Take any literature class, or even high school English, and you'll most likely come across the plot diagram. Introduction, rising action, climax and resolution. Conflict drives almost every story, and in terms of anime it tends to be on a fantastic scale. The end of the world, the fate of a nation or even the ebb and flow of a romance in a harem or romantic comedy anime. Well, aria doesn't really have any conflict on a fantastic scale. In fact, it doesn't really have conflict at all. Any conflict that does pop up is quickly resolved to demonstrate is easy going mood. It barely suffices to have the skeleton of a plot. Akari, a girl from earth, travels to a terraformed mars made up entirely of water specifically to the the city of neo-venizia. It's essentially just venice on mars or Aqua as the show calls it. Akari is trying to become a professional gondola tour guide within the city, and the show supposedly follows her in trying to achieve her goal. The pace is glacial, and most episodes are only tangentially related to Akari trying to become an undine if at all (said tour guide). Most episodes are simply the characters traveling the city by gondola in between ordinary activities.
The lack of any kind of real plot irks me a bit but I'm getting ahead of myself. It's a slice of life show, one shouldn't expect it to be plotted like a spider web. Slice of life shows are about character interactions. Unfortunately, though initially likeable, the cast doesn't really develop much beyond basic archetypes. Among the undines in training, there's the driven, uptight type in Aika, the reserved and mysterious Alice, and the airheaded, unfailingly cheery Akari. For their teachers and seniors, there's the motherly, gentle type in Alica, and the strict older sister of Aika in Akira. There's a curious lack of any major male characters perhaps attributable to the show's heavy use of moe. The three trainee undines often react and act the exact same way, with blushing, cries of 'ehhhhhhhh?' or 'ahhh' and deformed cartoonish reaction faces. A few have their own catch phrases and keyed reactions to situations. That's really about it.
So, with a ghost of a plot, a very basic character set, what exactly does aria have to keep you watching? The show actually turns out to be more than the sum of it's parts. The music is laid back flemenco and is very good, if recycled a bit, and the art depicting neo venizia is usually beautiful, except when it takes a nose dive in quality due to poor backgrounds or shoddy animation. The show has a genuinely calming effect and manages to be very charming. It takes away any stress you have and transports you to a world free of any kind of strife. So is aria a good anime? Probably. A masterpiece? Not in my opinion. If you're looking for deep characters, action or a complex plot, steer far away. It's not to me what it's cracked up to be, but judging by the other reviews and the overall score I probably can't tell you whether you'll like this or not. In any case, it's decent enough to warrant at least a few episodes worth of viewing from their each viewer can probably decide if they want to continue with the rest of the Aria franchise.
