Review of A Lull in the Sea
Harem anime's are very popular aren't they? Some create a real frenzy when it comes to fans "shipping" certain relationships, in which a certain sect of the audience drool at the sight of a certain relationship developing. But with any drama, unpredictably can arise, and Nagi no Asukara really does break the harem stereotype. Nagi no Asukara follows the story of Hikari and friends, whom live in an underwater city called Shioshishio from the help of Ena (a skin covering helping them breathe underwater). It documents them making the jump from going to school in the sea to on the surface, as well as showing thestrained relationship between sea dwellers and land dwellers, and how the has affected the fate of the world as they know it.
As for the story, Nagi no Asukara is a very untypical harem anime drama, in fact, atypical is better in describing it. There are 2 arcs (which is separated by a time skip) in Nagi no Asukara, with many varying themes from the secularization of religion, to coming to terms with change and the "guilt of love". Furthermore, it does include a bit of magic in places, mainly when referring to the main religion, the devotion to the sea good. Although it starts of very typical in terms of how harem usually come about, with the many complex love triangles obvious from the get to, the story telling, raw, emotional character interactions and it's pacing make it truly into a drama, with twists and turns in developing friendships and how change can effect the relationships too. In terms of atmosphere, although it may appear light hearted here and there, the many themes which are mainly adult, even including the racism of children and the on going feud with land and sea add a brilliant juxtaposition to what you would 'expect' to see. Those themes lead the group of children coming together to try and mend a broken society and a broken world. The anime ended with an atypical ending, completely against the traditional harem ending.
However, there are some draw backs. Although it has the atypical harem anime style, it can be seen as over dramatic in its messages and some issues can be a bit farfetched. In terms of using the magic and supernatural in religion, it can also be seen as too fake as it doesn't work well with the other themes. Nevertheless, the added magic and religion, as well as charterers in love in all do make for some interesting developments.
In terms of animation, it's stunning graphics do set it well above many anime made recently, the scenery of shioshishio is truly stunning, giving it almost an 'Atlantis' theme to it, with dazzling, sharp colours. In terms of character models, although each is designed well, one problem can be with this who aren't too fond of HUGE blue eyes, however, as they live in the sea, it acts as an added touch, and even adds to the theme of racism too, which was done well.
The show shines when it demonstrates the characters. When the show started, the characters mainly fell into the most predictable type of casts. For example, the main character Hikari was the usual tsundere, there was Tsumugu, the stoic-voice-of-reason character, as well as the forgotten main characters wing-man Kaname. Not to mention the coy, shy one Chisaki, and the cry baby Manaka. But instead of keeping the characters like that, they were fleshed out to the extreme, with many serious events developing, or better yet, completely re-defining the cast into a group of kids with many flaws, many skewed perceptions of reality and, most of all, grounded and realistic, similar to the youth of today. The show does make use of the characters inner struggles well, this can be seen by the love interest within the friendship group. It does add for drama and emotion, told brilliantly by inner monologues. Overall, the characters really do go on a rollercoaster ride of emotions.
However, there is a catch, some characters do come into play well, such as Miuna, whom was very prevalent in the second arc, but characters like Sayu and Kaname (one of the main protagonists) ended up getting less screen time. Nevertheless, they're problems, although brief were dealt with to a good standard.
As for the music, both the opening and ending were rather enjoyable, both had a slight feeling of being cute and cuddly, but was preformed well and was very rememberable. However, the ending song did give away some spoilers for what would happen later on in the series, which was disappointing. The original soundtrack was done very well, with each intense moment, working well with the music.
To conclude, Nagi no Asukara does set a high bar as being a really remarkable drama, with realistic characters, and a well crafted story. I will recommend it to anyone who wants to watch drama at its finest.