wish to preserve the aquarium, but their ... actions are not exactly shown, except for a few. No team discussions, or seeking outside help, or taking more down to earth methods. There was no effort in advertising and improving the old aquarium... Most of the first halve content was filled with "I will not give up" and "I am there for you" drama. Is a very empty plot. But they are just 16-17 Year olds, so I am "fine" with the lack of sensible actions here, but 12 episodes on this is pretty boring.
Second half is a little disgusting. It starts after a time skip with main characters finishing up their high school stage and stepping into the working world. It show case a horrible working environment. Now their interactions revolve around the new big aquarium that was the new tourism hotspot, while the old one in the first half was teared down. Main lead herself was put into a role she did not sign up for, but decided to go with it believing she could still do things for the benefit of this new aquarium. Which I believe too. All departments play a part in keeping a company(aquarium) going. Somehow for a big new aquarium, they are pretty short staffed. In her department, for her team, the main lead is the only staff other than her supervising manager who also happens to be the assistant director. So is a 2 man team. The main lead was already established as a young girl with full of passion for sea life, armed with sea life knowledge and expertise. Yet in her role in this new company, she wasn't guided or taught the basic scope of her work, just dumped with work, and to learn on the job. learning ion the job is not a bad method except for when the manager provides 0 assistance for guidance, or help with corrections. All the manager does was to try to keep her in her place, moulding her into a robot. And all her friends (the rest of the characters) are equally terrible for telling her she should just do it and commit to her work more, despite all the Over time, and additional leg work to coordinate between departments (that should be the manager's job?) . telling main lead that she is not committed to her job enough because she took a bit of time out of her day to do things that she enjoys that will mentally rejuvenate her.
Is definitely gross how everyone who knew the main lead's passion and her over worked schedule tries to tell main lead she is still not dedicated to her work. (????????)
If she is doing over timed everyday, is the company's fault for not employing enough personnel to do the work that they have. Why is main lead being gasllighted to blame herself for "underperforming" in a role she did not asked for and have no official experience in.
And they managed to beat down main lead to just being a dead fish eye worker with 0 interest in her work, or her favourite working environment (aquarium) . Then main lead revived on her own after seeing her best friend (gf) and some baby turtles....
There's no moral of the story here. No deep philosophical meaning in their actions. No point at all actually. With all that senseless drama and toxic behaviour, is hardly a slice of life style too.
There is a supernatural phenomenal appears in the story here and there during the first half, as though they are teasing something magical/ beautiful will tie they story up nicely. But that just vanished in the second half until the last episode.... that plot point could have saved this story a little, but the never developed it. As if it is as casual for that magical phenomenal as breathing to occur.

Art
Beautiful. Stunning.

Characters
Bad. Thy made the whole story bad. Whiney and wimpy and illogical. Unnecessarily self righteous and selfish. All their actions baffles me. Over the top optimism, zero considerations for anyones feelings except for when someone is crying. Like crying is the only expression they will care about. Main lead is also naively obsessive. Neglecting basic foundational studies, not thinking about the inconvenience she can caused, and has some sister complex with a girl she barely knows for 2 weeks.
All other characters are there to enable the main lead and not even try to broaden her perspectives.

I wouldn't recommend it, but I am putting this as mixed feeling because the art is very pretty to look at.
In conclusion, is boring but pretty.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 26, 2022

TheBlazingBlade

Not Recommended

This is a peaceful slice-of-life type of anime. There is no massive story besides trying to save the aquarium, and each character has a side story. The story is straight forward and the characters have zero to little development. I liked the first 10 episodes, but I found Kukuru annoying. As the show progressed she stayed greedy, unyielding, childish, and pushed herself onto others. I understand these are high school characters. but the other 3 high schoolers acted more mature than her and were under similar stresses. Each time people create an excuse for her horrible behavior, everyone passes it off as "okay." There is ... tolerance to lack of character development and this anime pushes past that and keeps going.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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