Reviews

Mar 8, 2016
How could a perfect, prior child actor, mythical princess, rage-stricken mouse and a perverted pink pomeranian (alliteration much?) recover a slumbering theme park from to its old days of glory? I'll admit, I literally had no idea how the hell that was going to happen before I tuned into Amagi Brilliant Park. This is one of those shows that grabbed my goldfish attention span with a sticky glove and refused to let me get to my ever-growing backlog. I was in the mood for a lighthearted series with lots of laughs and colorful pizzazz, nothing more. What Amagi delivered ended up being a pleasant surprise in the slew of mediocre shows coming out these days. And I don't give out 7's to just any show … well maybe I do.

Amagi Brilliant Park is a story about a perfectionist high school student named Seiya Kanie with a knack of pissing off literally everyone around him with his incessant narcissism. I mean the dude is named after Kanye West! I feel that speaks volumes of his character and personality from the get go. Through a date arrangement with a fairy royal guard member named Isuzu Sento, he is tirelessly recruited into helping a magical theme park help to restore its popularity and subsequent revenues in order to stay in business. The entire effort is led by a frail Princess named Latifah Leuranza (named after Queen Latifah herself) who was crippled by a magical wizard and forced into a permanent form of a 14 year old for eternity. I know this sounds ridiculous (and it is), but bear with me. Once Seiya delves deeper into helping the park's members out, he quickly realizes how deep in doodoo they actually are.

The story isn't generic by any means, so I have to award some credit for originality. However, it doesn't entirely avoid pitfalls that most short animes fall into (plot holes, under-developed antagonists). Also, although adapted from a Light Novel by Shoji Gatoh, there are certain parts of the this adaptation that didn't translate over to the anime. I tend to forgive this small issue, since I don't really read manga to begin with. I mean, think of how many movies differ from their associated novels. Seiya has a large number of interesting interactions with the other park employees as well, including plentiful physical altercations with Latifah's uncle Moffle (yes, he's actually a mouse and yes, he's the same Moffle from Full Metal Panic if you didn't already realize that). At first, it just seems as though the reasoning for Amagi Brilliant Park needing to acquire more guests and popularity is purely monetary, but an unfolding backstory backstory of how the park was created sheds new light on that opinion. Since the park is “magical”, it relies on assimilated energy from the guests happiness due to visiting the park to stay in operation.

All magic and character antics aside, the writers actually do a decent job at making you feel a sense of empathy for the magical fairies that reside at the park. You end up cheering them on to get the amount of guests they need for that day, as well as shedding tears when things don't quite go their way. Seiya does a fantastic job at playing the leader and manager as well, and he's initially very honest with them about how much they suck at being adequate magical carneys. I mean that IS what they are, right? Also, through the weeds of hilarity and vulgarity, there are quite a number of uplifting morals contained in Amagi. I wouldn't necessarily let young children watch it (thanks Tiramie!), but even the pretentious intellectuals of the anime community could find one less anime to shit on for not being intellectually challenging enough.

There are a boat load of characters to enjoy in Amagi Brilliant Park. Seiya is initially the MC you love to hate, constantly admiring himself in the mirror and putting his vanity on display, but he contains a reasonable amount of depth as the series progresses. Not only do we get to understand why he is such an asshole, but the writers also shed some light on his child-acting past and his previous ties to Amagi Brilliant Park itself. I always enjoy animes with protagonists I don't want to take a figurative shit all over due to their annoying sense tropey-ness. Isuzu is a great character balance to Seiya in many ways. She's no yandere, but she does have deadpan humor (or no humor for that reason), and can tend to violently police Seiya and the other members of Amagi's cast. Not to mention that she's got the looks and endowment to make her a staple on any pleb's waifu list. I wouldn't be surprised if one or more otakus out there had a pillow made of her after the show aired. Latifah is frail and often passes out during periods of too much physical exertion, but she does make some good food. Oddly enough, she was also blind in the light novel, but perhaps the anime directors assumed this would distract viewers from the rest of the story. Besides her over-arcing role, she didn't really get much more depth.

The supporting cast has something for everyone. The aforementioned anime-jumping Moffle often scuffles with Seiya, and he has a tendency to fly off the handle, but when it comes to his niece Latifah, he plays a softy in every way. Moffles best friends are Tiramie, a pink pomeranian and Macaron, a male sheep who plays the violin and can be somewhat of a dead beat. Tiramie is hands down one of the funniest anime characters I've ever come across. The constant perverted jokes and cat-calls he makes at women coupled with a love for explosives ensures there's never a dull moment with him around. I literally went almost the entire show without realizing he was not a girl. This dude is fucking hilarious! There's also 4 voluptuous vixens that double as the Elementario fairies, each with a unique personality but they often fight as a result. They provide the seemingly necessary fan service in Amagi. This anime has such an insane amount of characters, that I couldn't list them all, but due to this a problem arises with character development. It's really only there for Seiya and Isuzu. I would almost argue that this show doesn't need it to keep me entertained, but it would probably catapult even higher on my list if that were the case.

It can be really hard to rate the art in modern animes. I mean, it's kind of all starting to look the same if you think about it. In Amagi's case, the art style neither helps nor hurts it as an overall series. It's pretty to look at, but if you really pick it apart I'm sure you could find plenty of tiny things that would irritate your pompous critical side. I can applaud the relatively complex character models this series possesses between the animals and inanimate objects that are personified and made lively and colorful. The voice acting is well done, and not to sound like a fanboy or anything, but Ai Nonaka did fantastic as Tiramie. Well, at least I was correct in my presuming the role was played by a girl... I also thoroughly enjoyed the opening of Amagi. It really pumps you up for each episode. I feel that an OP should either add some depth to the series, or get you excited for the upcoming episode. Sometimes it's like the producers say, “here's this semi-intelligent premise, oh and here is some random ass OP that has completely ruins the vibe the show was going for.” The ED was nothing special, and being that it was only 12 episodes, I felt that it was better to just binge instead. Sound effects were spot on, and the rest of the OST was okay, but I never really noticed there was background music to begin with.

I thoroughly enjoyed Amagi Brilliant Park for what it was. The series was a slight anecdote to my backlog and it fill well as both a comedy and a motivational genre. I would recommend this series to someone who just wants to take a break from all the shounen or serious animes they've been watching as of late. Although I don't expect this world to be explored again, I think it act as a pillar for a series of sequels, if it were in the writer's future plans. Thanks for reading!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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