Review of Arte

Good god where to begin with this flaming pile of garbage otherwise known as Arte? Once in a rare while do you come across something so pointlessly dull and boring that you actually get offended by it, so offended by its poor writing, poor characters, poor shallow attempts at making "commentary", poor genre workings. Everything about this show is poor. After 4 episodes I had a bad feeling, after 7 I had no hope, and now? Now, I'm here to tell you to not bother wasting your time on this trash. Before we get into the slaughter of Arte I'd like to point out someMINOR good aspects of this show that keep it from being a 1. The character design isn't anything to write home about but the dress designs are historical accurate and add a level of elegance that I rather enjoyed. The VA work is also worth praise. It's not hard to find lots of new anime just putting VAs in roles to have a name to the project or so badly miscast that it takes you out of the story, but every VA sounds like they fit that character. It's rare to find and underappreciated when done well and I hope people star taking notice of this factor. It's a shame the cast is stuck to such a bad script but hey the little things right?

As for the bad. God where to start? First, why make your setting one of the most interesting point in art history (Florence in the 16th century during the Renaissance) if you're going to make no attempt at displaying the beauty of this time period? The background art for FLORENCE ITALY looks so poorly put together that you could honestly believe that we were in just some nowhere town in an Isekai. For a show set in the town that had some of the greatest works of art during this time period every building looks the same. Their is NO differentiation in color pallets or depth. It is so poorly put together that you could honestly set this show in a High School and get more out of it. On top of that by episode 8 the character art and animation starts to take a nosedive which is super ironic because it wasn't like they had the budget there to begin with. It went from being passable (if not a little bland) to being something a visual novel would use for its animated scenes. In fact I think Persona has had better animation.
Second, the plot. Let me take you through the formula for this show, because their is no real plot.
Opening -> Mary Sue wants to do art related activity or is given art related activity -> Mary Sue is told "WoMEn CaNt Be ArTIsT" or "ArT iS FoR MeN" or "YoU CaNt Do ThAT, OnLY MeN CaN Do ThAt" ext. Whatever variation of surface level misogyny you can come up with goes here and for anyone who has ever dealt with misogyny you will laugh your ass off at how fake this comes off as -> Mary Sue does whatever activity the men think she can't do because the power of her WILL AND DREAMS -> insert either just enough comedy to not be take as a serious drama or Just enough "foreshadowing" of romance to be taken as a Romance anime without giving actual romance -> end credits.
I'm sure defenders will say "it's taking its time to set up a believable relationship" or "It's depicting serious gender inequality" and to you I say...where? The relationship idea is broken by episode 5 when the only thing close to romance is a teenage girls chest getting tight because she's around this dude. Is this supposed to be Romance because it looks more like bullshit to me. BTW three months have passed at this time (or three years if you go off what the second dude said about progression in the system of being an apprentice) so if the only thing in show you have to show me as "romance" is something a one-sided preteen crush then I'm sorry you fail. As far as Gender Inequality... sure? I mean we get surface level remarks in episode 4 from the prostitute that are once again something a teenager could put together and grow up to realize theirs more depth and nuance then that surface level remarks. Everything else is comedic levels of FEMALE OPPRESSION you would find in a meme making fun of feminist. Theirs no interesting commentary to be made and no depth to it. It's laughable forced.
Thirdly, what is the point of setting this show in Italy with Italian characters if you're just going to have them practice normal Japanese customs? Yes, I'm sure this is nitpicky but I'm not the only one asking this question. If you want to have character of different cultural backgrounds you have to build in those cultures to your narrative or else it's just changing the paint of a car. It might look and seem different but under it's just the same. This show could have took a look at the culture of Italy and made for a rather different type of anime that despite the issues could still have praise for something new. Instead it sticks with every single Japanese cultural norm we see in anime and comes off as rather immersion breaking.

I think that's enough bashing on this show for it's piss poor quality. It seems alot of people liked this show, and to you I say great. Glad you did. This show is awful and bad and makes no attempt at coming into its own. All I see is another run of the mill "romance" anime that takes no chances and makes no statements. I hope it never comes back. I hope it gets forgotten in time with the shows just like it because if this show becomes "popular" or makes waves in the anime community I'll truly be shocked at the ability for the anime community to turn a blind eye to anything resembling quality. Then again Bunny-girl senpai is popular and that's just as bad so who knows...