Review of A Lull in the Sea

Well, I'd like to start by saying A Lull in the Sea is aptly named as it did, indeed, lull me. Plain and simple, this is a boring show in which not a whole heck of a lot of anything actually happens. There are quite literally two major plot points in the entire 26 episode program and there's way too much nothingness leading up to them. This is a show I started out really liking, then liking, then feeling neutral about then near the end starting to actively dislike and be annoyed by. In the end I watched a pretty show with a great premisethat I cannot help but feel really botched its execution pretty hard.

Art-

Far and away the most visually impressive part of this show is its presentation of its underwater village, Shioshishio, and just its underwater scenes in general. They present the sea as vibrant, colorful, brimming with life and almost a bit magical. The visuals beyond that, while far from ugly, are fairly average and forgettable. It's largely just generic characters with unique hair or eye colors in a copy/paste school and/or small town setting that you've seen countless times before in other anime. The lack of effort/originality plagues this anime through and through, as even Shioshishio, while presented beautifully, is largely just a copy/paste of a generic village not unlike any other on the surface only with water and fish added after the fact.

Sound-

I found all four into and outro songs- two of each, respectively- acceptable but forgettable. There's nothing here I feel compelled to add to my playlist after the fact. Background music in this anime didn't stand out to me at all to the point where I almost didn't notice it was there. There definitely wasn't a track that stole the scene and commanded my attention. Perhaps the song at the very, very end was the best of the bunch but I'd also argue at that point it's more about the presentation as a whole as opposed to just the song you're hearing, as they really try to drive it all home when it's finally time to end this anime.

The voice acting here was fine, though no one stood out, and the poor writing, which got quite repetitive as time went on, did not do any of the voice actors any favors. Likewise, there's just way too much crying in this anime. Literally EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE. and that is not hyperbole, at least one character cries, often multiple. It gets old after a while. Some of the younger female characters sound a bit whiny, but I think that was intentional given the stereotype they're supposed to be portraying.

Character/Story-

The characters are, by and large, quite likable. For the most part pretty much the entire main cast consists of nice people with pure hearts and good intentions and no one is just a massive insufferable jerk. That being said, character development is quite uneven with some characters ending up highly cookie-cutter and one-dimensional and not evolving much over the course of the show, despite a lengthy time jump. Miuna is likely the character I felt the show did the best job with as far as establishing and showing her starting point, her personal and emotional growth and ultimately her ending point. Other characters didn't do that. They were nice, they were there, they had an acceptable amount of screen time but ultimately they ended the show not all that dissimilar from where they started it.

As far as the overall plot, while the premise of two distinct groups of people- those on the surface and those in the sea- is truly intriguing and has all the potential in the world, the execution here is just a wild swing and a miss. I could rant for a long time about all the things wrong with this world and all the nonsensical or unanswered elements of this story, but I'll abridge it and spare you. To be clear, this plot does not come remotely close to holding up under scrutiny. Here's an extremely small list of examples, of which I could whip up 25 more off the top of my head, of things that are just nonsensical with this anime-

-How do citizens of the sea village have things like television, stoves, broth, phones, etc fully and permanently underwater?

-When the main cast had their middle school close, forcing them to go to school on the surface, what happened to every other student that went to that school? Were there not any? There were literally four students in the entire school? Where did everyone else go?

-How does one enforce "a person from the sea marrying a person from the surface results in being banished from the sea"? It is established in the anime there are ten sea villages in Japan alone, nevermind the rest of the world. If you were to banish a person from Village A, what's to stop them from going to live in Village B? And even if you were to wildly stretch it and say that, somehow, every single village in Japan was not only in communication but also in agreement and all agreed to ban a person, what's to stop that person from living in a sea village in Europe or elsewhere? Can you ACTUALLY enforce a ban from the entire sea?

And all of this is to say nothing of the fact that the sea village and the surface village, while supposedly soooo different and soooo divided and there's all this tension between them and blah blah, are more or less the same place. The people look the same, their homes look the same, they eat the same foods, do the same things... Like I said earlier, you can more or less copy/paste the surface village, add water and fish and you've got the sea village. It's just lazy.

I won't spoil the specifics of the ending but it was a major, major letdown. The entire appeal of the show, established from the very first episode and shoved down your throat for the entire duration of the program, is the interpersonal relationships, crushes, feelings of love, love triangles, etc between the main cast members. In the end the payoff is garbage. I'll not reveal who ends up with who, but this show has zero balls. Zero kisses, zero mutual "I love yous", zero depictions of characters going on a date, zero shots of a couple cuddled up on the couch. The show gives you, at best, vague and ambiguous hints as to who may or may not be with who going forward and that is all you get. It was not satisfying at all. For all its buildup your reward for sticking the show out for 26 episodes is a pretty big slap in the face.

Enjoyment-

I'm a huge sucker for romance, I generally enjoy the Slice of Life genre, I find the sea fascinating and beautiful and I generally respond favorably to works of fiction depicting the supernatural, so this show had all the makings of something I'd adore, but I just didn't. As mentioned in my opening paragraph my enjoyment as I viewed this program definitely decreased over time and by the time the ending rolled around I was absolutely ready to be done with the show. It's slow and boring, repetitive, has major plot/logic holes, has way too much crying, has too many moments in which character's reactions are not believable or realistic, it has way too much "do nothing" and overall it just wears out its welcome and becomes a slog to watch. I'm glad I watched it... I guess? But there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever watch it again and I won't.

Overall-

The target demographic for this show is probably people around 13-16 years old who are still figuring out their own emotions, the emotions of others, love, change and acceptance. Perhaps this would resonate more with those people than it did with me. The constant tears, repeated dialogue, force fed bigger picture message and plethora of logic holes largely ruined a pretty show with the utmost potential, leaving it forever resigned to absolute mediocrity as far as this reviewer is concerned. I didn't hate it, but this show is a mess and I have no desire to watch it again.

+Very pretty underwater scenes
+Likable characters
+Occasional blips of emotional depth (ruined by ten immature, tear filled moments for every one of these)

-Slow/boring/pacing issues
-MAJOR logic holes
-Unsatisfying conclusion
-Repetitive
-Too much crying

OBJECTIVE RATING- 5.5-6
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6