When I began the first episode of Nagi no Asukara, I started it believing I had stumbled across the next anime gem. The product I was treated to, was very good, with lots of exquisite details- IF you can keep up with it. There were so many twists and turns, all coming without warning, some seemingly thrown in at random, that I practically felt sick by the end of the series just trying to keep up. In these following paragraphs I'll explain how Nagi no Asukara may not have always been the smoothest ride, but it still was the furthest thing from boring.
STORY: 6/10
I consider the story the most crucial element of this anime. This anime is only three genres: Romance, Fantasy, and Drama. Drama relies heavily on story and plot. So, therefore, story was extra crucial to this anime. In my opinion, based on how they wrote the story, you're either going to LOVE it because of its incredible depth and attention to detail and curveballs and whatnot... OR you're going to find it annoying at the very least because of all the massive plot changes that come without warning or the major plot events that just don't... make... sense... and the unanswered questions and I could go on. Personally, I see a little bit of both, but I tend to lean more torwards that second group. The fact that they never really explained that time jump really bothered me. It takes little effort to put in a simple flash forward but apparently everyone putting together Nagi no Asukara was too lazy. Due to this time jump as well, it breaks up the anime into multiple parts. Once again, depending on your point of view, this can be good or bad. There are essentially three parts to this series: Part 1 (Episodes 1-13) center around the unexpected weather calamity and the tension between the sea people and the land dwellers. Part 2 (Episodes 14-19) center around recovering from the weather calamity and preparing for people awakening from their hibernation. Part 3 (Episodes 20-26) is essentially all about Manaka, rather directly or indirectly. Even for a drama anime, that's probably too many plot twists. If the plot was hard to follow, the romance was even harder to follow!!! A had such a hard time trying to keep track of who was crushing on who because it seemed like they kept changing it. Every time I was sure I had it straightened out, they would change things up. And it was annoying. I'm STILL not sure if anyone likes anyone at the end or not.
ART: 6/10
The look of this anime kind of frustrated me at times. The most obvious example is with the two lead male characters, Hikari and Kaname. Other than hair color, I found them to look identical. So much so, in fact, that I could not remember who was who. It took until Episode 13 before I was able to start getting them straight, and NUMEROUS things happened to help fix that. This gets annoying as it's one reason why I had issues keeping crushes straight. When Kaname would confess, I would think "wait a minute... I SWORE Hikari was hitting on her??? Why is he confessing to this girl???" It would take half the episode for me to realize that "Hikari" had been Kaname that whole time. It wasn't the only time I confused them, but it was the most notable. Another piece of art I wondered about was the salt-snow, or salt-ice. Was it supposed to resemble more snow, or salt??? Depending on the answer to that question, determines how good of a job they did animating it. The ONE THING that truly stuck out as looking absolutely amazing from this series was the ena. They way they got it to shine just right when the light reflects, and when it does... it's BEAUTIFUL. They nailed the ena. For what it matters, they did a great job with the first opening credits visual as well. As for the rest... let's just say the end credits always felt lifeless and with the second opening credits... don't fix what ain't broke. They had no need adding in Manaka that late in the series. It just made things feel awkward.
SOUND: 7/10
This is where Nagi no Asukara did its best work (although admittedly not by much) I'll briefly touch on the sound effects (mostly because I'll butcher the breakdown) and then I'll get to the music. So first... the sound effects. When the characters were underwater, or having a scene that was somehow impacted by water, the effects seemed so much better. There's a night and day difference between the land and water sound effects. It's odd, in a way. Just about every unusual or interesting noise or effect happened underwater. The best and most creative of them all, the sound that eventually led to the discovery of Manaka during Part 2 of the series, was heard underwater. I know the main characters came from underwater, but still... they could have cooked up cool sound effects for above ground as well. As for the music... during most of the series, they would feature music that happened to be also used for the opening or closing credits (which I'm pretty sure is common) The original opening credits song was borderline FLAWLESS. Really got me thinking positive about the series. Both closing credits #1 and opening credits #2 were very solid as well, just not quite that great. I have no recollection of closing credits #2 and when you have no recollection... you know there is a problem. A couple times, albeit rarely, Nagi no Asukara would break into a song during the show. Those songs were decent, but once again, I've heard better.
CHARACTERS: 6/10
Nagi no Asukara could've done so much better here. I've already brought up the issue about how characters look too much like each other. Another issue that got under my skin was three of the most central characters all had major issues with their personalities. That is fine if you look at it this way: "These characters each have a unique weakness. Will they be able to conquer their weakness by the end of the series? Tune in to find out." But if you instead look at it more matter-of-factly: "Each one of these three characters has a weakness. And NONE of them did ANYTHING to work on improving themselves AT ALL during the ENTIRE SERIES." No, I don't expect perfect characters. I just don't like characters who don't work on improving themselves. ESPECIALLY where they're weakest. The examples are: Hikari always would let his emotions get the best of him. He would get carried away, overly critical, too harsh when it's unneeded, he would even get in fights with friends. If he was truly trying to work on controlling his emotions (and he needed to) he wouldn't end up storming off every single time things get the slightest bit tense. But he fly's off the handle more than I do. Next is Manaka and how weak and unstable she was emotionally and mentally. But mostly emotionally. She was TOO nice. So much so to the extant that she couldn't handle ANY negativity. Too much stress, pressure, confusion, worry, too much to think about, something too important eating her alive on the inside... any of these could get her to break down in tears uncontrollably. The fact that she kneed Hikari in the crotch and immediately broke down in tears because Hikari was hugging her shows you what kind of girl she is and how much she can handle. She was just as flighty and paranoid in Episode #26 as she was any other episode too. So, like I said... she doesn't improve. she remains without a backbone for the whole series. Finally we have Chisaki, the one who's always sacrificing for her friends. ALWAYS. She's always afraid that if she does something to try to make herself happy it'll get in the way of one of her friends becoming happy. She could potentially ruin their life because she got impatient and selfish. So she constantly bottles EVERYTHING up until EVERYONE else has their happily ever after. Throughout the series there have been NUMEROUS chances for Chisaki to break free of her own chains and enjoy something, but she always stubbornly refused. And that is unhealthy. And also shows zero character progress. A character I did like, however, was Uroko. Sassy, egotistical, a flirt with all the young ladies, yet still wise and helpful... most of those traits remind me of me.
ENJOYMENT: 5/10
There were some episodes that were just way too plot-driven and I struggled to get through them. I truly did enjoy the more entertaining episodes, with action involved, but those were too few and far between. There were way too many dialogue-driven episodes in this series. It made things slow and dull. Considering, on top of that, you always had trouble keeping up with the story and knowing exactly what was going on now, That only made it worse.
OVERALL: 6/10
All things considered, Nagi no Asukara is a decent, balanced anime. The writers must have worked hard putting that story together because they came up with some incredible twists and U-Turns. And they also went to incredible lengths to put great detail in the story. Too bad they didn't leave a road map for others, because plenty will sadly be getting lost!!! The art could've been improved with the characters looking more unique. The sound was actually good. A couple improvements here and there to the music and it could've been great!!! I forgot to even mention how thin the cast was. I mention that here, in passing. So, clearly Nagi no Asukara could've been better. But that doesn't mean I consider it a poor anime.
