Glasslip: SoL or Drama?
Throughout watching Glasslip I felt the show constantly was jumping between drama and slice of life and it ended up being a mess. One of my favorite series is Nagi no Asukara, a series that came out roughly a year before Glasslip. The two series are both original series by P.A. Works and many NagiAsu fans (me included) were hoping for another series like Nagi no Asukara. Nagi no Asukara, in my opinion, is a series focused on conflict, drama. Sure there is a SoL feel in some episodes but that only lasts so long before a conflict arises, testing the characters' limit and leaving the audience hoping for the characters to overcome the events and grow as people from them.
Glasslip does not take this course, and even if it did, the characters would ruin it. I'll talk more about that later.
The slice of life genre stands on one thing. The characters. Without lovable and entertaining characters, the series is noting. Why would we want to watch the life of boring and unlikable individuals with nothing spectacular happening? Series that succeed in the SoL genre like Ichigo Mashimaro, Barakamon, and Non Non Biyori only succeed because people want to watch the characters. They enjoy their personalities and just watching then do mundane and simple activities is fun.
Glasslip: Characters
As mentioned above, characters make a SoL show. The problem is every character in Glasslip was annoying and felt extremely unnatural. They even tried to rip off the characters in Nagi no Asukara. With the "quiet and mysterious new guy" character Kakeru a failed attempt to recreate Tsumugu from Nagi no asukara. And the main girl is a clumsy, cheerful, lovestruck heroine extremely similar to Manaka's character in NagiAsu. Yet somehow even trying to recreate the characters from Nagi no Asukara, I disliked every character in Glasslip, even if I love every character in NagiAsu. Actually the only character in Glasslip I liked was the main character's little sister, Hina, who had very little screen time! So watching the show I couldn't get invested in what was happening to the characters because I didn't like or care about any of them.
Glasslip: Sci-fi or not??
The most frustrating thing about Glasslip is its piss poor attempt to integrate a sci-fi or fantasy element like they did in NagiAsu. And yea, the set-up on paper is cool. A girl and boy who can tell the future through a looking glass? But what happened to that? Its mentioned here and there and then nothing. It's like a romantic drama. The characters all trying to figure out their feelings for each other in the hot summer. Hormones, a hot sun, sandy beaches! ... oh yea and some of them have this power..... They do such a poor job at this area of the show, it would make the show better if it didn't have the most interesting concept in it! As you can tell I'm pretty mad about it. The idea had so much potential and they just took a giant shit on it.
Is Glasslip a terrible unwatchable show?
No.
But is it a show that I would recommend to someone looking for a colorful slice of life show? Or perhaps a drama-filled romance? A fantasy show about a girl seeing the future of her closest friends right before her eyes?
No, no I wouldn't. None of that.
But is it a show with pretty animation and a nice soundtrack?
Haha, yep.
In conclusion: I give Glasslip a 5/10.
