Fario-P said:Haha, wow that's great! If you don't mind me asking, how was it? What did you think of it? I'm sure I can tell what the answer is from your second sentence, but... was it worth the watch in your opinion?
It was definitely worth the watch, although in a technical/literal sense I feel that about most things I watch unless they're outright atrocious which is seldom the case seeing as I'm pretty accurately proactively selective for my own tastes and interests in anime and every other medium.
As far as my estimation of it in a ratings sense, I'm waffling on the fence between a 7 and and an 8, although that's just in my mind as I haven't actually physically given it a rating yet on the site since several weeks ago I took the liberty of suspending my ratings of new series to allow time to take a breather and step back from the perspective of a regular viewer as I fear the tendency to lapse into hyper-critical mode otherwise which may start to adversely affect my enjoyment of anime and really, all art and entertainment. I plan to go back in maybe around six months and rate everything I've skipped rating for now retroactively to allow being removed from the material and the passage of time to inform a new perspective on it.
What I liked or loved:
- The OP and ED. It's been a while since I've seen a series where both the OP and ED (many haven't even been great on either) caught my attention immediately, actually compelled me to listen to them every time, and had me download and add them to my anime-related music playlists on my iPod.
- Manatsu
- The animation, since I'm in the likely minority on MAL who actually not only enjoys or appreciates, but strongly prefers the early and mid-2000s animation and art styles over the present-day trends
- The dualism and symbolic role of the mirror and spirits or entities from the mirror dimension
- The pronounced coming of age themes related to self-worth and self-conception, way of relating to others and the world around you and social standing, body image, and physical and mental health most visible and deftly integrated from the beginning of the second half of the series
- The very Shinto or animistic take on the djinn as and lore/mythology around that as transcendental forces personifying nature and outside man and time. And as chaotic forces beyond man's conception of morality
- The fact that the special or OVA episode (I assume it was originally included on the series' initial DVD release in 2005) provides a preferable, more fitting and conclusive ending than the original last episode of the series' first TV run. I would have been more disappointed and left less fulfilled by the first ending.
- Some of the basic Slice of Life scenes of swimming, eating, and walking on shady summer afternoon streets provided me with a retroactive sense of nostalgia as I would have been roughly the same age as Ichika when the series first aired and tend to relate and experience second-hand nostalgia in that way, and passionately so.
- The "romance" starting with and again going back to self-love
What I disliked or hated:
- Lack of adequate character development for the supporting characters. This is because Ichika and Manatsu are the focus and I actually prefer series where even as few as two main characters are the overwhelming central focus, but the issue here is that in some of those series other characters are a glorified background decoration whereas we actually spend a significant amount of time with supporting characters like Ichika's friend group, but because of the series' length could not be evenly developed in a sufficient manner
- Because the first half is slower and more SoL-esque, this is harmed by the first point, because I actually love slow and SoL series and episodes if I'm invested in the characters they're revolving around. I could watch a 100 episode series of just that with no qualms. But I didn't feel very invested in characters apart from Ichika and Manatsu
- Because of the length again, some plotlines more in the area of subplots are sprung or abandoned rapidly without requisite groundwork and build-up to feel emotionally engaged over them
- I wanted to see more of the djinn and perhaps the mirror realm and less shots of Saya on the prowl stalking from a removed vantage point which I feel like could have filled an episode's worth of runtime
I hope this will be sufficient, but let me know if you believe I've missed a lot or taken the series in a very different manner than yourself or something like that.
|