NieA Under 7

"Poverty makes people mean."

NieA Under 7 currently has a MAL score of...under 7, and I find that unfair.

On one hand, I sort of understand it. NieA Under 7 is a very unassuming series, and at first glance, it looks like any old slice of life anime from the early 2000s. On top of that, our titular character can be really grating at times, and with other characters like the...walking Indian stereotype? (wow, that...has to be racist, right?) It makes sense why so many people would be quick to write this one off.

But, with only thirteen episodes, I highly recommend you hang on.

NieA Under 7 is ... the type of SOL show that digs deep into the aspects of every day life, and contemplates the characters' feelings and circumstances. It paints the picture of a marginalized immigrant living with a poor college student and their every day lives trying to get by. The marginalization of the aliens is mostly treated as set dressing at first, so the small moments where they dig deeper into it tends to be insightful. Mayu's poverty is treated similarly; it's not necessarily treated un-seriously, but rather it's such a normal factor of life it tends to be brushed over and joked around about---much like how living in poverty actually is. So, just like the marginalization of the aliens, it hits so much harder when they take the time to reflect on it and how deeply it affects the characters. NieA Under 7 is a quirkly SOL, but it manages to capture the exhaustion and misery that the hollow acceptance of your poverty brings.

And it's not just marginalization and poverty. Mayu as a character is one just coming into her young adulthood, the age of discovery and figuring yourself out, but she's much too stressed from work and school to be doing that. She struggles socially and isn't sure what she wants to do with her life. She internalizes her problems and sabotages things for herself even though everyone around her likes her and wants to help. It's such a frighteningly realistic depiction of what it's like to be this age in such dire circumstances that suck the life right out of you.

NieA under 7 is an odd slice of life series that seems rather mediocre at first glance, but it also touches on themes of identity, discrimination, coming of age, melancholy, cultural assimilation, class, and social alienation. It may not be perfect, but these reflective moments hit somewhere deep and resonant within.

Don't pass this one up.

NieA_7 is, surprisingly, a mixed bag. It isn't mediocre the whole way through, far from it, but instead it has stellar highs and irritating lows. To summarise: I found the human side of the story (ie Mayuko's) extremely compelling - if the entire show were simply devoted to that, I would be willing to recommend it much more readily. The alien side (Niea's), however, I have little praise for.

Mayuko is a deeply relatable character and navigates the common stressors of life with a certain elegance. I felt her story delivered lacklustre answers to her questions at times, such as what she wants to do with ... her life, or how to deal with student-derived poverty, which I actually consider a strength. These problems are commonly discussed because they have no definitive answer. Maybe you're approaching 30 and still have no savings, or sometimes you enter university or the workforce with an ambivalent heart whilst your peers may have had lifelong career goals that they are now pursuing. Dispassion is not a bad thing, and I'm glad NieA_7 doesn't seem to present it like it is, the mundane nature of life is quite enough. The bathhouse is shown to provide a valuable community service, and when its situation develops (no spoilers!), you have an investment in the standing of this business, care for its well-being, and those reliant upon it. I enjoyed Mayuko's story from start to finish, and on its own I would give it as high as an 8-9/10. On the other hand, all of Niea's scenes, and those involving aliens in general, are consistently just awful. None of the jokes land, and Chada's characterisation frequently enters racist territory. The hierarchy of the alien society is never expanded or commentated upon in any meaningful way, and I felt it presented it as a force of nature rather than anything socially constructed. I understand that it can seem that way on an individual scale, and Niea does at times appear to try and make peace with it, but again, there isn't any substance to it. I would give Niea's story a 2-3/10.

Is NieA_7 a bad anime? Not at all, there's gems of beautiful sentiment woven into it. Is it a good anime? Only just, Mayuko, Kotomi, Nenji, the Karitas, and perhaps Genzo do the heavy lifting, the rest are just dead weight. Be prepared to find the show boring at times, especially in comparison to ABe's other works (to me, it doesn't hold a candle to the magnificent Haibane Renmei), which was how I discovered it. 6/10.

It's...a big mess.

This show has so many fluctuating episodes with different atmospheres, it's as if they're not part of the same story. You first think you're watching a light-hearted comedy, then a seinen, sometimes sci-fi, but wait a second, it's a comedy again. It's like this show doesn't have an identity, and it suffers tremendously.
You'd think that since one of the main characters is a discriminated, "unique" sort of alien, the plot would involve something about that identity. In the earlier episodes, Niea is clearly discriminated against, and I would suppose that her being an "under seven" would have some sort of meaning. Well, ... you're absolutely wrong.
Instead, the first 7 episodes or so is just comedy, not so good, not so bad, whatever. Then, the last 6 episodes is where it takes a huge nosedive. The plot tries to redirect itself to being coming of age, seinen, sort of plot focused, almost no comedy involved. It's pretty slowpaced, and nothing really happens. It mainly focuses on Mayuko's development as a character, and the revolving circumstances that surround her. It's kind of just very mediocre.
Niea makes little to no appearances, and when she does, it actually makes the story seem interesting since its about her hearing things about the mothership. It makes you wonder if the latter half of the show wouldn't be garbage if it just focused on Niea more. Instead, you get this half assed run of the mill coming of age plot about Mayuko. Great.
Characters are also divided in between "serious" characters and comic relief characters. There are characters in the first half of the story that serve as comic relief that never come to show again because the latter half is coming of age, and so they served their purpose. The "serious" characters are the more "mature" characters that help Mayuko come to terms with everything and help her move forward. As if there really are two different plotlines in two different stories.

Typical of a 2000's anime, this show's art, while aged somewhat badly, probably was pretty normal at its time.

Conclusion: If an anime is pretty damn old and isn't really recognizable, it probably faded to obscurity for a reason. This anime is one of them. It tries to experiment with too many things, and because of it, this anime is a jack of all trades and a master of none. It tries to be serious, it tries to be funny, but it just fails at both. The first few episodes were actually pretty decent, but it's too bad that the anime had a lack of focus, and as a result, fell short of every expectation.