Review: 'Arakawa Under the Bridge'

Anime: Arakawa Under the Bridge (Season 1 & 2)Genre: Comedy, RomanceAge Rating: Good for AllStudio: ShaftMusic: HoshiAuthor: Hikaru Nakamura

Dub/Sub: SubtitlesEcchi Level: Conservative

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The story starts off with Kou Ichinomiya, a traumatized young man who has had it beaten into his head by his father that the only way to live life successfully is to never be in anyone's debt. So when a young girl by the name of Nino saves his life, he tries to bribe her to cancel what he owes. When she rejects his offer, however, in a fit of madness, he asks her if there is any way he can pay her back. And much to his surprise (and my own), she asks if he'll teach her about love.

The result is the pair of them becoming "lovers." And I use that with the lightest possible definition of the word. Because seriously, I've seen the Amish make more progress than this pair. That aside, he decides to move into the area in order to get to know his new lover better, and finds out that she lives with some pretty crazy characters. There's a kappa, a star man, a pair of twins wearing armored helmets, a cocatoo and a bee woman (best romance of the whole series tbh), a haircutting samurai, a man dressed as a nun, a lolita killing machine, a ditzy farmer, a man with a very restricted walking pattern, and a psychopathic rancher.

If I'm going to be honest about this series, I chuckled quite a bit. But I never outright laughed. Maybe that's just me, but this is my review, so take that as you will. The chaos that can come from having a fairly diverse cast like this can definitely churn a few laughs out of anyone, but it doesn't seem to do so for me if it's unfocused. And my kami is that this anime unfocused. This is one of the few anime I've ever seen where the script could have been made up solely by spinning a prize wheel. The only plot we have up to this point is the whole "lovers" angle, a few jealous people, and the strange story about Nino's heritage. Other than that, you'd likely be better off spilling over a can of Alphabet Soup to try and predict where it's going. There's a bit of plot gravity at the end of Season 1, but out of two seasons, that's not much.

The one thing this series gets a gold star for is it's references. Season 1, Episode 1, there's a Phoenix Wright reference, and I fucking loved it. There are also other videogame and anime references that I will let you find on your own. Other than that, nothing stuck out to me besides a diverse cast. The music, the animation... oh, and about the subtitles — there are some instances where they shift away before anyone except maybe Lucy from Fairy Tail can read. It rarely happens, but it is a thing that happens.

On top of those issues, this anime commits one of the worst sins an anime can commit. The one enraging sin that has been done by only one other anime on my review list to date. This anime has MORE SCENES AFTER THE CREDITS! Not "Next time on Arakawa Under the Bridge!" But actual pieces of the anime sliced off and placed after the credits. I hate this, and it needs to stop forever. I shouldn't have to worry about whether I missed something after watching the full episode. This isn't a goddamn Marvel movie.

I'm going to go ahead and speed ball the last few issues I had with the series below to make it easier for you.

• Some characters are repeat characters. They're the same character type that has already been used in the series before, just copied and pasted over a new one.
• Some characters just vanish. There was one character introduced early on in Season 2 that seemingly just disappeared into nothingness. No explanation whatsoever.
• ZERO... RESOLUTION... AT ALL! I'll go more into this in the spoilers section, but it's the truth, and it's infuriating.
• There's this thing that the series does... where it shows a closeup of an eye with a clicking sound, and it milks the fucking hell out of this so much it makes me want to twitch.

The rest can be found in spoilers. Enjoy.

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TLDR: It's not a bad anime, it just doesn't seem to have any direction whatsoever. If you can turn your brain off and enjoy the laughs, then go for it. But for me personally, I don't like there being no resolution at all. Even FLCL (Fooly Cooly), one of the biggest names in the anime genre of "What the fuck is happening right now!?" had direction and resolution. This does not. So as long as you're fine with zero questions being answered, and nothing every progressing, then it's not a bad time. Also, it's the least romantic "romance" anime that I've seen in a while, so don't expect much to come from that. From what I can tell, the manga stopped over two years ago, so this may be all we get. So that's a thing you have to come to terms with if you want to watch this.

Ratings

Animation: 5/10Music: 7/10Story: 4/10Comedy: 7/10Overall Rating: 5/10

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Best Girl: Jaqueline, because ever since Darkstalkers, something about a lady in a bee costume gets me going. Honestly, I did like Nino, but with no character resolution for her, I just can't see myself giving it to her.

SPOILER TALK: If you decided to skip to this part to find out what you'd be missing out on by watching this series, then welcome! Here's a rundown for you.

• The kappa is a guy in a suit, but we never see what he actually looks like.
• The kappa is a guy in a suit, but we never find out why he wears the suit.
• Why does Hoshi's mask come in two layers?
• Why does Hoshi wear his mask almost every second of every day?
• What does Hoshi look like under the mask?
• Is Noni actually Venusian? Or is she just crazy?
• Who the fuck are the twins and do they actually have psychic powers?
• Who the fuck is Maria and why can she take out a rock mid-air with a knife?
• It goes out of its way to show us that the kappa and star man are just costumes, but then shows us an actual man-ckatoo?
• Who was the guy that threatened Shimazaki? I assumed it was Chief, but it was never elaborated on?
• Was he also the same guy who fixed the issue at the end of Season 1?
• Why in Kami's name does Takai act like a love sick tsundere if he just wants to act as Rec's father figure?
• Why must Amazoness insist on wearing makeup?
• Will Shiro's wife actually turn into a Chornish Hen if he steps off of the color white?
• Where the fuck did Nino's bed come from?
• Why is Billy so fucking awesome?
• Where the fuck did the Earth Defense guy go?
• How did Rec build a goddamn house on top the bridge pillar practically overnight?

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones that I just shotgunned off the top of my head. If you watch, you'll probably catch a lot more. Or if you have watched, then I'm probably missing some here. But as it stands, I can't recommend this to anyone who wants more than just junkfood qualities from their anime. Also, kudos to you if you caught the joke at the top of the review, because for the fucking life of me I couldn't find out who the Music Director was.