This Week in Anime
Is Aria the Animation a Hidden Gem?
by Steve Jones & Nicholas Dupree,
The original 2005 "healing" anime series is now officially streaming on Funimation, letting viewers travel to Neo Venezia for the very first time. The series has ushered in new sequels, including two films this year. Steve and Nick try to zero in on the charm of Aria the Animation and whether its peaceful atmosphere is enough to warrant a watch.
This series is streaming on Funimation
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
@Lossthief
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@mouse_inhouse
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@NickyEnchilada
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Steve
Nick, you wanna know how I know Elon Musk is a hack? I mean, besides the thousands of other extremely legitimate reasons, he's always going on about colonizing and terraforming Mars, yet never ONCE has he talked about how we're going to find and train all of the gondoliers we'll need.
Nick, you wanna know how I know Elon Musk is a hack? I mean, besides the thousands of other extremely legitimate reasons, he's always going on about colonizing and terraforming Mars, yet never ONCE has he talked about how we're going to find and train all of the gondoliers we'll need.
Nick
Today's technocrats simply cannot understand the necessary advancements in Cat Girl technology that space colonization calls for.
Today's technocrats simply cannot understand the necessary advancements in Cat Girl technology that space colonization calls for.
I guess that's why we'll always need artists to serve as the stewards of our societal imagination. That is to say, we watched a chill anime about boats this week.
Yep, ARIA THE ANIMATION, an anime franchise from the mid-2000s that is not only still going, but recently got added to Funimation streaming and is even seeing a pre-order campaign for a reprint of the manga. So it's a good a time as any to check out a show I'd never actually seen, but heard wistful tales of across the decades. Though it turns out I have definitely seen this weird thing before:
I've been able to deduce only a couple things about Kozue Amano based on the few works I've seen of hers, but she definitely believes she can make a better cat than God can.
I'll leave the measure of success of those endeavors up to the audience.
I'll leave the measure of success of those endeavors up to the audience.
You call it a cat, I call it a Moomin left in a hot car all day.
All I can say for certain is that Aria is a series that believes in drawing the animal butthole, and that is always the correct choice.
But this is also my first experience with Aria! It's one of those franchises that's hard not to have some familiarity with just from osmosis, but it's nice to finally experience some of it for myself.
But this is also my first experience with Aria! It's one of those franchises that's hard not to have some familiarity with just from osmosis, but it's nice to finally experience some of it for myself.
It's certainly built up a low-key reputation for itself, which is fitting because this is perhaps the most low-key anime I've watched in recent memory. Though in all the discussion I've seen of it I never knew this was, y'know, a show set on a terraformed 24th century Mars in Space Venice.
Lol yeah that's a cool little gamut of lore peppered here and there. And I actually do really like how much the series is not about that. Obviously the 150-year long project to make Mars habitable is the more conventionally interesting story, but Aria just cares about soaking in the peaceful days afterwards. If nothing else, it definitely helps Aria carve its own weird identity out.
It mostly took me aback because I had just assumed this was a low fantasy setting or something. You look at Aria in her white mage robes paddling through stone and mortar canals with a fucked up moogle companion, you just get the vibe, y'know?
I certainly was expecting to see a fire ball or two out of the premiere, but I can't say I was displeased to see a bunch of beautiful Venetian vistas instead.
Yeah, that's definitely one of this show's greatest strengths. It's marginally held back these days by virtue of being an early 2000s digital animation product, but Junichi Sato is an absolute legend when it comes to directing atmosphere and a sense of place, and he wrings every ounce out of this setting that he can. Even the characters recognize it!
It helps that Funimation just got what I assume are the Blu-ray masters in 1080p. Before that, the best we had streaming were super crunchy 480p versions, which I can't imagine would have done Aria's aesthetic much good. I also think I read that Sato took some of the anime's crew to Earth Venice to do on-location reconnaissance. Or maybe he just wanted a vacation. Either way, it paid off.
Absolutely. This is very much an iyashikei title, low on conflict and lower in audio volume, and just the city of Neo Venezia is so much a character that if it wasn't this well realized, the show would be way less engaging for it.
Yeah it's been way too long since I've gotten to spend some quality vacation time near water, so I easily lost myself in Aria's painterly compositions.
The colors are just so good! I want to be there.
The colors are just so good! I want to be there.
Though there are also actual human characters in this story too. And here's where I must ask our dear readers to forgive me because I will absolutely fuck up some names here because the monster who wrote this gave everyone names starting with "A."
I'm glad you said it, because it saves me the trouble of repeating the exact same thing. This should be against anime law.
And not even distinct ones. There's Akari and Akira. Alice and Alicia. Aika and Ai. The only characters spared are like, two cats. So I will assuredly call somebody the wrong name and confuse somebody who actually has a functioning brain, apologies in advance.
It's also hecked up that the main character of Aria is not Aria. It's Akari. Aria is the mutant cat creature. It ain't right I tells ya.
How dare they give this godforsaken creature top billing.
Anyway, our protagonists are in-training gondoliers who get to know each other and the other citizens of Neo-Venezia as they ferry them about the idyllic city. Everyone's very iyashikei-core: pleasant, has some kind of verbal tic or catchphrase, and will occasionally transform into a bobble head.
Muppet mouth looking little gremlin.
Again, Kozue Amano always knows what she likes, and Junichi Sato is always more than happy to oblige.
I guess I did things backwards by watching Amanchu before Aria, but at least it prepared me for the muppets.
I guess I did things backwards by watching Amanchu before Aria, but at least it prepared me for the muppets.
Anyway, our actual heroine is Akari, a clumsy and spacey girl who has so much warm sunshine in her heart she can see the wonder and beauty in anything. She's also dumb as a sack of hammers and her canonical super power is being literally ass-backwards.
Note: "Manhome" is code for Earth, where apparently the oceans are so fucked Akari did all her boat training in pools and just...got mixed up on how oars work.
Note: "Manhome" is code for Earth, where apparently the oceans are so fucked Akari did all her boat training in pools and just...got mixed up on how oars work.
Yeah we only got six episodes in, so I don't know if this ever gets elaborated on later, but Aria definitely implies that terraforming Mars into Aqua was an emergency measure, not something we did for fun. Like I said before, it's all very ancillary, but I do enjoy that this easygoing chillfest is built on the back of a planet-scale ecological disaster.
It's really neat, honestly. I like when stories are willing to hint at larger scale events in their world without making every story about them, and Aria does great with that, peppering in details but never sitting us down for a history lesson.
To be fair, they get dangerously close.
Yes but that's interrupted by Alice having deep revelations about her left hand, so it doesn't really count.
Anyway, back on track: Akari is of course our bubbly protagonist who sees the beauty in every day life, and her partner in Gondola-ing is Aika, a cynical tsundere who literally tells her to cut that shit out.
Even something as overwhelmingly effervescent as Aria realizes it needs to have a little salt with its sweetness. So that's why Aika is there, so she can let Akari know every time she's being cringe.
Note: that's always.
It also makes sense for her character, given that Aika's mentor, Akira, is a warm and gentle sou—sorry, I mean she'll bite your head off.
Go right ahead, ma'am.
Meanwhile, Akari's mentor Alicia is the Ara Ara Queen, and it all kinda adds up.
Not surprisingly, they're exes.
They get along.
Then there's Alice, who despite being the youngest character is bafflingly introduced wedgie-first.
Wow indeed, Akari.
Wow indeed, Akari.
You have to cut Amano some slack, she was just warming up for those Amanchu school uniforms.
Look I'm not gonna complain about a series understanding the ahem appeal of a long skirt in certain circumstances, but it's still a weird choice for introducing a middle schooler.
Being the youngest, Alice also gets blessed with the distinction of acting like the biggest weirdo out of the group.
It's a high bar to clear, but she passes.
It's a high bar to clear, but she passes.
She also has the weirdest cat, which is a real achievement. Fucking Lampchop hand puppet ass feline.
I dunno, there's only one cat we've seen drinking with a straw, so personally, I'm gonna call that one the weirdest.
I mean technically the weirdest cat is in episode 4, but that's a plot twist.
True! And while we're on the subject, episode 4 is my favorite out of the handful we watched. Like, it's the one that deviates the most from Aria's "norm," but it instills some depth in these characters and this world in a really neat and strange way. Even if it involves a ghost cat homunculus.
And Vash the Stampede, for some reason.
But yeah, it's a fittingly sentimental ghost story type of thing, which I'm usually all for. My only real issue is that I'm so familiar with this setup that I basically knew how it would end by minute 5. So all I could really do was soak in the atmosphere of the ghost scenes and laugh at the clear OSHA violations of Neo-Venezia's postal service.
But yeah, it's a fittingly sentimental ghost story type of thing, which I'm usually all for. My only real issue is that I'm so familiar with this setup that I basically knew how it would end by minute 5. So all I could really do was soak in the atmosphere of the ghost scenes and laugh at the clear OSHA violations of Neo-Venezia's postal service.
I was just struck by how the plot progresses. Akari marvels at how Aqua's ocean came to be, and the she finds a graveyard for an entire outpost that died while they were trying to irrigate the planet. And Aria doesn't seek to moralize or make any grander statement aside from the recognition and respect of the dead. In the show's own quiet way, it got to me!
I was more charmed by Aika turning into a concerned mother when Akari goes on a day trip out of town, personally.
Can you get any more married?
No, but you can be invited to a mysterious island called "Neverland" where an unknown sender invites a bunch of teenagers and specifically tells them to bring their swimsuits and boy did this episode premise not age well.
Ah yes, what better way to follow up on a melancholic meditation on the transience of life than with a beach episode.
Also they weren't kidding when they told everyone to bring their swimsuits.
Listen, it was the mid-2000s. You weren't allowed to make an anime without at least 1 beach and/or hot springs episode.
Glad the medium finally progressed past that. Nowadays, you just can't make an anime unless something somewhere goes terribly, terribly wrong.
Of the ones we watched I think this is actually my least favorite. Partly because yeah, beach episodes are old hat. But mostly because it heavily features the one part of Aria I don't care for. The show is explicitly about finding the magic in every day life, the brief but meaningful encounters of lives intersecting and departing, the majesty of the world around you that can be taken for granted too often. That's a great premise, but the show really does not trust the audience to pick up on it and so has Aria give a speech every episode telling us the moral of today's non-adventure.
Maybe the real Aria was the friends we made along the way~
Just saying, understated sentiment works best when it's actually understated, imo.
Oh yeah it can be hilariously overwritten. Like, it tries SO HARD to make the symbolism around Alice's left hand poignant, it basically comes across as a parody of an Aria plotline.
Still a net positive episode tho, thanks to Hein ketchup.
Still a net positive episode tho, thanks to Hein ketchup.
It is fucking hilarious to see Alice just stoically staring down her left hand as she comes to realize ambidexterity is overrated.
When it's in fact a metaphor for how her wake-and-bake roommate is actually a real cool lady.
When it's in fact a metaphor for how her wake-and-bake roommate is actually a real cool lady.
She can sing good and doesn't afraid of anything.
Which, jokes aside, is exactly what makes Aria so good! The synthesis of its visual and musical elements is what turns it into such a sensory delight. Just the opening notes of the OP song are enough to yank any cynicism out of my cold withered heart.
It is very much a series that runs on vibes more than anything, and while I prefer stuff like Mushi-shi more for that kind of storytelling, I can appreciate what this show is going for.
I agree Mushi-shi is untouchable for the deftness with which it melds coziness and spiritual meditativeness, but Aria can definitely hit some comfy and touching notes of its own.
For sure, I just tend for stuff a little darker. When I'm looking to chill out I want something that's still at least a little creepy or uneasy to hook me in. And while Aria goes down smooth even on marathon, the episodes we see here feel a tad too light to stick with me.
While I'm not in any hurry to continue it, I think Aria is the kind of show made for slow and patient viewing anyway. I can see myself throwing an episode on here and there when I need something soporific to ease me into bedtime. I give it a yawn of approval.
And I give it a 1 Out Of 3 Recognizable Drawings of a Cat.
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