It’s a very character-driven show but the setting is a significant part I think of what makes it so special.

I’d go as far as to say that Neo-Venezia is a character itself, and the most essential one. Nice post, at any rate. It’s very hard for me to pinpoint exactly why Aria works when it should be a wheel of cheese, but you do manage to be insightful as usual.

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@zzeroparticle: I often think that technology just makes things go wrong faster so maybe it’s undertandable that people would want to escape to a slower pace of life. I know I would! As long as Aqua has a decent internet connection…

@Sorrow-kun:

I’ve never completely understood how it pulled it off, but I loved just about every minute of it.

Couldn’t have put it better myself. (: I haven’t seen the sequels, but since the first one is on R1 DVD I’m hoping the rest will follow in the coming months. There’s the manga too of course, but I have quite a lengthy to-buy list in that department too!

@Peter S: I like to have something like this on stand-by for a really lousy day when I need to unwind. I think Aqua is as close to a real-life paradise as we *could* get but like you I’m too cynical to believe it’s likely to turn out that way!

@Senile_seinen: I have Sketchbook Full Colors on my to-watch list but will endeavour to find YKK. Only two episodes, but it sounds like the dystopian equivalent to Aria and I’d probably enjoy it as much. Hidamari Sketch is great - I’m watching x365 on widescreen actually. I’d like to learn more about Aqua itself though - hopefully the second series and OAVs will explain it since the worldview is so vibrant and convincing.

@TheBigN: I suspect Aqua is intended to be the opposite of ‘Man-Home’, which I assume is very industrialised with not much sunshine or clean water at the time when the series is set. Perhaps technology didn’t provide the solutions humanity was looking for, so went ‘back to basics’. I just love the way that complex processes and ideas are used to maintain an environment of beautiful simplicity.

@Zeroblade: I’ll try to write a character-centric post next - every one of them is memorable. I just have trouble remembering their names!

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Probably my one regret in this genre is that nobody had the nerve to make a series out of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. There are two OAVs, but there are probably three seasons worth of material in the manga that will never be animated. If Aria makes a good anime, so would YKK.

And in reference to Peter S’s last comment, I’d agree, except that Aria assumes that the terraforming didn’t go as planned. I suspect the ‘vacation planet’ theme was a fall-back when the primary scheme derailed after too much water was released. Aqua is operated on a shoestring and has a low level of automation and optimization because of its small population of mostly service workers and subsistence farmers. Every time Earth is mentioned, it’s described as being very automated and regimented - much more like Disney World or, perhaps more accurately - like life in Wall-E.

One thing that is never addressed is the cost of an extraterrestrial vacation. It appears that visiting Aqua is for the wealthy; regular visits are for the very wealthy. Nothing like horrendous travel costs to keep the riff-raff out…

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I think the best part is nothing really happens, and sometimes you need that.

Of course in reality a terraformed paradise world put together by mighty powers would probably be close to a Millennium/Disney/SuperCongolmerate theme park with underpaid underclass workers and lots of bad taste.

It’s this sense of innocent purity, that I daresay would be naïve in most other contexts, that drew me into the world of Aria.

I’ve always considered it a minor miracle that ARIA managed to invoke the perfect combination of atmosphere, charm and simplicity that it was able to be as innocent and sentimental as it was without it feeling didactic or unnatural or overwrought at any stage. It’s so ironic, but it’s so sweet and disarming that I rue to use a word as terse as “irony” to describe it. It’s down-to-earth with its character development but completely fanciful and idealistic with its setting. It’s a bizarre juxtaposition that somehow works brilliantly. I’ve never completely understood how it pulled it off, but I loved just about every minute of it.

Have you seen the sequels? I thought that each series managed to be better than the last. Very rare for an anime franchise.

You can go on and on about ARIA’s peaceful, serene setting, but it wouldn’t be complete without the slow-paced, easygoing nature of the environment. Such a life, I think, is something to dream for, and most people lose sight of that given how fast-paced the world in real life moves.

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