Review of A Lull in the Sea

--- CAUTION! THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SOME MINOR SPOILERS! --- I don’t know what I was expecting based on the synopsis when I started watching Nagi no Asukara, but I sure didn’t expect this. Of course, I knew it wouldn’t be dark and mysterious like some other anime, but I never knew I would wind up watching slice of life - one of the genres I avidly avoid because my action-longing heart just can’t take it. Or, maybe I’m too immature. Whatever. In brief, at the start, Nagi no Asukara seemed to be just a slice of life with a little bit of fantasy and toomuch romance in it. Something that made me want to bang my head on the table. I support that, still, but only for half of the anime. But, let me elaborate on that in a less confusing way. So, as tradition goes, let us start with the story element.

What I’m going to do for this review, in particular for this story part, is divide the anime into two parts. Part one, episodes 1 - 12 and part two, episodes 13 - 26. I have to do this because the parts are vastly different in many aspects.

Let’s start with part 1. As I said before it’s a slightly boring slice of life with a little bit of supernatural in it - there are some people who live in the sea. This causes some minor complications such as prejudice, getting a fish in your knee and Ena drying up.
There were also some interesting but seemingly useless plot line points such as the preparations for the Ofunehiki which felt like plain filler. Well, not exactly in that sense - I felt like they were trying to use that to establish character relations, which may be a good thing, I guess.

What was abundant in this anime was romance, so I will be focusing on this a lot. Whilst I did like it some of the time, the thing is that it was plain annoying the rest of the time. Right from the first episode a guy in my anime club said, and I quote, “Those damn love triangles.” And that’s from the first episode.
In truth, it’s waaaaay past love triangles. As I like to say, love pentagons, but it’s actually love heptagons. Seriously. All the characters have some ties in between them, drawing a complex web. It’s very, very annoying, and I hate it. It had me bashing my head on the table and exclaiming “Seriously?!” more times than I can count, especially at times when nine year-old girls fall in love with fourteen year-old boys at first (okay, okay, maybe second) sight. That, I cannot accept.
There was also an overload of mush in both parts. Characters talking about their complex feelings for other characters which just plain pissed me off.
Sometimes, the romance did lead to other points - such as the apparent tabou of sea/surface relations - but once again, tastes like filler, not entirely, but mostly. Not that I’m complaining though, because in the end, it does serve to something, I guess.
To finish off my rant on how I hate romance, I’ll say this: it wasn’t all bad. Some parts were cute. I admit it. *tsundere style* But it’s not like I enjoyed it or anything…
Overall, I found the first part of Nagi no Asukara a slice-of-life anime, which however has some complications coming up. I wasn’t forcing myself to watch it, but the first episode didn’t quite meet my expectations, and it didn’t contain any of what I call the OMG factor. This is the thing that leaves you hanging at the end of one episode and you just have to see the next.

On the the second part. This is where things take a drastic change for the better. It suddenly acquired a good dose of mystery and thus OMG factor.
Firstly, it’s not really slice of life anymore. It has more of the supernatural element in it and whilst the love heptagons still stand, I guess it’s not as bad. It was great seeing some of the characters grown up.
This was far more interesting because, as I just said, it abandoned the slice of life part, and added a little bit of mystery, I daresay. There’s the whole element of the forced hibernation and the snow and all that. It is great when characters start reappearing again, but I find it a little weird that of course it’s the main protagonists who show up. Why not the others? But then again, that would probably lead to some more wasted episode time.
Episode thirteen is pretty much a bridge between the two parts, and it did get more interesting. I have a few complaints on the cliché-ness of the show which I just have to mention here, because I hated how Manaka offered to be the Ojoushi-sama. That ‘unexpected’ heroism has been done about a thousand times before.
Back to the topic. Whilst the general plot of the second part was a lot more interesting (incidentally I won’t elaborate on it much because I would have to recount the whole story), it still had several issues. One was the Ena. I swear, suddenly all the characters have it. Just jump in the sea and almost drown to get free Ena.
Another issue was that Miuna became the main character. It’s not that I don’t like Miuna, but she became really annoying, especially how she keeps thinking about her love with Hikari and how he doesn’t love her back and yadda yadda yadda tears and torment etcetera. I understand she is in love with Hikari, that was decided in the first part, but she just became so annoying with her thoughts that I felt like either shouting at her to shut up (or stop thinking) or slap her. Of course, I could do neither, so I bashed my head on the table instead.
The final issue is the romance - it hasn’t changed much. Hikari is overly obsessed with Manaka. Almost all the girls are in love with Hikari. No one but Sayu loves Kaname, who in turn feels like a third wheel (hahahahahaha third wheel). Everyone doesn’t realise that someone else loves them because they are too obsessed with someone else. There is a general soppiness and love tangle, but not as bad compared to the first part.
There also was one point where I just smacked myself on the forehead because pretty much the same thing was going on as in an earlier episode, but I won’t elaborate for sake of spoilers.

To summarise the plot part in general, I feel as if I have been too sarcastic. Whilst it may not be exactly the genre that I like, it was slow-paced at the start and I found myself exclaiming “Seriously?!” a number of times, the plot was quite good, very sweet and funny at times (I laughed a fair bit), sometimes, especially in the second part, I felt very strongly about certain things. All in all, I did not force myself to watch it by any means. I really cannot decide on what I feel about the story. At the start, it wasn’t so great, but I really enjoyed the second bit. I give the first part a 6 and the second an 8, which makes an average of 7.

Art was really high quality - the animation was good, scenery was absolutely beautiful, characters as well. I absolutely loved the eyes. Some of the characters were so cute! It also fitted the context.
I was impressed with the art and thoroughly enjoyed it - for this, I give it 9.5.

As usual, I don’t have all that much to say about sound. It was good, and although I would have loved to hear more music, the music that was there was beautiful. Some of the themes were quite emotional.
One thing that did bug me was some of the voices. Like how Miuna’s voice is deeper than Akari’s, who is an adult. But, since it does happen in real life (kind of), I’ll let it slide. I really hesitate between 8 and 9, so to avoid too many decimals, I'll give it a 9, because I really did love the music.

On to characters.
Character development was very good. I feel like I got to know a bit about every character. Nevertheless, I feel like I just can’t put my finger on some of the characters. Like if someone asked me to describe Chisaki’s or possibly Kaname’s character, I wouldn’t be entirely sure what to say. For this reason, I just can’t be 100% happy. Also, I didn’t develop a favourite character until much later in the show, which isn’t a very good thing.
Another problem was how the characters were a little too similar. This isn’t entirely true, but sometimes I just felt like they possessed too many similar traits.
The final issue for me with the characters was Manaka. She was cute and nice and all, but I just could not stand her childishness.
Making sure to include the positive things, let me say that I did feel quite strongly for the characters after a while. For instance, I was dying to see Hikari cry, for some reason. I also think I understand why all girls are falling for him. :3
I would give characters an 8 because they were quite good, and I liked them (in general), however I feel as if they could have been so much better. Because of this, I lower the score to a 7.

Enjoyment wasn’t all that high at first, I would give it a 6 or a 6.5, because as I said, it was a slice of life, and there was so much fluff that sometimes I felt as if I was eating cotton balls. However, the second part was much better, and I enjoyed it a lot. I watched quite a few episodes in a row every night and couldn’t wait to get home from school to keep watching. Once, I even watched an episode at school. I would put enjoyment at a 7.5.

Overall, to sum up everything I said in this review:
This anime wasn’t quite up to scratch for the first twelve episodes, being very slow-paced and sometimes a little melodramatic in my opinion, and there were a few cliché elements, but after that the story became much more interesting. The romance was a little bothersome considering there were so many love triangles I was bashing my head on the table, but it wasn’t all bad. Characters had good potential and good development but could have been better. Art and sound were great, but I wish there was a little more music. Enjoyment went up with the plot line. I’m glad I watched this anime, and I enjoyed it.

Story: 7/10
Art: 9.5/10
Sound: 9/10
Character: 7/10
Enjoyment: 7.5/10

Overall: 8/10

A/N: I was actually originally planning to give this a 7, (and actually still think that maybe I should do so) but after having to rewatch a few episodes because my internet was really slow so it kept pausing every 5 seconds, I was surprised to realise that I actually liked it more than I had originally thought.
Thank you to animele220! It is thanks to youthat I found out about this anime! *clap clap*

Oh, and thanks to all who take the time to press 'Helpful' or 'Not Helpful'. If you have some time on your hands and pressed the 'Not Helpful' button, please comment on how I can improve my reviews! :3