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 Obvious’s striking yet again.
“Arata Kangatari” is Yuu Watase’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 haven’t yet sat through any of Watase’s earlier works; so I wasn’t really sure what I was in for with “Arata Kangatari”. Nevertheless, the reviews throughout the web were quite positive, and with Watase-sensei’s earlier works, the expectations for this one seemed to be high.
Still, and with all due respect for Watase-sensei; having gotten through “Arata Kangatari” at last, I can safely say that there’s better anime in my book.
That doesn’t mean “Arata Kangatari” 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 you’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. “Arata Kangatari” 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 I’m not saying anything as to how predictable or unpredictable some of those were ^^"), and sticks to its set story quite well--aka doesn’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, it’s funny figuring out how they’re connected, and after all, both settings came with their troubles: Hinohara was being bullied… man up, kid (probably easier said than done)… and Arata didn’t only have to cross-dress, now he was even framed for murder and chased. So the fat’s in the fire; and that’s also where the plot problems start.
I really would have liked to see more of both settings. Not like we don’t spend 80% of the time with Hinohara in the fantasy world, but this one simply isn’t fleshed out enough. The minimal background information for understanding what’s going on is there, but not much more. Social structure, politics and history, etc.… 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, it’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, it’s not funny.
That’s still excusable. Twelve episodes aren’t exactly long; and Hinohara is basically put into the shoes of an escapee--someone who, if they don’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 clichés. 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 didn’t really feel a sense of “nice surprise” at anything that happened. And here the pace doesn’t help either, as it somehow manages to be so fast it kills the suspense. Gah.
“Arata Kangatari” 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 can’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 don’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 that’s only the most obvious and least spoiler-ish examples). There’s characters with far more potential than them, but the time’s too tight to flesh any of them out, or even explain in grand how they ended up where they are. Hinohara’s wimpy attitude can actually be excused, but many of the fantasy world’s characters are kind of missing a backstory so far.
Where characters aren’t fleshed out well, it’s hard to make them relatable or even believable. Quite a few characters’ reactions, up to sudden changes of heart, I couldn’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 I’d write up a spoiler if I continued this much further. I do like that there is character development, however, even if it’s not much… let’s not be too strict with those twelve episodes.
The dialogue’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, it’s more clichéd than anything else, and quite predictable with that. Didn’t really help the plot or characters much. I can’t complain about the voice-acting, but that’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 isn’t as static as tends to be in fantasy anime. The sound’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 they’re impossible to confuse. It’d already be odd if they had e.g. similar hairstyles and clothing and different dialogical quirks, but it’d at least be more believable than this. Oh, and fantasy Arata having to play the cross-dresser gets dropped completely once the switch’s done and over, too. Oh well, never mind.
To be frank, and as might be obvious from the rest of this review, I’m not really sure what to do with this anime. Heck, I wanted to like it; the start didn’t seem too bad; there’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 can’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; clichés and limited time didn’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 isn’t too bad either. However, if you ask me, the plot, characters, and dialogue don’t live up to that. Maybe I’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 haven’t read a page of the manga and you can already see the manga outdistancing the anime, you know there’s something wrong; that’s exactly how I felt about “Arata Kangatari”.
If you’re interested, I’d rather recommend taking changes with the manga. Now I’m talking big, not even knowing the manga myself; but it’s at least far longer than the anime; it got good ratings on ANN; and after all, Watase-sensei doesn’t have her fame and fans for nothing. The “Arata Kangatari” manga might actually be good; the anime simply doesn’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. (
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