Review of A Lull in the Sea

"Love is like the sea." Love stories have existed for practically the entire existence of storytelling. They've been told countless times, in countless ways, with countless settings and characters. From the grand and epic quests to silly school rom-coms, the love story is the most enduring story of fiction, and even non-fiction in some cases. With that in mind, one would think that original ideas, or even ideas that haven't grown stale, are quite lacking in this genre. So, how does today's anime stand in therankings of the great love stories?

Before we get into the romance aspects of this anime, I want to briefly recognize the intense amount of world building that went into this anime. Every ounce of exposition was weaved seamlessly into either dialogues or inner monologues and provided an inside look into just how this world functions. Watching the people of the sea interact with both each other and with the people of the surface was always an interesting matter despite not being the main focus of the story. By the way, on the matter of the sea village, I hope you're not a big stickler about the laws of physics when you're watching a fantasy series, because they really don't give a crap what you're laws says about buoyancy and gravity. However, I will say that they break physics in a way that still feels believable somehow, and it's a very minor quibble.

On to the main matter of this story, this is definitely one of the better love stories I've seen in a very long time, and I honestly didn't expect that considering how it's set up. This is one of those almost convoluted love stories where everybody is in love with someone, but then someone else is in love with them, and the chains of love keep piling on from there. It actually reminded me a lot of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the play that has practically become the template for modern romance stories. Normally I would find this kind of setup almost gag worthy because it's basically nothing but angst and teenage drama, but Nagi no Asukara seems to be fundamentally aware that this is an unavoidable problem with this kind of story setup. In the midst of wallowing in the constant trade-offs of drama, it also takes time to give us deep and drawn-out introspectives into what each character thinks about both themselves and their love interest.

One of the central themes of this anime is the concept of change and how each of the characters deals with the matter. Coupled with the fact that our main characters are just beginning to enter into the age of puberty, we get to watch as each character struggles with their own opinions on change and, of course, their resistance to it, and the mechanics of the story really help to drive this idea home. Without spoiling anything, something really big happens about halfway through the series, and it causes the entire romantic landscape of character relationships to change drastically, and both the change and lack thereof in their world forces these characters to mature in ways that are sudden and uncomfortable, but also cathartic and relieving. I do have one little complaint though, in that after that romantic formula has its drastic change, things start to shift back towards how they were before, and why I was initially slightly disappointed by this, the way everything came back together with its conclusion refused to leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Even aside from the romance aspects, the story touches on all sorts of themes relating to growing up and maturing, and the struggle of the children to both grow up and not grow up is palpable throughout the entire series.

As for the specific characters, there are some that I can't discuss due to spoilers, so we'll just focus on the main five for now. Hikari is the group’s leader and takes the bold and brash personality to the max, but his inner monologue still manages to make him feel sympathetic when he does things that I would normally hate any other character for. Manaka is the clumsy and childish one that Hikari is in love with, while Chisaki is the more mature girl that's in love with Hikari, but begins to loathe herself because of her strong friendship with Manaka. Kaname is the cool and aloof friend that seems to sit in the background a lot, and we actually get an insight into what that's like for him, and Tsugumu is a boy from the surface with an insatiable love for the sea. The chemistry for all of these characters is phenomenal not in how well they get along, but in how they don't, especially when confessions of love come out into the open, and this was probably my favorite part of the entire series.

The animation was produced by P.A. Works, and this is possibly their best looking anime since Angel Beats! in 2010. The incredibly detailed environments combined with the high-gloss and super-moe character designs are unbelievably pleasing to the eye, and this is definitely one of the best-looking anime this year. Even the CG looked incredible most of the time, though this is almost negated by the fact that this anime is filled to the brim with CG objects, from boats and cars to fish and waves. I understand though that even with such a high budget anime you have to make cuts somewhere (I couldn't possibly imagine having to draws hundreds of individual fish in a single frame), and this is definitely a step towards making me feel more accepting towards CG. HOWEVER, I will still stand by the idea that animating a walking background character in CG sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of someone's forehead, and is practically a mortal sin of animation.

There is no dub for this series yet, though I wouldn't mind a dub being produced. If it were to happen, it would most likely be a Bang Zoom! dub, and while I'm normally not super-excited by their work, I have a feeling they would be able to pull this one off well.

The soundtrack was composed by Yoshiaki Dewa, one half of the J-pop group Jyukai, whose only prior soundtrack work has been for Amnesia, yet his mastery of setting the right mood for every scene is nothing to trifle with. Most of the tracks consist of acoustic guitar melodies, a sound that I feel needs to be much more prevalent in soundtracks, though the occasional string swells and somber piano tunes add a nice contrast. Both opening themes "lull ~Soshite Bokura wa~" and "ebb and flow" were performed by Ray, and bring a relaxed singer/songwriter feel blended slightly with electronic ambiance, while both ending themes "Aqua Terrarium" and "Mitsuba no Musubime" were performed by Nagi Yanagi and play us out with some rolling ballads to heighten the emotional impact of each episode.

Overall, Nagi no Asukara is an excellent example of how there is a great deal of innovation and heart to be found in the romance genre, and it's certainly one of the hidden gems of 2014.