TL,DR: do not let the rather „low“ score of this turn you off the show because I’d still recommend to watch this if you like proper slice of life anime, especially if you are interested in the inner workings of an aquarium because this show is well researched. You just gotta get through an incredibly annoying main character.
Now let’s start the review:
STORY:
Aquatope on white sand, or Shiroi Suna no Aquatope, is a story about an ex idol that does a spur of the moment decision and runs away from home and finds a place she belongs to at Gama Gama Aquarium in Okinawa and the people there.
At least I WISH it was because with Fuuka, our runaway idol, as the primary protagonist this show would’ve been ten times better.
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s still a good amount of focus on her story but the main focus is about the current situation of the Gamma Gamma which is about to close down because it isn’t doing so well and the path of the characters while it goes down and after.
It’s a proper slice of life story that is split into two parts. The first half aböut gamma gamma, the second aböut what happens after. It’s got a slow pace to build up its story properly and doesn’t skip over things too fast and never gets boring. If you like or are at least interested in Aquariums, this show is for you because it is actually well researched. The story to me seems like P.A. Works spiritual successor to Hanasaku Iroha which, if you haven’t seen it already, I can only recommend if you like good slice of lifes to relax to. The story gets a 7/10 from me.
CHARACTERS:
Now this is both the strongest as well as the worst part about this show. Given the slow pacing it takes its time to properly build up and develop every single character in a way that’s natural and makes sense given their personalities. Most of the decisions the characters make sense, sometimes only after their backstory or other circumstances are revealed, sometimes from the start.
We’ve got everything the heart desires in the wise grandpa, the introvert that’s afraid of women (hey for a good reason mind you), the best supporting female friend and big-sister figure anime has seen in 2021, the back-pain suffering middle aged man, the never smiling superior only assigned to give the main character a hard time at work (<- seriously that guy is the best addition to the cast in the second half and he has the least dialogue in the show) the single mom who’s trying to make it at work, and a ton of more colorful characters that all add to the cast equally well.
And THEN we have Kukuru, or as the assistant director refers to her and I’ll further use for this review: „Plankton“. Plankton is our high school aged main character and the current acting director for gamma gamma aquarium in place of her grandfather (who’s coined as the Legendary Aquarium Director in every other aquarium they go to). She’s the type of character that always jumps into the direction of the very first emotion she feels at the current situation she’s in without thinking even a single step ahead, which in turn gets her into quite an amount of trouble multiple times. I usually don’t have a problem with emotional characters, just look at my profile‘s lists for confirmation of that, but there’s a point where you should stop and think to yourself: „you know, after all these times she acted so emotionally and got into trouble, she kinda should’ve learned by now to at least try to think rationally about the situation first“ but NOPE right back to square one.
A good example of what I’m talking about is in the second half of the show:
One of the penguins at the aquarium is hatching up an egg so the attendants that can are to stay the nightshift to see this through. When Plankton learns about the fact that the main attendants for the penguins can not make it to the Night Shift now what does she do? Well of course she does the only thing that comes to her mind and literally goes to her in the cafeteria at lunch break shouting at her accusing her of not caring about the animals and abandoning them and leaving the work to other people without even spending a single second to ask or even just THINK aböut why she can’t make the Night Shift. Pretty easy answer to the question: she can’t because she’s a single mother of a 5 year old kid.
Now she doesn’t only have these annoying scenes, there are actually some quite good ones involving her, especially when she’s with Fuuka or when she comes to her mind and realizes she should take a different approach, but these overly emotional episodes of hers are far more present than any of her good qualities. She does come around a bit at the end in the last few episodes and has some nice development but the damage is already more than done to make me change my opinion on her.
As for Fuuka, the other main character, after she comes into her own after the first few episodes she acts as the determined and supporting big sister to Plankton, and my god if any of you ever manage to find a friend who is like her, then keep them because you won’t find one like them any time soon. She’s determined, she’s decisive, she knows what she wants, she uses everything she learns and takes it into account for every further decision she makes and is just overall a complete and well rounded character. She’s not without her flaws too (being a runaway ex idol) but her qualities and development more than make up for any criticism you could throw at her. Seriously one of the best characters coming out of anime this year imo.
Because I’ve rambled on quite a lot I’ll close my character part here with an 7/10
ART/ANIMATION:
Not much to say here, the visuals are impeccable, the arts great and fitting for the themes of the show and the animation is magical. Sometimes I feel it’s a bit too bright and colorful, especially for a relatively simple slice of life show so it gets a 8/10
SOUND:
The OSTs aren’t too remarkable or any that are gonna stay in your head forever but I can’t say I’ve heard a single subpar one, and it mostly fits. The OPs and EDs aren’t exactly my favorites but they’re not bad.
7/10
ENDING/CONCLUSION:
I think this was an ending very much befitting this show and they actually delivered on it really well, albeit a bit fast paced imo. It mostly paid off almost everything it build up and ended with a pretty beautiful scene. I kinda wish it would’ve focused a bit more on one particular thing introduced in the later episodes that I’ll not get into because of spoilers but they could always do a movie for that like they did with Hanasaku Iroha so here’s to hoping for that. Because the end was a bit fast and there was no focus on that one thing the ending for me is a good 7/10.
EMOTIONAL IMPACT/ENJOYMENT:
Now then, this is the part where I actually lay some of the most worth into when watching an anime: How does it affect me personally?
If I look at Aquatope then I can say, not exactly in a very positive way. There’s not to say it is not a good show, on the contrary, like I said above I still recommend it to anyone who likes watching proper slice of life stories. But when I take into account just how much Plankton annoyed me then I really can’t give it a high score for this topic.
But other than her I’ve liked pretty much everything else with a few exceptions. It’s kind of a similar situation to EVA: good plot, great cast, nice visuals, but I lack the ability to even remotely relate to the main character. Now Kukuru probably thinks she suffers as much as Shinji but she doesn’t. She’s a character that makes for good drama that drives the story forward but it can also be misplaced drama, and if you’re not gonna get me invested in said drama you can kinda just get lost already. Again, I wish there was more focus on Fuuka.
As an overall rating for this review I’ll put a 6/10 here because of the aforementioned points but since the anime ended on a pretty good note and there is decent natural development I’ll probably have it as a 7/10 in my list. It’s more a 6.5 though than anything else. This is an above average show that had the potential to be so much better but just happened to have a very subpar main character.
P.S.: I don't understand people who make reviews BEFORE a show is finished, sometimes especially with popular shows that just manipulates the ratings, and I HATE to see currently airing shows in the top 30 on this site. Not this one, just in general.
