Aria takes place far in the future. Mankind has successfully given Mars a habitable environment, complete with the same force of gravity as Earth's, an atmosphere that is equally capable of absorbing blue light, massive oceans rivaling Earth's, and a very diverse biolife, all imported from Earth and successfully multiplied. They have also created an extremely fast and efficient method of travel between Earth and Mars and now people come to Mars for vacations. Despite all this, the world of Aria is very rural, with very little technology at all. The only pieces of technology I can recall, in fact, are the space shuttles that float in the sky, the mailman's flying motorbike, data cards, along with a very old type of phone.
The anime focuses on the lives of three undiines [girls in training to become primas (girls who row the gondolas in this water filled planet)]. These girls have almost no problems in their lives and are free to train and relax as the days pass. Its peaceful, relaxing, stress-free, but I can't say I was really able to relax that much while watching this show.
The story by itself is fine I suppose. Many of the middle episodes were a little too slow and calming, but the end episodes were good. The problem is that the whole time I was watching this anime, I was dying to know answers that were never going to be answered. For example, there was one episode where the whole girl team goes to a uninhabited island and have a good time at the beach. Somewhere in there, one of the girls says "I'm so happy to swim in the ocean. Nobody can swim in the oceans back at Man Home anymore so I've never done it before". Ehhhh is that so? Exactly what happened to the oceans back on Earth that they are no longer alright to swim in? Is there mass pollution on Earth now or are the oceans too cold or what? I really wanted the anime to stop focusing on peace on Mars and transfer to the potential mayhem happening on Earth. It never does though, and I am left with no answers.
I can't say I am one of the people of enjoy this kind of anime. I really just don't see the charm in it. Why are slice of lifes so typical in lacking any elements that make other anime so great? An anime can still be a slice of life anime and at the same time contain drama, action, adventure, Plot. Slice of life doesn't have to equate to happy go lucky peaceful animes featuring an almost all female cast doing almost nothing (looking at you Lucky Star). But at least Lucky Star was humorous, this anime was not. It was basically a sleep inducer, with almost every episode almost putting me to sleep. A better adjective for this anime would be 'boring'. I'm sorry but in such an interesting science fiction world such as this, I want to see some science fiction, not some slice of life sleep inducer.
Lots of people like this type of anime though, so I'll go ahead and recommend it. However, people like me, who like a core plot directing the anime with action, humor, drama, romance, or whatever will flee from anime like this and go back to other slice of life animes with those things, such as NHK Ni Youkoso, Toradora, or Clannad.
