The slice of life genre, is one of my favorites for many reasons.
But largely it’s because I’ve always found entries in that genre so relaxing to watch
that it really helps me on days where I feel like the world is terrible and there’s no
goodness left in it.
Slice of Life shows offer this usually quite light and fluffy alternate take on the world
using its characters’ lives as a focal point.
It stars people that have fairly uninteresting lives and that can be kind of the point.
Sure when crossed with other genres you can have fantastical romance, exciting adventures,
and supernatural mishaps, but the core of the genre, the pure elements to it.
Are just the simplicity of life and how engaging that can still be.
Today we are going to be talking about an anime that technically has some science fiction
elements to it but mostly is this charming little series about a young girl who learning
to become Undine, a woman who steers wooden gondolas for tourists through the waterways
of a fantastical city called Neo-Venezia.
It’s a series that’s never really been given an exceeding amount of spotlight here
in the west, despite its multiple seasons in Japan.
But with the recent announcement and commencement of a Kickstarter to get the series dubbed
(link in the description) I figured it was a good enough time to go over it quickly for
those who may have never have watched or heard of it before.
Ladies, Gentlemen and others, my name is Arkada, and welcome to Glass Reflection Today we are taking
a look at the original 2005 series from director Junichi Satou, I give you Aria: The Animation.
Let’s Jam.
[I love this music so freaking much you don't even know]
Now I mentioned briefly that the series has science fiction elements to it, but that mostly
just covers the initial setting of the show and some supernatural elements that are
known to happen from time to time.
The show takes place on a planet called Aqua, formerly known as...Mars
After terraforming the planet
they colonized it, and built beautiful looking cities, such as the one that is the setting
for most of the show: neo venezia.
A City that employs young woman who steer and guide tourists and who try to make those
customers have the best time they can possibly have.
The show’s main character is a young girl named Akari, the second of only two employees
of one company that offers gondola services throughout the city.
She is not yet a full undine yet however and is still in training, but it’s her experiences
with this world and its people that makes up the majority of the show’s story.
As Akari learns more about the city and her new profession she comes to meet various people
that either inhabit or visit this world, and while the show has a strong character arc
for Akari personally, it’s these individual stories that make the show shine.
I realise that some of this series seems uninteresting on paper, it’s kind of the major failing
of describing shows like this to people, you can’t really appreciate what the series
is without experiencing it.
As much as I can say that Young Girls in Gondolas roaming around an alternate Venice is interesting,
it’s hard to explain why.
Similar to why I can recommend the anime Planetes constantly for the past 8 years despite finding
people to not believe me that the show is interesting because they don’t find the
idea of “Space Janitors” to be appealing.
[GO WATCH PLANETES]
But like Planetes in Aria it’s the characters, and their personalities that keep the series
entertaining.
Beyond Akari’s curious and somewhat-carefree nature you have the sometimes harsh and cynical
Aika, the talented but distant Alice, both of their senpai’s Akira and Athena, as well
as Present Aria, a cat as its tradition in the city of Neo Vanesia to have their presidents
be blue-eyed cats.
Though President Aria acts far more like a stereotypical mascot for the show then a traditional cat character.
Also don’t ask me why every character has a name that starts with “A” it’s a weird
quirk that’s never really explained.
That’s part of the show’s charm I think though.
There are plenty of events throughout the series that can’t really be explained, chalk
it up to its science fiction setting if you want.
There is some level of suspension of disbelief that’s required here.
But it’s all presented in this very lighthearted way to make you really not care all that much
about the minute details of everything.
Now, while I could continue to sing the show’s praises for a while I might as well bring
up the times that the show gets a little shaky and that’s mostly in the animation department.
The series was produced by Hal Film Maker back in the mid 2000’s and it was a time
where studios were experimenting with combining blended cel and digital animation for the
characters, alongside some not so subtle CG elements to flesh things out.
In this case CG is mostly used for the water and oceans of the world.
While it does leave shots with some very animated water, somewhat fitting for a show that contains a lot it,
there are plenty of other times where the harsh edges of the CG elements clash with
the more traditionally used animation.
Hal Film Maker have used CG to great effect before, see it’s use for the Drosselmeyer
clock overlays in Princess Tutu, but since Aria is supposed to be this very light and
calming series that takes place in this peaceful water filed town, having the water seem a
bit harsher and uninviting at times was occasionally a mood-breaker.
The rest of the Animation though made up for a lot!
What helped the colors though was the series’ calming and peaceful musical score.
On top of the regular soft but upbeat soundtrack the series also does something unique with
it’s opening sequence.
Where other shows might take a popular 1.5 minute song and create some impressive but
reusable animation to slot in at the start of each episode Aria takes a different route
entirely.
There is no uniform animation for the show’s opening, Aria instead opts for some lighthearted
scenes with either some panning shots of the city, or just our characters getting ready
to tackle the day, shown overtop the show’s Opening Theme.
A Theme that instead of being one uniform song used every episode, is rather a song
with the same melody each time, but new lyrics to fit the episode to come.
It’s an extremely unique way of opening a show that you rarely see.
It added a good extra 1.5 minutes to the watch time of every episode since you don’t have
to skip the opening every time.
Which I liked because more of this show is a good thing!
As I mentioned there is no dub, yet, at the time of this video the Kickstarter for the
dub is still on-going.
So I can’t say to how good the dub will be.
I can only speculate and draw up some dream picks for the cast but it’s up to the creators
of the dub to choose the cast wisely.
And I hope they do.
Very wisely.
The Japanese dub has many aspects to it that will be difficult to recreate in the new dub.
Akari in particular has her unique brand of ditzyness that somehow never became annoying
in the Japanese, in fact there were many a time when her exclamations of “EEEEEEEEH?”
were rather relatable and endearing.
Plus I’m curious how the translators are going to handle Alicia’s verbal tick of
starting every sentence with...
The likeability of her character in the dub
kind of hinges on this.
Hopefully though the dub will be fully funded with as many seasons as it can have and that
dub itself will be worthy of the show it belongs to.
I know I have a particular bias towards not just this series but other shows like it for
It’s these relaxed shows that I just adore because of how they make me feel when watching
them.
Like a warming soup for the soul Aria has the potential to be the most charming and
calming little show you watch this month.
That said it is made for a particular audience like me who loves this sort of thing.
There will be cynics out there who will find Aria to be a waste of time and restless watchers
who won’t be able to handle it’s slower pace, but if this show does fit your niche
it is most defiantly one that you should watch if you haven’t already.
As such I’d like to present Aria the animation with the rating of Buy it.
You may not be comfortable with buying ALL of it because it does extend beyond this initial
13 episode series but as an introduction to the world and its characters it does a fantastic
But as an introduction, to the world, and it's characters it does a fantastic job.
If you are looking to buy the show you can as it is available on DVD from Nozomi Entertainment,
and they are the publishing arm of Rightstufanime.com where you can buy the show if you live in
the US.
The first season is also available for streaming over on Crunchyroll if you happen to have
access to that site, though the subsequent seasons are only streaming on Viewster at
present, with the OVA’s nowhere to be streamed at all unfortunately.
If you watched the show though and are looking for something similar I would like to point
you towards two other shows that have Slice of Life elements, and give off the same feeling,
even if they are lean a bit more towards the Drama and Adventure kinds of storytelling
respectively.
First up Haibane Renmei, a lovely little series about a group of Angels who live their humble
lives just outside of a human village.
Though it does contain some darker elements.
Similarly Kino’s Journey is another series that I enjoy watching for very similar reasons
that I enjoyed Aria, plus with Kino’s sequel upcoming now would be a good time to catch
up with the original series if you haven’t yet.
Between those you should hopefully find something to your liking.
and that's it from me.
As usual I want to thank my patrons for supporting my videos as without them they would not be
possible.
More specifically though I’d like to thank Joshua Garcia, Head-drul Leon, Bing Theo,
Robert Chumsai, Calhoonboy, Siri Yamiko and Viktor Ekmark for being especially awesome.
Until next time Stay Frosty everyone.