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[Series Aftermath] – Umi Monogatari ~ Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto~

I had picked up the series on the sole basis of ZEXCS helming the production. In those respects, I have not been disappointed. The art and animation remained consistently high throughout the 12 episodes. In fact Marin has to be the MOST beautiful anime bishoujo I've seen in years. Those womanly proportions... now that is 2D perfection. Not to take for granted too are the battle scenes which were fully and fluidly animated. One of key feature that highlighted a healthy budget and its female target audience was how the girls wore different and tasteful outfits EVERY day, lending a quality of realism which most bishoujo series ignored. The cast is classic ZEXCS - solid characterisation with intuitive dialogue, making what would have been a really cliched character endearing in his/her very special way.

My only gripe on the production values is the music. While the piano score are probably excellent standalone compositions, the soundtrack was terribly inappropriate for most of the scenes in the show. The intuitive viewer would have immediately detected the emotional disconnect of the scenes with that the score was trying to invoke. Thankfully, the musical distraction was largely mitigated by the solid voice acting and flowing dialogue.

While the production values were excellent, the storytelling leaves much to be desired. Umi Monogatari is in essence Kannazuki no Miko meets Aria the animation and to employ Aria-esque flow in the apocalyptic Kannazuki setting created pacing problems . Towards the later episodes, there is a serious lack of the sense of urgency or true impending doom since the focus dwelt, albeit over-extensively, on the various characters inner struggles. Of course it can be argued that the director has probably rather different emphasis bearing in mind the target audience. That would explain the well executed and deeply emotional scenes in the concluding eps.

Umi Monogatari is classic mahou-shoujo-ai for girls - ie plenty of tears, girl-girl hugs and emphasis on the power of yuri love. It was flawed but enjoyable. But what I thought it did fantastic was the character of Kanon. She is an excellent self-insert for the average teenage girl - not popular but well-meaning, terribly poor at expressing herself and plagued with severe insecurities. For Kanon to rise beyond herself - to compete with the island idol, acquaint with beautiful female comrades and become the centre of events/attention - much hope/courage must have been given to young girls to do likewise. Of course that is probably yet another reason why Umi Monogatari did not speak as much to me.

Recommended mostly to teenage girls, shoujo-ai or ZEXCS fans.

Related posts:

1. Umi Monogatari Review
2. [Series aftermath] ef ~ a tale of memories
3. 5 Fall series to catch – Stripey's pick