Common Name: Amanchu!
Score: 6/10, 3/5
Length: 2 Seasons of 12 Episodes, 1 OVA
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Slice of Life, School Life, Shoujo, Job Shadow, Supernatural
Summary: Moving to a new town is one of those things that can either be exciting or absolutely horrible. Having just moved from the big city to her new home in a rural sea town Futaba Ooki is suffering from the latter of those feelings. Already a shy and sensitive girl, this sudden change of atmosphere and the loss of her old friends might just be too much for her. Before she's even given a chance to lose all hope of a happy life in this new town, though, Futaba runs into a green-haired girl with a bottomless well of energy and enthusiasm named Kohinata Hikari or Pikari. Grabbing Futaba by the hand and giving her the nickname Teko, Pikari shows her the beauty of her new home and everything it has to offer. Most notably, she shows her a whole other world that can be found close to home and just past the shoreline. With a new friend in hand and a new home to explore both above and below the waves, Teko soon comes to believe there might be something exciting for her here after all.
Review: It's not very often that I find myself wishing that I could turn back the clock and just not watch a show. As I'm sure many people have noted by now, I have no problem ragging on a show and expressing my general dislike or active hatred for a show that gets under my skin, particularly when I force myself to watch one for the sake of keeping my biases in check. For a show to earn a level of hatred that I find the threat of paradoxes to be an acceptable loss, it has to fuck up on a level I cannot even fully comprehend. While this wish has only crossed my mind only a couple of times in my years of being an anime fan, I've noticed that one of the quickest ways to earn that level of animosity is for a show to actively betray me. Petty as that might sound, it's a very difficult thing to accomplish when I find myself disappointed in the shows I watch on a fairly regular basis. When I say "betrayal," I mean it goes on beyond the realm of disappointment and basically take a thing that I love and absolutely destroy it just to watch me suffer. The second season of Amanchu! did exactly that to me and it has actively ruined my ability to appreciate a show that I loved and would have gone to bat for without a second thought until now. So, I'm just going to apologize right now and admit that it is going to impossible for me to look at this show objectively and without bias. I'll try to reign in my feelings the best that I can for the sake of expressing the objective reasons why I feel this show betrayed me but be aware that I'm going to be chomping at the bit to tear this show and thus my own review to shreds the entire time.
You can actually pinpoint the second when my tolerance
for the 2nd season's bullshit rips in half.
Before my mental restraints break and I just go on a hate-fueled tirade, though, I suppose I should make sure that I actually explain what this show is and what drove me to appreciate it in the first place. Amanchu! is, primarily, a story of a young girl overcoming her inner weaknesses and opening herself up to the world around her with the help of a new friend. At the show's start, we are introduced to the main perspective character of Futaba Ooki, known more commonly throughout the series as Teko (a pun on her thin, "spotty" eyebrows), as she at her very lowest. She has just moved to a new seaside town that is totally foreign to a city girl like her and has, because of this sudden move, been separated from her best friends. These friends, it is worth noting, were functionally the pillars of Teko's world and the bedrock foundation that kept her active and happy. Without them around, though, she has fallen into her natural melancholy and is filled with nothing but fear and anxiety that everything will go wrong, along with a fair amount of frustration of how cruel and unfair this change is for her. While this might make her sound obnoxious and self-obsessed, it's fairly clear that Teko is anything but those things. Rather, her timid personality and proclivity to fall prey to anxiety make her a highly relatable, sympathetic, and classically (but effectively) introverted character, one who has just been dealt a terrible hand and lacks the knowledge and personality to make the best of it on her own.
And so we get an interesting contrast in water imagery being both a representation
of suffocating anxiety and a bright new world full of beauty and hope.
Thus we come to Amachu!'s second main, perspective character, the bubbly and ever-optimistic Kohinata Hikari, known more commonly as Pikari (a pun on her being a dazzling light). Unlike Teko, Pikari is the type of character that finds a way to be excited about everything and can always wear a smile since she follows that line of thought that perceives every moment of her life is a whole new experience; even if she's seen something a million times, it still excites her because there will always be something different to make it unique each time. Throughout the series, Pikari serves as both the show's driving force and a constant, honest friend for Teko as the girl slowly acclimates to her new home. More importantly, though, her personality and her efforts to get Teko to try new things become the catalyst for Teko's slow, gradual change. Partly because she knows she needs to change and partly because she wants to keep pace with and even surprise Pikari every now and then, the friendship these two form feels believable and appropriate. They share things and hide others in such a manner that they manage to work well together as they share the things they love, but still remain very different people, avoiding the risk of seeming co-dependent.
Christ this show is gorgeous when it wants to be, which is thankfully most of the time.
From the very beginning, Pikari strives to show Teko all the things that are great about her new home and all the things Pikari does to keep life interesting, no matter how ridiculous they might be. From the sunset on the sea to the chrysanthemums that grow along the train tracks and the cherry blossoms that cover an entire roadway in Spring, Pikari shows and effectively teaches Teko how to look outside of herself and at everything the world has to offer. Yet she never tells Teko how to think or feel as they share these experiences, opting instead to let her appreciate things at her own level. For someone with a love and penchant for photography as a means of preserving a memory, this tactic works perfectly on Teko and sets them on the path to become friends that push and inspire one another to do and see great things. For example, along with the world of their town, Pikari also pushes Teko to see an entirely new world--the colorful and foreign world that exists just beneath the waves--by introducing her to the fun of recreational diving. Then, in return, Teko will return the favor of each new experience by finding other things that the two of them can share from an angle Pikari has never experienced before. Taking Pikari by the hand, Teko offers her the ability to share and celebrate the little things in life with others, something that Pikari has never really been able to do until now since she's seen as a bit of a weirdo by most of her peers. So, while Pikari might have the knowledge and enthusiasm to show Teko the world both above and below the waves, Teko has the ability to turn those moments into celebrations worth remembering forever.
Granted, these celebrations usually involve a cook-out party of some description.
The show's use of its diving theme mainly serves as an avenue for these two characters to grow closer as Teko challenges herself to do more and go farther, offering solid milestones that prove how far she has come as she works to get her diving license. What it also does, though, is offer a means for Pikari and Teko to gain even more friends as the show goes on as they come to meet others who share their enthusiasm for diving. Most notably among these new friends, there is their school teacher, Katori Mato, and the fraternal twins that head the school's diving club, Ai and Makoto Ninomiya. As the resident adult of the series, Mato-chan-sensei functions as both Teko's instructor and the diving club's chauffeur for club activities and learning to deal with the highs and lows of life. Though she's young enough to still be a bit childish in her own right, Mato sets a proper example for the girls on the same level as Pikari's grandmother while still being approachable as a friend. While the twins also serve in an almost mentor-like capacity from time to time, they generally function as two halves of a whole that jive well as a medium between the two extremes of the quiet and thoughtful Teko and the bubbly, aggressively energetic Pikari. With the younger brother, Makoto, always falling prey to the whims of his puckish older sister, Ai, they offer a solid medium for the friend group while also serving as the show's main source of slapstick comedy that breaks up some of the show's more emotionally tense or awkward moments.
Granted, considering how these nerds usually operate, there are a lot of awkward moments.
Along with the two mascot cats of the show, Adviser Cha and Hime, that serve as near-perfect, comedic analogs for the relationship between Pikari and Teko to complete the cast, this show manages to be both emotionally resonant, quietly comedic, and effectively zen. With Teko's journey to overcome her anxiety and fear of the future, we're given a lesson on the importance taking the time to just sit back and relax to let the world and all the things it has to offer soak in. Amanchu! speaks to the importance of friendships and everything that comes with them, giving voice to all the things that we might not want to think about, as Teko struggles with her fears of what would happen to her if she lost Pikari like she did her old friends, just as they're starting to become the greatest friend either has ever had. Yet it also resolves these fears and hidden concerns that most people have to deal with at some point as both she and Pikari try to work past these bumps in their friendship together, serving as a clear and effective analog for pretty much any relationship. All at once, this show manages to be both one of the more effective tales of friendship I've ever seen and also one of the most quietly meditative comedies I've ever had the pleasure of watching.
So, with all that said, you can probably see why I might be a little peeved when the second season came around and threw out everything that was good about the first season in exchange for new characters and themes that only served to undermine everything the first season had built. While there are still a couple of episodes that stuck true to the original season, the vast majority of the second season was spent establishing a batch of brand new characters that were never even alluded to until now and plots that directly contradicted the show's primary themes. For example, one of the main draws of Amanchu! was how it was able to make the mundane seem magical and awe-inspiring while remaining thoroughly grounded in reality. The first season was down-to-earth in such a way that it made even some of the show's more ridiculous moments and captivating beauty believable. During the second season, however, a very literal supernatural element was suddenly introduced to clumsily bring attention to the twins being anxious about growing up, wishing they could remain kids forever. This arc featured everything from a ghost character to a psychic baby and the dream world that it had created so that it wouldn't be lonely that Ai and Mato get sucked into. While it is worth noting that the sudden use of supernatural elements is nothing new to Amanchu!'s author, given that they also wrote the Aria series, this sudden shift in reality wholly breaks one of the show's main merits for the sake of cheap storytelling that could have been told better without the introduction of literal magic--magic that was not even hinted at until this season. To be blunt, this plotline comes so far out of left field for this show that it feels almost like a desperate attempt to keep a franchise going when the author just has nothing left.
What the actual fuck is even happening here? What is the point to this?!
I suppose the best indicator of that fact, however, comes with the sudden introduction of several new characters that either serve no purpose or become tools to undermine everything the first season built. The most egregious of these new characters is the introduction of a young, feminine boy by the name of Misaki Kokoro. Appearing as if from nowhere, in spite of being a town native, Kokoro is introduced to the story as a girl that Pikari meets at the beach one day while Kokoro is observing a mother octopus protecting its young. Basically, this connection between Pikari and Kokoro over this octopus is all that occurs between the two character, a fact made all the more idiotically humorous by the fact that Kokoro himself is stylistically defined by his similarities to most cartoon octopi (often depicted with puckered lips). Yet despite this lack of connection, Kokoro is immediately established as Teko's romantic rival for two reasons. Firstly, and most reasonably, this occurs because Kokoro falls for Pikari after they share a moment of swimming among the newly born octopi. Secondly, this is bizarrely established because Pikari regularly refers to her hanging out with Kokoro as a "date," a term she never used until this season upon meeting Kokoro. Now, if Pikari were aware that Kokoro was a guy the whole time, I would have just rolled with it and accepted that the yuri just wasn't meant to be, but that's not the case. At the start of the show, Pikari is wholly oblivious to Kokoro's gender, which makes their "dates" all the weirder given Pikari's borderline romantic and universally accepted connection to Teko and the age gap between her and Kokoro. In the end, all this character's introduction does is throw a wrench in the show's established relationships and forces this connection so badly that it's practically offensive. Yet it doesn't end there. In spite of her clearly romantic feelings for Pikari, Teko just gives up on her claim to Pikari the moment she learns Kokoro is a guy. Mind you, this doesn't happen because of any insecurity on Teko's part or resignation that her relationship with Pikari wouldn't work, as you might expect. She just kinda throws it all away without a second thought because "well, of course, a boy loving a girl is more valid than a girl loving a girl." To make this whole bullshit scenario even worse, though, not a single person actually talks to Pikari about any of this and all the show ever gets from her are scenes where she blushes whenever she interacts with either character, even after she has realized the truth of who Kokoro is. So, in the end, I'm left with little option but to find Kokoro's mere existence in this show offensive on a level I can't even handle.
"Just look at this adorable match made in heaven," said no one ever.
There are, of course, a couple other new characters, but they're honestly not worth nearly as much attention. Put plainly, all they amount to being are tiny versions of Pikari and Teko who, like their older counterparts, very much appear to tread that same line between friends and lovers that is left wholly ambiguous. So, in the end, I'm honestly forced to be pissed off at this second season beyond what might be considered reasonable. To be fair, though, my rage is born from the simple fact that this season just does not fit the standard set by the first season, as noted by the vast majority of episodes are dedicated to creating conflicting themes and introducing irrelevant/awful characters. Even with the few that stick to the original themes and characters, there's little point to their existence since they just offer more of the same with some minor moments of growth on Teko's part. So, put frankly, I'd like to simply pretend that this second season doesn't exist. With that caveat noted, I wholly recommend Amanchu!. It's a fantastic and weirdly thoughtful slice of life comedy that perfectly at expresses the daily lives and struggles of its characters as they come together to see all the beauty this world of ours has to offer. The writing is great. The pacing is serviceable. The music is so chill that I could happily meditate to it without feeling like a total weeb. The art and animation are fluid, colorful, and unique, successfully altering between lighter and darker tones to fit the mood. Honestly, give this show a shot and accept my wholly biased opinion that the series just ends after the OVA, regardless of what this review or other people might claim.