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Arata Kangatari (TV) Reviews
Arata Kangatari
2466
Title(s): Arata Kangatari
ć‚¢ćƒ©ć‚æć‚«ćƒ³ć‚¬ć‚æćƒŖ ļ½žé©ē„žčŖžļ½ž (Japanese)
革ē„žčŖžļ½žå¤©å•ŸåŠē„žļ½ž (Chinese (Taiwan))
Creator: Yuu Watase
Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Supernatural
Age Group: Older Children (May contain mild bad language, bloodless violence)
Vintage: April 8, 2013
Status: Still Airing
Summary: Every 30 years, a new princess is chosen from the Hime family to serve the Hayagami. The time has come again, but over these past years, records state not a single female has been born, save for one, the 15 year old Arata. The only problem is, Arata is actually a male! Forced to disguise himself and take the place of the princess candidate until a formal one can be found, he attends the festival only to witness the current princess, Kokuri-hime, murdered, and his own life is forfeit as well, by the hands of the princess' personal guard, the 12 Shinshou. As he runs for his life, Kannagi of the 12 convinces everyone that Arata is the one who has murdered the princess instead, and now everyone in the Imperial Court is after his head!

We then switch over to Arata, a 15 year old schoolboy from modern Japan who has incredible athletic ability but is plagued by bullies. After the Arata from ancient times runs into a mysterious forest and the Arata from modern times runs into an alleyway, the two mysteriously take each others place.
Reviews
Summary: (8 reviews) Write A Review
Excellent 3 reviews
38%
38%
Good 0 reviews
0%
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Average 4 reviews
50%
50%
Poor 0 reviews
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Very Poor 0 reviews
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Arata Kangatari
Written by Little_Wolf-18 on August 30, 2013 at 5:16 AM
Overall Rating
Average
Story: 2
Dialogue: 2
Animation: 5
Entertainment: 3
First things first; I have not read the manga, so my rating/review is based solely on this anime. Also, long review is long, and Captain Obviousā€™s striking yet again.


ā€œArata Kangatariā€ is Yuu Wataseā€™s first shounen work, her earlier works having been all shoujo (the classic Fushigi Yuugi counts among her earlier works, as well as e.g. Ayashi no Ceres and Suna no Tiara).

I havenā€™t yet sat through any of Wataseā€™s earlier works; so I wasnā€™t really sure what I was in for with ā€œArata Kangatariā€. Nevertheless, the reviews throughout the web were quite positive, and with Watase-senseiā€™s earlier works, the expectations for this one seemed to be high.

Still, and with all due respect for Watase-sensei; having gotten through ā€œArata Kangatariā€ at last, I can safely say that thereā€™s better anime in my book.


That doesnā€™t mean ā€œArata Kangatariā€ is bad per se. In fact, it has quite the potential. Sure enough the basic concept--people from different times, or in this case even worlds, switching places just like that--isn't all that new; but it had enough of a twist to make it interesting. Arata and Hinohara (first is fantasy-world Arata, the latter is the real-world one in case youā€™ve only read the summary) have entirely different backgrounds and character traits; and both the fantasy and real-world settings are trouble-loaded enough after all. ā€œArata Kangatariā€ had some fair potential at the time, and it started out quite good--setting a crazy pace that later on managed to kill all suspense, but at the start was good enough to keep up my attention.

The plot is definitely there, also provides a twist or two (though Iā€™m not saying anything as to how predictable or unpredictable some of those were ^^"), and sticks to its set story quite well--aka doesnā€™t take a new filler-ish sidetrack every two or three episodes. To me, the two different worlds were also quite interesting; though not entirely new, itā€™s funny figuring out how theyā€™re connected, and after all, both settings came with their troubles: Hinohara was being bulliedā€¦ man up, kid (probably easier said than done)ā€¦ and Arata didnā€™t only have to cross-dress, now he was even framed for murder and chased. So the fatā€™s in the fire; and thatā€™s also where the plot problems start.

I really would have liked to see more of both settings. Not like we donā€™t spend 80% of the time with Hinohara in the fantasy world, but this one simply isnā€™t fleshed out enough. The minimal background information for understanding whatā€™s going on is there, but not much more. Social structure, politics and history, etc.ā€¦ none of this actually seems to be there. And while I know it can be quite gruesome having to sit through monologues about the above, itā€™s necessary to at least see a bit of it all to build a believable world. If you have barely any idea of what the world is like, itā€™s not funny.

Thatā€™s still excusable. Twelve episodes arenā€™t exactly long; and Hinohara is basically put into the shoes of an escapee--someone who, if they donā€™t already know, have little chance of firsthand learning about whatever world they may be in. We see even less of fantasy Arata in the real world, yes; but a real-world setting tends to be common knowledge. Also, those moments can be quite funny, and things might not be better if screen time between the two Aratas was actually divided 50:50; the troubles in the fantasy world are somewhat more urgent than those in the real world setting.

Not only the fantasy world seems rather unbelievable to me, though. The plot in itself comes with troubles as well, namely clichĆ©s. Some of the twists provided are outright unrealistic (how can someone not notice that two people having absolutely zero in common besides their name, gender, and possibly age just switched places? Not like anyone would expect it, but blaming it on amnesia or outright not noticing at all is just ridiculous). I didnā€™t really feel a sense of ā€œnice surpriseā€ at anything that happened. And here the pace doesnā€™t help either, as it somehow manages to be so fast it kills the suspense. Gah.

ā€œArata Kangatariā€ has enough potential. Things however get odd if barely any of that potential is unfolded. Even for twelve episodes--rarely enough time for a really good adaption of an action/adventure manga, and I do blame the limited time for many of the shortcomings--I still canā€™t say I find it to be even a mediocre adaption. The manga is probably more extensive at over 160 chapters by now, but alas, anime is anime.

The characters donā€™t help, at least not all of them. A couple are rather typical (Hinohara is the wimpy protagonist found in every third or fourth anime; Kotoha is the innocent clingy girl sidekick with healing abilities; and thatā€™s only the most obvious and least spoiler-ish examples). Thereā€™s characters with far more potential than them, but the timeā€™s too tight to flesh any of them out, or even explain in grand how they ended up where they are. Hinoharaā€™s wimpy attitude can actually be excused, but many of the fantasy worldā€™s characters are kind of missing a backstory so far.

Where characters arenā€™t fleshed out well, itā€™s hard to make them relatable or even believable. Quite a few charactersā€™ reactions, up to sudden changes of heart, I couldnā€™t really see happening in real life--or at the very least not as fast. The entire conflict between Hinohara and his main antagonist e.g. is far too far-fetched and exaggerated IMHO, but Iā€™d write up a spoiler if I continued this much further. I do like that there is character development, however, even if itā€™s not muchā€¦ letā€™s not be too strict with those twelve episodes.

The dialogueā€™s not really great either. It tends to involve some comedic moments where fantasy-world Arata is involved, but much of the rest of the time, itā€™s more clichĆ©d than anything else, and quite predictable with that. Didnā€™t really help the plot or characters much. I canā€™t complain about the voice-acting, but thatā€™s that.

The technical aspects are a whole other thing, though. The animation is up-to-date; sure there are a lot of effects, but they look quite cool and colourful, as well as not too out-of-place in a fantasy world; and most of the action isnā€™t as static as tends to be in fantasy anime. The soundā€™s decent, the music good at least; the art is clear and colourful, and the character design, where typical at times, is quite appealing at others.

The only thing that really got weird for me in this sense was that Arata and Hinohara look so different nobody in their right mind could possibly mistake them for one another. Chalk it up to viewer-friendliness, but their personalities are already so different theyā€™re impossible to confuse. Itā€™d already be odd if they had e.g. similar hairstyles and clothing and different dialogical quirks, but itā€™d at least be more believable than this. Oh, and fantasy Arata having to play the cross-dresser gets dropped completely once the switchā€™s done and over, too. Oh well, never mind.


To be frank, and as might be obvious from the rest of this review, Iā€™m not really sure what to do with this anime. Heck, I wanted to like it; the start didnā€™t seem too bad; thereā€™s one helluva lot of potential in terms of plot and character development; and the animation is up there and relatively free of bugs. As is, though, I canā€™t say I like it. The very beginning did pull me in, but soon the plot went along too fast for any more suspense to build; clichĆ©s and limited time didnā€™t help either characters or plot; and where there were quite a couple funny lines in the dialogue, quite a few were just as ridiculous. The mentioned bits of comedy are still entertaining; the art, especially the colouring, is definitely good if not better than that; and the action isnā€™t too bad either. However, if you ask me, the plot, characters, and dialogue donā€™t live up to that. Maybe Iā€™m being too strict for twelve eps, but I found myself not caring about this anime at all, which is something that happens rarely to me. If you havenā€™t read a page of the manga and you can already see the manga outdistancing the anime, you know thereā€™s something wrong; thatā€™s exactly how I felt about ā€œArata Kangatariā€.

If youā€™re interested, Iā€™d rather recommend taking changes with the manga. Now Iā€™m talking big, not even knowing the manga myself; but itā€™s at least far longer than the anime; it got good ratings on ANN; and after all, Watase-sensei doesnā€™t have her fame and fans for nothing. The ā€œArata Kangatariā€ manga might actually be good; the anime simply doesnā€™t do it for me.

Cheers.


PS: Episode 9 is up here, but hidden because of some archive bug. Check the link in the ep 8 see 10 sub-directories.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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