The show being a slice-of-life, it doesn’t have an actual plot. It is episodic and the story of each individual episode is an excuse to show the characters doing things in a more tranquil version of Venice (IRL Venice is full of tourists and much more noisy) with a few SF and fantasy elements here and there. The planet Aqua is a Utopian world. There are no antagonists, no conflicts or anything of the sort, only good emotions and happy people. The universe is not really developed either. But this isn’t that much of a problem, as the point of the series isn’t the story or the relationships between the characters but the peaceful and relaxing atmosphere.
Aria is a pure slice-of-life: no drama, no psychological or physical violence, just the peaceful and slow-paced daily lives of young women training to become Undines (aka female gondoliers – there doesn’t seem to be any male ones) in the beautiful scenery of an animated Venice. Everything in this anime is purposely made as relaxing and comfy as possible: the slow movement of the gondolas on water, the satisfying dialogues delivered by a very nice voice acting, the sound of the water, the seagulls cry, the relaxing background music, the simple and innocent comedy… In short, this anime is ASMR.
The animation is slow but there are very few to no static images. The character designs and the clothing are pretty original. The face designs, particularly the eyes, are very detailed. The backgrounds and the landscapes are very detailed, and Venice is beautifully recreated. In this second season there were a few episodes where the faces where inconsistent, but overall, the animation was of the same quality as the first season.
At first, this show seems like the usual “girls doing things” type of anime – well, it mostly is, but it manages to avoid most of the cliches and irritating tropes associated with the medium. Contrary to the vast majority of anime, there is no sexualization of the characters, and the show doesn’t shove naked minors with huge anime breasts into your face with the only objective of appealing to the horny teenage males and the pedophiles in denial that constitutes a big chunk of the modern anime community.
All gondola companies have a cat as their company “president” – they’re more like mascots. The show introduces us to three of them, as the 3 main girls all work in different companies. The cat that appears the most on the screen is Aria (hence the name of the series), “president” of the Aria company. This cat with a disproportionate head and unusually big eyes follows the main girls in most of their whereabouts, and he is constantly doing things in the background while the characters are talking, or paddling the Venetian Canals in their gondolas. His presence adds to the comfy atmosphere, particularly when he does funny uncharacteristic cat noises.
However, this show can also be seen as boring. It is slow-paced, has no plot and focuses on mundane stuff like sleepovers, taking care of a cat in secret, a day off at a grandma’s house, new years celebration… People expecting plot progression will get tired of the episodic format very quickly. The dialogues can be very sappy, which doesn’t really help. The thing is, you’re not supposed to focus on the dialogues or the story, but on the atmosphere.
So, what changed in this second season?
While all the episodes of the first season had Akari as the main character, in this new season secondary characters got a lot more screen time. Some episodes’ stories focus entirely on one particular character, such as Aika or Alice, whereas some others consist in flashbacks with characters that were pretty much useless in the first season, like Akatsuki for example. These episodes were pretty pleasant to watch and they made the secondary cast more likable.
One of the good sides of Aria the Animation was that it had no romance. Unfortunately, this new season made the mistake of putting boring romance stories in some episodes.
Remember Al? The completely useless background character that Aika seemingly had no interest in? Well now she’s so madly in love with him she can’t help blushing and stuttering every time she sees him. That’s alright, you’d think, after all the first season did the same with Akatsuki and Alicia. However, this is not the same. In this season there are entire scenes, sometimes even entire episodes, about Aika not being able to confess her feelings. That’s just plain repetitive and predictable and I doubt anyone would enjoy watching a romance between a cute anime girl and a gnome that makes cringey puns.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that all romance is bad. But in a series like this it feels out of place, as it breaks the relaxing atmosphere, which is supposed to be Aria’s strong point. That’s not enough to make the show bad, but this still means that there are some episodes that are just plain boring.
Coming back to the cats, in this second season there’s a whole army of them. A kingdom, even. Well, it’s not an actual kingdom, but a set of secret places found all across Neo-Venezia. In several episodes, Akari encounters its leading figure Caith Sith, a giant cat with a gentle look that stands on his feet like a human, and is allowed to catch a glimpse of this mysterious and hidden other world. There are also a lot of episodes about other mysterious places, sometimes even ghosts, which aren’t scary at all but are interesting to watch. Those were easily the best episodes of this second season.
To conclude, this second season of Aria is on par with the first. Some aspects of the series, such as the secondary characters, improved, while some others got worse. If you enjoyed the first season, you will most likely enjoy this one as well.
SUB-SCORE EXPLANATION:
Animation: good character designs; good backgrounds; a few episodes with face inconsistencies → 8/10
Sound: good and relaxing BGM; very nice VA; good sound effects; decent OP → 8/10
Story: no plot progression; mundane things; some episodes had interesting stories → 4/10
Characters: good and likable characters; secondary characters got a lot of development → 8/10
Enjoyment: most of the episodes were enjoyable, except the ones with boring romance; some episodes can be re-watched; some sentimental value → 6/10
Overall: 7/10
