Review of A Lull in the Sea

Well, you're going to see my score and think to yourself, this person is pretty much insane. How can this person not see how "beautiful" this anime is? Well, please allow me to write up a review that may or may not justify my score. STORY: (3/10) The premise is actually what pulled me in, and seeing that it had such a high score on MAL as a romance anime and was brimming with 9 or 10 starred reviews, I went in thinking I wouldn't be disappointed. The first thirteen or so episodes actually don't disappoint, and I kept waiting for them to explain pointers andplot lines which, unfortunately, to the end remain unexplained. As you can read in the synopsis of NagiAsu, the premise is very interesting, what with people who live on land and in the sea, but as the episodes progress you begin to notice the plot holes that just continue to become bigger and glaringly obvious to the point you can't just ignore them and that is the downfall of NagiAsu.

The second thing is the romance, it is one of the most poorly done romances I have ever come across in anime. There is NO development whatsoever and every episodes just seems to add new characters to the list of the complicated as heck "romance". The romance of this anime doesn't move an inch from the first ep through to the 26th ep. No. Frickin. Development. It's all just a very big, very complicated LOVE OCTAGON if I had to summarize it.

Also the romance completely shadows over the actual plot and everything is so half-baked and sloppily handled in the story department I don't know how it ranks on #160.

If there is redeeming feature about the plot, it is the feels that this anime sometimes manages to provide. Of course if you love the romance, you'd find yourself getting feelsy over it loads of times, but what got me to shed a tear; one tiny little tear was a certain incident concerning Akari and her dad.

That's about it.

ART:(10/10) The art to say the least is breath-takingly beautiful with the backgrounds and the character designs showing such detail and intricacy it makes you wonder if they ended up focusing on the art rather than on the story.

SOUND: (6/10) The sound was decent. The OP and ED songs might be considered beautiful and touching by people who enjoy slow songs but I don't so that's that I guess.

CHARACTER: (7/10) In my opinion, the feature that saved this anime from being a complete train wreck were it's characters. They aren't anything original what with Hikari being your typical tsundere who yells at anything and everything but he gets better; though not completely cured of his jerk habits. He is my least favourite.
My most favourite character is Chisaki because I could relate to her in a way I didn't relate to any other character. Everything she stands for as a person, I find those traits in myself which makes her a character close to my heart.
In the same way, the other characters were all somehow relateable and you don't particularly end up hating anyone except if you have no patience for indecisiveness you might end up hating these characters alot.

OVERALL ENJOYMENT:(5/10) I can't really rate the enjoyment portion in a linear manner. The first 13 episodes have an enjoyment rate of 7/10; the later half rapidly deteriorates to a 4/10 because it just gets so annoying and frustrating, the stupid love octagon where everyone is in love with the other who is in love with someone else and so it just continues in this frustrating manner until a happy ending is slapped into our faces with an inconclusive love octagon.

In the end, a feature I forgot to mention, what was with all the "running away after learning a shocking truth" writers? It made me laugh and really destroyed whatever mood the situation had managed to get me in.