Review of A Lull in the Sea
Do you know that moment when, I don't know, sometimes happens and you have to, bitterly, put a series you like on-hold, and then after a while you go back to it, with the good feelings that you left it with, and then you slowly realize that it's not as awesome as you remembered it, but still lying to yourself that the "magic" is still there, only to get those hopes crushed even more and realize the utter bulshit you have been watching all this time? This is exactly what happened here for me. Story - 3 The setting is, to say the least, and Ithink everybody can agree, the best thing of this anime, however all the potential and originality that it could have had fell flat on its own face with a plot that it's completely nonsensical and not justified. The first half of the show, the one which i had fond memories from, was actually quite fun to follow along; of course, ignoring the overall defying of phisics that Shioshishio village has (yes, you cannot eat soup underwater! also, the sense of gravity should be cut in half compared to the surface. Also let's do not forget salty water makes floating a whole lot easier than sweet water!), but after the first 10 episodes or so, I started to wonder what exactly was the point of this show. Love polygon between teenagers? Slice of life with a supernatural setting? Angsty teenagers and their misunderstood love? Around episode 19 I felt like it turned into a teen version of The Bold and the Beautiful and I really couldn't care less anymore and from episode 21 and forward I facepalmed so many times my forehead turned red. I don't know whether I was simply blind when I liked this or I was in a phase of my life where I actually believed that love was the answer to everything (what literally just happened in this show). It would have been so much more interesting if instead of any other slice of life, this show would have tried to concentrate more on the original setting, on Uroko-sama and the Sea God, which definitely intrigued me through the whole 26 episodes, instead it even took that concept and smacked a half-assed "just because" on it, keeping it ambigous and trying to mask its own nonsense with it. That just shows how desperate for a conclusion the author was at that point. Anyway, in other words, I was expecting something more similar to the Little Mermaid and instead I got some bratty teenagers bragging about love and pretty much nothing else.
Art - 7
Art-wise it's pretty cute. I didn't like the overall characters' design as much as I loved the animation of the sea world in general. And then there is Uroko-sama. Let's all bow to Uroko-sama.
Sound - 5
The OST was to say the least mediocre. The only song that I really liked was the opening song. As for the rest, forgettable.
Characters - 3
Hahahahaha...hahaha..ha... Right. Do you remember when I mentioned that if the show would have focused more on the sea world and the Sea God /Uroko-sama, it would have been more bearable? I take that back. It ONLY needed to focus on Uroko-sama to be more consistent than this! The rest of the cast almost doesn't even matter as much in my eyes with all their very petty problems included. When a show tries to make the characters' development be the whole focus of the story, then I expect it to have a certain degree of coherence and be fairly justified. In this case, it was not justified and not coherent at all. Why would a grade schooler love somebody for 5 years and work hard for a person that they only just met a few times? We're talking about a GRADE SCHOOLER. At that age I was still playing with my dolls and wondering who shall I marry my Barbie with, not gawking over the next-door "oniichan". It could as well have been a crush, but a crush of a kid FOR a kid, crush triggered just for a bit of kindness, lasting so much just rubs me the wrong way. Brats! The whole cast can't be described any better than using the word "brats". Even those that got to 19 years old. STILL self-victimizing brats!
Enjoyment - 3
At the end of the 26 episodes, I just had a "wtf did I even watch" expression plastered all over my face, so my enjoyment was quite poor for the most time.
Overall - 4
ლ(ಠ_ಠლ) just.what.