Niea Under 7 is no masterpiece, but it is good, and criminally underrated. It's mostly a comedy/slice-of-life deal, and the premise should be familiar to anyone who watched Gintama (hold on, was this an influence?): aliens have come to Earth, but life continues relatively unchanged (much less in this than in Gintama). The premise and the fact that both are comedies are pretty much the end of the similarities, though, as the cast, general atmosphere, and comedic style are much different in this. Niea Under 7 is slow and sleepy and imbued with all the sluggishness of a hot summer, and it's all the better for it, as this atmosphere is a major contributor to some pretty genuinely emotionally affecting moments, which I will get back to.
But first, the comedy. Of course, the central duo is comprised of Mayuko, an exaggeratedly poor college student, as the straight man, and Niea, an unemployed freeloading alien, as the funny man. It's pretty standard stuff, but certainly better than more typical incarnations. Mayu is tired, overworked, and filled with a world-weariness and cynicism that feels very real – she is as lost as any of us, a good person without any real means of applying her virtues. A particularly telling sign of her character comes in the first episode, where Niea crashes a spaceship through the roof of her apartment; Mayu simply accepts the blame without even trying to explain that she's not at fault. Niea comes with a stock defect, the absence of an antenna and a lower-class status. Neither of these are really all that convincing (I mean, we believe them, but sometimes they do seem “stock”), but I'm not sure if it really matters – the sadness that causes Niea to act out also feels genuine, regardless of whatever contrivances cause her grief.
There is a lot of humor in Niea Under 7, but it's not exactly refined or witty; the funniest bits come from the editing, the voice acting, the visual choices, the sounds. It's not situational humor, particularly, but instead based on the characters or director behaving outlandishly against the more subdued tone that otherwise pervades. However, comedy is not necessarily the defining feature of Niea Under 7; it vanishes for extended periods, and when it returns, it really possesses a kind of emotionality unto itself, a revelry in the idea of comedy itself, rather than proper comedy. In essence, the main duo isn't that funny to the viewer, necessarily - they enact comedic routines more as a materialization of their bond as friends than as entertainment for the viewer. Because of this, there's a genuine pathos that undergirds (and sometimes undercuts) many of the comedic moments, especially later in the series.
In other words, while Niea Under 7 could technically be classified as a slice-of-life comedy, it is really much better at being serious than comedic. All of the characters are deeper than they might be in an ordinary comedy; their motivations are subtle, fickle, and altogether human in a way that separates itself from the show's comedic elements (even with the “comedy relief” characters). Hell, Chie shows up in episode 4, and 5 minutes later, she's already more well-developed than most characters in the last 5 years' worth of anime history. Even Karna, who just abruptly drops out about halfway through the series, manages to have her moments of character development (where does she go, though?). The issue is, and others have pointed this out, that characters sometimes do drop out, and their presence is missed. But the characters that stick around explore facets of life that feel very authentic.
In many ways, the concepts Niea Under 7 explores are relatively basic. We all know about family, personal pride, being ashamed, finding the courage to speak, and being tired. Niea Under 7 explores those concepts without what I would call sophistication – its successor, Haibane Renmei, was more sophisticated – but it remains grounded as a result of its lack of sophistication. More importantly, the show's lessons are delivered with a remarkable gentleness. Unlike in many comedies, these characters are not idiots – they have real motivations that supply humor when they are meant to but still remain legitimate, understandable, and fresh, if not entirely organic. For the kind of show that it is, the mechanisms of it are perhaps a bit too visible. (In Serial Experiments Lain, the mechanisms were more visible, but the constructedness was always essential to those characters; in Haibane Renmei, ABe finally achieves what he didn't in Niea Under 7 as the storycrafting completely disappears into the organic cast of characters.) Occasionally, this constructedness is put to good use, when, for example, all the characters happen to gather in the same place, or whatever. And later in the series, character development happens more and more naturally, although the sense that some elements of the show are intended to drive that character development never completely vanishes. But I can forgive ABe that, since the ways that the characters react to these events are so novel and so achingly subtle. Often while watching the show, I felt like ABe and co., after contributing to one of the coldest, darkest shows of the 90s, wanted to do something that's just warm. And this one is so warm and also so bittersweet, it has so much of the bittersweetness of stasis.
On some technical aspects: there's not much music during the show, and the sound effects come straight from Hanna-Barbera's playbook in a curious reference to cartoon history – perhaps to demonstrate the poverty of the characters (even their sound effects are public domain!). It is a “domestic poor animation,” after all. The opening and closing songs, however, are both brilliant. On the OP, “Come Here,” and the subdued mood of the instrumental and creaking voice of SION himself portray a kind of weariness that persists throughout. And the ED is stunningly beautiful, especially paired with the montage of pictures from Mayuko's past; the line “Everybody will grow up and pass away eventually, but they will be born again here so it will be merry” is an emotional wellspring that tints every episode with bittersweetness, even right through the slapstick comedy. (Anybody who enjoyed the show would do well to look up the full-length song, which makes me choke up every time I listen to it.) Here the OP and ED really work with the show to build something bigger. What music is featured throughout the episodes is good at buttressing the sort of listless mood of the show overall.
The animation certainly has its issues, but it's not particularly bothersome or important: it's good enough. The character design is, characteristically for ABe, fantastic, and the sets are also well-designed to contribute to the aura of quiet decrepitness that is so important to Niea Under 7.
Some have pointed out that Niea Under 7 is perhaps too arbitrary and too incomplete, and it is so. For a show 13 episodes long, it tells a story that could've just as easily been told in maybe 7 or 8 – even less; this really could've been a feature-length film and hit all the major plot points, introduced all the major characters. So it seems bloated, right? Not exactly. Characters come in and out, and when we expect it all to build to something or to go somewhere, it stubbornly doesn't. Drama happens and it doesn't happen. Niea Under 7 imitates slow processes of life, where things don't quite happen as they do in the movies, where people take months to learn that they care about each other, where sudden tearfulness is a powerful emotional climax. More modern slice-of-life shows could learn a lot from NieA's subtlety.
Of course it never exactly goes anywhere. One could never call Yoshitoshi ABe a genius specifically for having thought of this; the incredible depth, complexity, and philosophical deftness with which the team navigated a world like Serial Experiments Lain is gone here. But as if everything has to be the work of a genius. NieA Under 7 instead demonstrates that it's the work of people who have experienced happiness and sadness, comfort and unease, who have seen the cycles of the world fold over onto themselves, that everything is here and not. It is a celebration of ephemerality that is decidedly unprofound, and proud of that fact. Is that in itself profound? No, and to think it was would be to misunderstand the point. Here we have a warm, enveloping show that reminds us that the powerful messages driven home by other, more pointed, and often better shows aren't really the basis of life. NieA is a show about the seasons changing, and about saying goodbye to the moment that is now even when another one will surely come. Everything that is said is pregnant with emotion, and yet nothing is ever said; and yet, isn't that life? And just like that, NieA Under 7 is swept away by the wind.
EDIT: Despite its technical deficiencies, I can tell this show is going to stay with me for a long, long time, so I'm going to bump it to an 8, which puts it cleanly in masterpiece territory. Yeah, you absolutely should watch this show, especially if you're a fan of ABe's. Reviewing it solely on its own merits, I'd probably keep it at a 7, but where's the fun in reviewing if you can't get emotional about it?
Story: 7 / Art: 6 / Sound: 6 / Character: 9 / Enjoyment: 8 / Overall: 8
