Production values for the Aria series have proven to be quite decent, and this season of Aria proves to be no different. While the animation itself was standard, the artwork really does this show justice with it’s very well drawn, beautiful scenic depictions of the city of Neo-Venezia. The music for this series is also notable for it’s very calm, melodic tones that keep the atmospheric calming feeling that this series is famous for. Aria’s ambient music is excellent, and does a great job in complementing the very heavily water-themed city. In fact, the large presence of water and waterways is probably one of the big factors that contributes to the calm, relaxing nature of this show.
While the first season served as a brief introduction to the world of Aqua in general, the second season goes into much more depth in exploring this very unique setting. The scenery may be great in this show, but it’s really the subtle details and stories that really make the setting come to life. There are those episodes involving solely the supernatural, which I’ve noticed are either hit or miss for me; there were too many Cait Sith episodes for my liking, but there were also supernatural-focused episodes that I found had their own unique charms. Overall, though, I felt that this season could have cut back a little on all the supernatural-heavy stuff.
However, where this show really left a lasting impression on me was not the supernatural episodes, but rather the ordinary everyday episodes that explore the ever growing and maturing city of Neo-Venezia. It’s really the small, little memories involving our main characters that makes the setting feel alive, and as the show progressed I came to appreciate that much, much more.
What I didn’t quite like about the first season to this show was the extremely slow pacing (which often put me to sleep), which this season did improve upon. That doesn’t mean the pacing for this season was fast by any means. Even so the pacing here really matches well with the characters in general, and helps flesh out our goofy cast of characters. We still have our goofy Akari, the too serious Alice, and the hardworking Aika, along with the quirky little cat President Aria, which I’ve come to like for their own little quirks and charming points.
It isn’t until towards the end of the season that the characters get a more significant amount of development, but everything along the way helped flesh things out little by little. In particular, the dialogue for this series is important, as the dialogue uses some very detailed and imaginative ideas (though also very cliche at times) to give us some deep insight into the history of our setting, the growth of our characters, and the community of Neo-Venezia as a whole.
The major flaw to Aria is how the characters stay relatively the same for the most part, with character development extremely slow (it only begins to pick up towards the end, which leads up to season three). For the most part, though, Aria has some unique points to it that should make it a compelling watch for anybody that likes the “kuuki-kei” ambience atmospheric (often called slice of life) anime. As I mentioned in my review of the first season, Aria is definitely not a show to expect a tremendous amount of action or drama from, but rather a simple, ordinary yet fascinating and charming tale of Neo-Venezia and it’s inhabitants.
Animation/Art: 8.0/10
Music: 8.5/10
Characters: 8.5/10
Story/setting: 9.0/10
Overall Enjoyment: 8.5/10 (rounded up to a 9 on MAL)
Comments, feedback, and most importantly criticisms, are always welcome :)
