Yeah, the title’s pretty provocative, but read this review and you’ll soon know why. (Read the whole review if possible. This thing in parts won’t make sense. :P )
First off, I’m not part of the target audience, so my low rating of this anime may stem from that. Don’t blame me; I only found out through Wikipedia – after watching, that was. FYI, according to Wiki this is actually categorized as a seinen, *not* a kiddy anime like some fellow anime watchers here assumed.
“Arakawa under the Bridge” certainly is more than a change of pace from generic. The work is original, not the typical rom/com you would expect from the summary, with a focus on comedy instead of romance and quite an interesting concept… and packed with abstract randomness going as far as to negate common sense in its entirety. Sorry, but that won’t do for me.
The concept in itself has grand potential. Imagine a rich, smart guy winding up having to live under a bridge – how funny could that have been! Yet add in utter randomness, a lot of repeated jokes, and what do you get? … A disappointed review author.
Story: A guy gets saved by a girl living under a bridge and to repay her moves in with her, pretending to be her boyfriend. That is all the story you get, and it’s revealed in the first few minutes of the first episode – so factually, I’m not even typing up a spoiler. *coughs* The rest of the anime shows the protagonists’ everyday life in a community of weirdoes. Throw in the open plot of a of a slice of life depending on characters’ dynamics and development, and it’d have been good enough for me; but even that doesn’t exist. It’s loads of tiny sub stories tied into one anime – luckily enough, the sub stories aren’t predictable, but that’s about the only thing that saves this. There is the supposed overarching plot of Nino and Kou’s romance, and I admit they look cute together, but the randomness cancelled out all emotion – and I’m a woman, so romance without the tiniest grain of emotion looks like a failure to me. Doubt that was intended… ^^°
The characters are unpredictable, quirky, and highly numerous for a 13-episode series, and could easily become lovable in all their weird habits and the odd atmosphere surrounding them; but seeing as most lack believable background as well as any development (Kou, the male protagonist, perhaps being the only exception, but even on him the producers could have gone more ‘all out’), most characters end up staying one-sidedly odd. They have distinctive personalities, but rarely those over-the-top characteristics that have them act as exaggerated mirrors of today’s world and would engrave them in your mind forever. For further elaboration to make this number of characters memorable and likable, there is no time. Character interaction perhaps might provide the most ‘lol’ moments, but seeing as situational humour is quite often repeated (like Kou getting worked up over others’ stupidity and throwing in a rant), even that gets old sometime. It’s worth a grin the first few times something like this happens… but in nearly any episode? Sorry, but just no.
Dialogue: Certainly fits the characters, and might provide a few laughs in the beginning as it is totally unpredictable. Then again, it is more random than even the plot. Answers to serious questions being completely off topic gets annoying after a while, also since the high randomness factor prevented me personally from getting a feeling for the dialogue’s flow. I could swear I missed a ton of jokes, but hey, puns as well references to politics, culture, or the like aren’t explained in the subs, and my Japanese sucks… saying a lot of the dialogue didn’t make sense to me, but you might disagree with me if you know Japanese (or got a better sub than me!! :{ ).
Animation: No pain on the eyes, but it’s nothing special either. “Arakawa under the Bridge” doesn’t seem to trade on looks.
Entertainment: At the beginning, this anime was still funny mostly because of its unpredictability, and if you find utter consistent randomness funny, you might enjoy the whole experience a lot more than me. For me, apparently having acquired a bad sub (dl’ed my version from a different site a while ago and don’t remember which subbing group it was =.="), and not being into utter randomness that much, this quickly got old. Situational humour is often repeated; the best dialogue couldn’t do a thing if randomness cancels out not only the viewer’s feel for it but also all and any common sense; and for elaborating the characters in all depth they might have, there is no time. I can appreciate this as a parody of the meaningless and repetitive lives of the rich and famous (an interpretation I randomly came up with after hours of thinking *cough*); but random parodies such as this need either a consistent relation to current topics, or consistent comedy, neither of which I could see in here. “Arakawa under the Bridge” is somewhat out of logic, and for me, as sorry as I feel having to say that, it was just a bit too random, too chaotic, and too repetitive.
I can recommend “Arakawa under the Bridge” for those who are looking for an abstract, a parody as mentioned above, or for those who get their laughs from sheer randomness no matter whether that one cancels out common sense and logic. NOT recommended as a starter anime. It might be far funnier if you could acquire subs at least semi-friendly to explanation, if you belong to the target audience, or if you understand Japanese – the latest being the most important part, if I’m interpreting Japanese sales numbers right (Arakawa’s right in the front among the first 20 or 30 top-sold anime/manga series - somewhere between Death Note and D.Gray-man O.O).
Props to people who like this; personally, I enjoyed both Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei and Gintama, which are said to be quite similar to this, but I couldn't really get into Arakawa.
Last note, dislike as much as you like – the sales numbers DO contradict this review’s rating – but please note I’ve given this anime honest critique, and that bad subs are not exactly my fault. :P (
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