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The synopsis is actually a little misleading in that it doesn't sound too interesting and a little wtf? to be honest. I mean, power to call rain? Right....However, the actual anime impressed me despite the lacklustre-sounding premise. In a nutshell, Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii is basically a character-driven romance anime. While watching, I was pleasantly surprised at the plot progression. Without spoiling anything, I can say that a mini-arc approach was taken where there was a central issue, usually involving some kind of politics, for each arc. The transition was smooth but more importantly, as a character-driven anime, we see how the main characters, Nike and Livius, developed and how the romance grew between the (mismatched) pair. Another thing I liked about the story is how they managed to keep things simple while engaging. Each characters' motives were made very clear and it is very understandable why they chose to carry out the actions that they did. And again, about the rain summoning powers, I still do think it's somewhat cheesy but it is hardly a central focus of the anime. Of course it has its weak points. The lack of central objective/focus means that there is a very heavy reliance on the characters to carry the show, and also what I would call a loss of momentum as the show progressed. Although I would seem to be nitpicking as many slice of life shows do not indeed have any central aim, I felt like there was some kind of climax-resolution structure at around eps 4-5, after which it got a little boring and then picked up again.
It has got to be fortunate, then, that in this case the characters were able to carry the show, as Nike's hotheadedness and strong emotions (and naisu figurrrre oo yeah) complemented perfectly with Livius' cool and intelligence, with some nice mix-ups as the show progressed. Indeed, the main characters were hard not to like and to back them up there was a lively cast of entertaining side characters, like the trio of comical maids forever trying to stuff Nike into a corset.
The animation was alright, for sure it didn't have to be great for a simple slice-of-life kind of show, with some noticeable poorly-drawn scenes which hinted at a lack of budget, but that's not a big issue for me. Also the rain-calling song is pretty good, and fortunately so because they repeated it like 10 times throughout the anime and you can't exactly skip it like the OP/ED so yeah. Only complaint for the sound was how sometimes the bgm was too overpowering as if purposefully trying to convey the mood. That does not sit well with me as I feel like the voice-acting if done well should be more than enough for convey emotions. Then again, not completely convinced by the performance of either of the seiyuu for the 2 main characters, especially Nikes', but then again somewhat expected as she apparently does not have that much experience, so perhaps the bgm-cover-up was necessary.
Overall, not too bad. Heavy romance isn't really my cup of tea so maybe I would appear to be a little harsh with my final score.
