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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Rent | 8 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 7 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:2125#1552] |
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(Rent-/ Watch+) Hmmm, this one felt like a mixed bag for me. At first glance, Umi Monogatari seemed to mix around the typical elements of slice-of-life and mahou shoujo in its focus on the interactions between Marin and Kanon as the two get chosen to fend off "enemy of the day" threats possessed by the corruption of the major enemy threat of the series, Sedna. The series is a typical "good vs evil" battle, focuses on mundane activities with Kanon and Marin and mahou shoujo garb worn by the two. What does allow the series to stick out is the title's second half when it ditches its earlier "enemy of the day" setup and someone close to Marin finds herself influenced by Sedna due to fearing abandonment by her. This helps make the plot a bit more engaging as Marin finds herself conflicted over how to approach the situation, which even leads her to lose her ability to transform into her priestess form for a bit. Beyond Marin and the mentioned close character, Kanon also gets her focus as her character gradually changes from her interactions with Marin as she becomes less aloof and hostile in her interactions with others following her issues with her boyfriend. In terms of presentation, Umi Monogatari is solid for the most part with beautifully-drawn scenery and characters that have vivid colors and a great amount of onscreen detail. Music consisted of mellow musical tracks such as light piano pieces and lullabies that helped to accompany the carefree and simple mood that Umi Monogatari gave off with its storytelling and are quite pleasant on the ears. Overall while having a mellow, beautiful presentation and light, simple storytelling to go along with it, Umi Monogatari doesn't really do much to break the mold with its slice-of-life and mahou shoujo genres. The second half of the series offered a solid enough twist to its storytelling where it could engage me to the rest of the show, but I wouldn't be tempted to give it a second watch anytime soon. Last updated Wednesday, June 05 2013. Created Wednesday, June 05 2013. | ||||||||
| Watch | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7 |
 Dreamer
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[series:2125#2279] |
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I was skeptical about picking this one up. However, I decided to give it a shot only because the artwork looked pretty good. It wasn't bad overall, but went at a snail's pace. Art, Animation & Character Designs Artwork and animation was pretty good. Details were pretty good, animation was average. The character designs werer well done as well. I must say, the girls were uber cute! Music The OP was a nice soothing lullaby with female vocals. Although it sounded pretty nice, it wasn't of my tastes. The rest of the soundtrack had some nice soft tunes, pianos, mellow oboes, light flutes almost like a soft north american-indian flavors. Not bad really. Mostly, the soundtrack portrayed a sense of peace and almost a sense of solitude. Series and Episode Story Slooooow. Everything about this series had a "layed-back" feel about it. Even the OP and rest of the soundtrack was soft, lullabies that makes you simply want to kick back somewhere in the quiet outdoors. The story progressed at a snails pace... but somehow, had enough in it to keep you mildly interested. The plot, in it's most fundemental form, was about good and evil. But it takes this concept with soft tones, simple story telling, weird characters and cute girls. Overall, the story wasn't really convincing, pretty slow and strait forward. However, it was a marginally good in the sense that it kept you lightly entertained while kicking back doing nothing else. There's much better elsewhere. Last updated Sunday, June 20 2010. Created Sunday, June 20 2010. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:2125#628] | ||||||
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(Two episodes watched): I wasn't sure what to make of episode one, which neither thrilled nor repelled me. I was hoping that this might be a clever drama/comedy about a naive mermaid girl interacting with everyday Japanese teenagers, but episode two seems to dash those hopes. It looks like what this will be is supernatural combat between good and evil, involving the Princesses of the Sea and the Sky cooperating as a team. That wouldn't necesarily be bad, but the impression I'm getting is of a story which is terribly generic and unimaginitive. Crazy stuff happens and apparently I am expected to accept it at face value, even though it is neither particularly funny nor makes much sense. For instance, ordinary girl Kanon meets a talking tortoise--the jokes make me smile faintly at best, and the way she shrugs the experience off without a second thought is absurd. I can think of all sorts of improvements which I'd like to make to this show, if I was allowed to do a little editing myself. I was thinking as I watched that if the Princesses' archenemy Cedona turns out to be colorful and/or amusing then maybe the show could be salvaged, but my hopes of that happening were not strong. Ultimately I abandoned Umi Monogatari without regret. Last updated Saturday, February 05 2011. Created Friday, July 31 2009. | ||||||||
Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| Japanese Series Web Site | http://www.sea-story.tv/ |
