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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Rent | 8 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:3825#1552] |
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The premise for Arte is nothing new in its focus on a young woman attempting to defy the norms of her era to pursue a passion she has strong interest in. But the story offers up solid development of Arte's character as she develops the motivation and knowledge under her apprenticeship with Leo to improve her skills as an artist and make a profession out of it, while also defying the typical perceptions of gender perceived through many within Renaissance-era Italy. The series also introduces several other characters throughout the anime's 12-episode run whom become acquainted with and come to admire her hard work and perseverance to become an artist, while our titular character also comes to aid them when their backstories and personal problems gets delved into. Outside of some use of Japanese honorifics and bowing, Arte is largely pretty accurate in depicting the settings, attire, resources, and customs of Italy within the Renaissance. In short, this series doesn't break any new ground as far as what it offers up for its premise and the fact it ends without a definite conclusion due to its manga source material still ongoing as of this review. But there's a solid amount of character and story development to allow viewers to connect with Arte's character and I'd at least recommend checking the series out at least once.
Last updated Wednesday, March 16 2022. Created Wednesday, March 16 2022. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:3825#628] | ||||||
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(Eight episodes watched): The thought occurred to me, 'am I going to learn anything about the Renaissance that I don't already know here, or is this show meant for people who are completely ignorant of the era? The level of sophistication was not terribly high--that is, what happens is explained in a pretty simple manner that would be virtually impossible to misunderstand, rather than there be hints being dropped or conclusions which viewers must draw for themselves. But Arte is a spunky girl who only wants to pursue her calling (though she looks more like 20 years old than 15), and I hope she succeeds. The possibility that maybe she and Leo will fall in love naturally occurs to the viewer, though I was more interested in whether she would achieve her dream. Initially, she doesn't seem to be interested in romance and this show doesn't seem to be interested in fanservice. At any rate, this was the best of the half dozen or so new Spring 2020 anime that I had watched so far, and the only one about which I could honestly say that I was looking forward to episode two. Episode two wasn't all that great, however. In general, the story is looking pretty simplistic: everyone scoffs at Arte because she's a girl, but she has a true ganbare attitude and does whatever seemingly impossible tasks they demand of her, which causes them to see her in a new light. And that's about all there is to the story. That's how things might work out if humans were truly rational creatures, but they aren't. Being proven wrong doesn't make people admit they were fools and adopt a new attitude, no, it usually causes them to ignore the facts and double down on their original belief. So, this show is kind of hard to take seriously. But episode three is about Arte getting her first task as a genuine artist, so I decided to see how that went. I enjoyed it more than episode two, but this show remains right on the line between worth watching and not worth it. It doesn't go into all that much detail about life and beliefs in the Renaissance era (I easily guessed what the special occasion Leo took her to during a festival was), and even main character Arte doesn't seem like all that deep and interesting a person. There are signs of her falling in love with Leo, but I don't feel all that much of a need to know how that will work out. Perhaps the problem is that I don't sense a major problem that needs to be overcome. Arte is doing OK as an apprentice, she has obvious talent, her mother hasn't caused much trouble for her, and she may even have a lover, so things are actually going pretty smoothly--which is kind of boring. In episode four Arte meets Veronica, a well-off courtesan (upper-class prostitute). Veronica accurately diagnoses the strange feelings Arte has been feeling lately, and warns her to be very careful when it comes to falling in love. Arte seems to draw the conclusion that she had better put her career as a painter first. Whether that is the correct conclusion is anyone's guess; the lessons this show teaches us aren't all that deep or taught with all that much finesse. Whatever the case may be, any hint of romance between the two was missing from episode five, which seemed a little boring to me. I was a bit surprised that Arte got a job to create a painting almost entirely by herself when she had only done one background previously. Still, I remained curious where she would wind up. In episode six Leo works Arte extra hard during a large project that involves many guild members and their apprentices. I guess the idea was to demonstrate that she could do just as well as any male apprentice, but it wasn't exactly clear. I would not describe this show as 'deep' or 'sophisticated'. I was getting tired of Arte and was tempted to skip episode seven, but I watched it and was modestly pleased when she accepts some temporary work as a tutor to a wealthy child. The show needed something fresh. It takes an entire episode for her to travel to Venice; her life is saved once along the way, but I was not particularly excited by the incident. We meet the (secretly) obnoxious girl she will tutor, but this girl didn't intrigue me much. I wondered how Arte would turn someone this arrogant around, though. But on second thought, based on the series up to this point, it was hard to believe that whatever trick she used would be all that clever or exciting. I converted episode nine and burned it onto a DVD, but when the time came decided not to watch it after all. My impression was that while this anime had a workable basic framework, it didn't try hard enough, didn't take enough chances, to properly flesh it out. Last updated Monday, July 06 2020. Created Tuesday, April 07 2020. | ||||||||
