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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Buy | 7 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 9 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:2884#1552] |
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The World Is Still Beautiful is a shoujo fantasy romantic comedy-drama set within a fictional land where a princess of the Rain Dukedom named Nike is arranged to be married to the Sun Kingdom's young ruler Livius in order for the Rain Dukedom to maintain its sovereignty. The series is mainly focused on the growing bond between Nike and Livius, exploring Livius' traumatic past and exploring the political hostilities that erupt among both factions in response to the marriage. The biggest strengths to this series come in the nice amount of exploration it offers up to with Nike and Livius' lives. In spite of its 12 episode run, the series explores the types of rule that both the Rain Dukedom and Sun Kingdom fall under, characters within the series with varying levels of relationship to our two leads and hostilities with both sides that involve the marriage with our leads. Beyond a few shallow characters connected to the Sun Kingdom, many relevant characters within the series get enough fleshing out for you to understand their personal beliefs, connection to our leads and what desires they have for their marriage thus there isn't much in the way of black-and-white morality to this series except for the early episode arc of Nike trying to get her marriage to Livius approved by a crooked Sun Kingdom priest. The arc where Livius and Nike visit the Rain Dukedom offers the best developments in the series for me thanks to the credible and relatable concerns that members of Nike's family have with the marriage that lead them to cause the arc's main conflict in regard to Nike's power to manipulate rain. Our main leads also get their developments as well with fleshing out of their characters and the gradual development of their relationship. Due to Livi's tragic past, he developed a cold outlook on life and found it difficult to trust others. The presence of Nike in his life leads our king to mellow out of his cynical mentality as he comes to gradually open up to her and settle hostilities he had with close acquaintances while still maintaining his cold facade. While "opposites attract" style romances are nothing new in anime, the one between Livius and Nike is a convincing one thanks to the two coming to understand and trust in one another throughout the show's run. Only low points with the storytelling are some hit and miss efforts with comedy coming from spats that our two leads get into and some unexplored elements of the series when one of Nike's family members voiced their concerns about the potential abuse that could arise with Nike's power. Visually, the series is on the average side for a 2014 title. There is a good amount of detail and color shading put into scenery and character designs, but it is nowhere as rich and vast in detail as what titles like Nagi no Asukara and Terror in Resonance delivered that year. The animation is also a bit on the average end as well as there are noticeable shortcuts that are taken and the only notable high points with it came from Nike's use of her power to create rain. Overall, The World is Still Beautiful offers an excellent exploration of the developments of Nike and Livius' relationship, as well as focusing on how others connected to them are affected by the relationship. If you're a fan of shoujo anime, this is one of the more better recent offerings for the demographic worth checking out. Last updated Tuesday, March 24 2015. Created Tuesday, March 24 2015. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:2884#628] | ||||||
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(Six episodes watched): Here's an odd anime which didn't fit neatly into a well established category. A marriage has been prearranged for the hard-headed Princess Nike, from a minor country, and Sun King Livius from the world's most powerful one. For some reason hers is a land where rain is plentiful while his is an arid land, and she can supposedly summon rain--maybe that's why he chose her. But he's not what she was expecting, and vice versa, no doubt. My first impression was that this show might be good, since episode one makes clear that Nike is adventurous, self-confident, and friendly. Her pink outfit seems inappropriate to fantasy somehow, and briefly made me wonder if she was a time traveler from the present. Something must be cooking, what with rain and dryness surely being a metaphor of some sort. However, Nike's run in with two minor thieves, and even her visit with some average people, didn't excite me much, and I'm impatient to get on with the main story. This show has definite potential, but it's too soon to say if it will be exploited. It seems to me that while this show has a little charm to it, it doesn't really stretch the envelope all that much. It has an intriguing premise, but that was about it; little effort seemed to be made to expand on the premise and exploit it. I can't describe it as 'touching'; instead the word 'predictable' seems more appropriate. The characters haven't been developed enough--or maybe they don't do anything which is both believable and involves enough risk for me to care all that much what becomes of them. The plot isn't particularly interesting and the jokes aren't all that good. As a result, Soredemo has drifted into one of those 'If I watch this, I'll reward myself by watching something good afterwards' shows. But my falling behind in terms of watching new episodes of Spring series offered an excuse, and I decided to abandon Soredemo. The reason I watched as long as I did was because the show had definite potential, which made giving up altogether difficult. But it's not funny enough to watch for the laughs, and the plot and characters aren't interesting enough to watch for the drama. All things considered, if I'm not enjoying a show now, it's unlikely that I ever will and I shouldn't be watching it. Last updated Thursday, September 11 2014. Created Saturday, April 12 2014. | ||||||||
