Umi Monogatari: Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto (Umi Monogatari)

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Alternative Titles

English: Umi Monogatari

Synonyms: Umimonogatari Anata ga Itekuretakoto, Sea Story

Japanese: うみものがたり　～あなたがいてくれたコト～

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 12

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jun 25, 2009 to Sep 17, 2009

Premiered: Summer 2009

Broadcast: Unknown

Producers: None found, add some

Licensors: Nozomi Entertainment

Studios: Zexcs

Source: Game

Genres: Supernatural, Drama, Magic, Romance, Fantasy

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 6.71¹ (scored by 5,051 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score. Please note that 'Not yet aired' titles are excluded.

Ranked: #4875²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #2966

Members: 19,172

Favorites: 26

6.71

Ranked #4875Popularity #2966Members 19,172

Summer 2009TVZexcs

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Episodes: /12

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Synopsis

Marin and her younger sister Urin are seafolk who happen upon something quite strange: a beautiful silver ring lost beneath the waves. The kind-hearted Marin, intent on returning it to its owner, drags a reluctant Urin along with her to the sky world despite reminders of a turtle elder who left for the surface and never returned. After locating the ring's owner, Kanon Miyamori, they learn that Kanon had tossed it into the sea after her boyfriend dumped her earlier that day.

Though Marin insists that such a lovely item should not be thrown away, Kanon discards it once again. As they search for the ring, Urin becomes separated from the other two and accidently breaks the seal on a stone coffin, releasing an evil being known as Sedna. Sensing Sedna's release, the formerly missing turtle elder, Matsumoto, reveals himself to Kanon and her companions, naming Marin as the Priestess of the Sea. Together with the Priestess of the Sky, she has the power to seal Sedna away again. And as luck would have it, during an encounter with one of Sedna's minions, Kanon discovers that she is the Priestess of the Sky. Though Kanon is hesitant, she and Marin decide to work together to save the world from the evil that threatens it.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Umi Monogatari: Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto
Sequel:	Umi Monogatari: Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto - Shinjiau Kokoro
Side story:	Umi Monogatari: Marin no Kore Naani?
Other:	Umi Monogatari: Kanon to Iku Amamikoshima

More characters
Characters & Voice Actors

Miyamori, Kanon

Main

Kotobuki, Minako
Japanese

Marin

Main

Asumi, Kana
Japanese

Urin

Main

Horie, Yui
Japanese

Matsumoto

Supporting

Naya, Rokurou
Japanese

Sam

Supporting

Majima, Junji
Japanese

Suzuki

Supporting

Gibu, Yuko
Japanese

Ichikawa

Supporting

Akesaka, Satomi
Japanese

Utasha

Supporting

Miyahara, Nami
Japanese

Kojima

Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki
Japanese

Miyamori, Miyako

Supporting

Nagai, Sachiko
Japanese

More staff
Staff

Satou, Junichi

Director, Storyboard

Kawasaki, Itsurou

Episode Director

Yamada, Yuka

Script, Series Composition

Itou, Masumi

Theme Song Performance

Edit Opening Theme

"violet" by marble

Edit Ending Theme

"Toumei na Inori" by Masumi Itou

More reviewsReviews

Sep 26, 2009

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

Skadi (All reviews)

120 people found this review helpful

Man's relationship with the sea has always been one of awe and fear. Awe from its immensity and depth; fear from its power. Because we cannot explore it easily its mysteries that captivated our ancestors still resonate even today despite our technological advancements and control of our surface environment. Umi Monogatari ~Anata ga Itekureta Koto~ tells the tale of two worlds fated to be apart but still must coexist as part of the same planet.

Umi Monogatari's story is part magical adventure and part romance. Marin and Urin are mermaid sisters from the sea world. One day they discover a ring that has fallen from the sky world and they resolve to go to the surface to return the ring to its owner. They don’t know that the ring was thrown into the sea by the heartbroken girl Kanon, who has just broken up with her boyfriend. Marin soon finds Kanon and returns the ring but she is unwilling to accept it back. Through these actions, a dark power is accidently awoken and both Marin and Kanon discover their secret destinies.

I was quite satisfied with the way the story unfolded overall. Unlike a lot of similar series the show manages to stay on task for every episode and not devolve into a series of filler and service episodes only to return to the main story near the end. There aren’t any "Marin and Urin go to school" or "Mermaids at the Hot Springs" episodes which I found quite refreshing. For the most part the story is told at a very relaxed and pleasant pace. There isn’t a lot of action though so I suspect some people will find its pacing to be boring at times. However, I felt there was a lot of powerful and complex drama, particularly near the end that kept me interested throughout. While not all of this necessarily works it was still quite enjoyable. The ending was also satisfying and complete, wrapping up all of the important story elements.

Marin and Urin are both sweet and likable girls. They are naive to the surface world’s ways though perhaps not as much as they probably should have been. We get a decent amount of back-story on the relationship between the two sisters and their past but it still doesn’t feel like you really know them that well. Towards the series climax the drama surrounding them is much more compelling and powerful.

Kanon feels like the most emotionally deep character in the series. She is a bit of a dark character, especially when compared to someone like Marin who is full of love and energy. Kanon is a girl who wants to be liked but just doesn’t know how to show it to people. Often what she does show is the opposite of what she feels and leads people to have the wrong impression about her. She’s referred to quite a bit as "evil" which I found a bit strange. Perhaps it is something that just can’t be translated well because she’s not an evil person. Her character grows tremendously over the series as she is able to overcome some of her emotional scars and accept and receive love as well as return it.

The supporting cast is very well done. The story does a nice job of making many of them fairly deep and interesting while keeping their actual screen time to a minimum to focus on the main storyline. Kojima specifically, as he appears briefly in the first half of the series, he doesn’t speak and he is seen through Kanon's perspective. So by the time we actually see him talking, the audience will have her view about him. Though we find that Kanon's viewpoint is skewed from the truth do to her own personality quirks. For a character that probably had less than 15 minutes of screen time through the entire anime he left quite an impression.

As a villain I found Sedna to be intriguing. Despite not having a physical form, she is a terrifying presence. Mainly because you can relate to that dark inner voice that everyone hears from time to time. She remains suitably mysterious throughout until the truth of her existence is finally revealed.

Visually Umi Monogatari is very beautiful. Both the surface and sea worlds are lovely and the magical effects and action are gorgeously animated. The character designs are also cute and realistically proportioned. I think my favorite piece of animation though was the EN theme which was just completely adorable and matched the song perfectly. The OP theme is a bit sleepy but I thought was very fitting as an introduction to each episode.

I enjoyed this series quite a bit and would give it my recommendation. Though I suspect it will not necessarily appeal to everyone due to it's pacing and lack of action. If you are in the mood for a relaxing series with good drama and romance and some lite action, then you should give this Sea Story a try.

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Sep 25, 2009

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

SilentFate (All reviews)

12 people found this review helpful

Introduction:

Umi Monogatari is an interesting anime, at times it seems like a harmless "slice of life" show, with vibrant characters and pretty nice visuals. Although once the story actually starts to show its true colours, you realize the show is not as light hearted as it seems and in 12 episodes, it feels as if the same themes get used over and over and over again.

Story:

The plot is very simple, along time ago a dark entity / witch (whos name is Sedna) was sealed in the sea as well as on land, One of the characters accidently releases the seal and the 2 main characters read more

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Jan 21, 2015

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

ktulu007 (All reviews)

12 people found this review helpful

Welcome back, Friends, to magical girl month. We've looked at Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha and Magic Knight Rayearth. This week we're going to look at a magical girl series based on a pachinko game. This is Umi Monogatari: Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto, a series written by Tsukiji Toshihiko and brought to us by Zexcs, the same studio that brought us Cheesesteak Suppository also called Aku no Hana, but I don't like to dignify that pile of excrement with the literary reference. Let's take a look at Umi Monogatari and hope that it's better than the one other work of theirs I've reviewed.

Story:

A couple of read more

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May 13, 2016

12 of 12 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 8

GlennMagusHarvey (All reviews)

7 people found this review helpful

There seems to have been a trend for -- or at least chatter about -- more mature, and often thematically "darker" takes on the magical girl genre. Arguably started by series like Mai-HiME and Nanoha in the mid-noughties, it became very prominent following the release of Madoka Magica, and has since been responded to in Yuuki Yuuna Is A Hero. While this is certainly an interesting idea to ponder, this approach runs the risk of making the story more driven by theme/symbolism needs than by in-universe setting interactions. Meanwhile, Umi Monogatari -- a lesser-known series spawned from a pachinko game, of all things -- seems to have done this idea right, perhaps rather unexpectedly.

Umi Monogatari ("Sea Story") is a 2009 magical girl series that I feel really represents best the idea of a "mature" show, especially one without the pretense that "darker" themes such as despair, philosophical quandaries, and hopelessness of the universe are what are specifically needed to make a story "mature". Instead, it derives, from its characters and setting, a thoughtfully complex yet emotionally meaningful story, and may even prompt the audience to reconsider what "light" and "darkness" mean.

Umi Monogatari is primarily a story about characters, their interactions, and their emotions. It does this not with shock value nor with too much spectacle. Instead, it focuses on those interactions and their consequences. Like you might expect, things are not exactly as they first seem, but rather than subverting tropes for for the mere sake of subversion (only questioning our presumptions about the story), the story also works those tropes in ways that form a coherent whole as well (thus providing meaningful answers to that questioning).

Umi Monogatari is also "mature" is another sense -- it might bore younger viewers. The show is heavy on details of emotion, and dialogue is quite common, as opposed to spectacle or high drama. In a similar vein, the soundtrack -- small-ensemble jazz by Ken Muramatsu, apparently recorded live, improvisations and all -- is often contemplative and features relatively simple instrumentation that's used throughout the soundtrack, as opposed to bombast -- even when one might expect bombast. This suggests a patient and introspective approach to the story. The simple instrumentation also lends a bit of a folk-tale motif to the storytelling.

Overall, Umi Monogatari is an experience that connects thoughts and emotions, but is built by neither alone, instead connecting both in a way that weaves together light and darkness. At the same time, it works with some tropes typical of the genre but redirects them in ways that are well-justified by the setting and present a coherent narrative once all the pieces are revealed.

As some more interesting trivia: Umi Monogatari is set at the fictional island of Amamiko, which is based on the real-life island Amami Oshima, one of the many Ryukyu Islands that form the southern tail of Japan. The story features a number of cultural and geographic cues related to the real-life island, and the song sung by the miko seems to be in the local language called Amami.

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Umi Monogatari: Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto

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