Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Sakura131
I always forget to not judge a book by its cover. I added this to my list thinking it would be a mere cute story of girls trying to save an aquarium.
Instead I experienced an anime that depicts themes of loss and grief. Some accept it, others blunt the pain by staying occupied, and a few build a memorial. It shows how some run away from their problems while others are determined to work through them. It shows what it means to follow through on a dream. It’s also a coming-of-age story where the main characters transition from teenagers into hard workers, discovering what they value in life. The main plot of the anime isn't saving an aquarium, it's the main character growing up.
A classic "leave the city for the countryside" anime, I found it heartwarming, cute, and yet sometimes sad. Ma…
Read at the sourceMUSAB-KH24
This anime is one of the few anime that made me realize the nature of friendship relationships between females far from dramatic exaggeration. It is credited with teaching me the meaning of working in an aquarium, and thanks to it my interest in marine life and my desire to continue it increased. What I liked most about this anime is the combination of human life and marine life. Between our future in which we seek to achieve our ambitions, and the future of marine creatures that must be preserved, I wanted for a moment to work in an aquarium to see these two futures with my own eyes. For a while, I haven't felt the desire to do anything or care about anything in particular, and now Shiroi Suna no Aquatope has brought that desire and interest back to me by sparking a love and interest in m…
Read at the sourcemushi_Jyou
Too beautiful for this plot.
Story
Subpar. Honestly, wasn't enjoyable. The beautiful background and scenes are wasted on this story. Story has 2 distinct parts. First half is on the Main Characters interactions revolving a small, closing down aquarium. All the main characters love this place, and tries to salvage it from its imminent demise. Hence the first half is about the main characters finding themselves and bonding over their efforts and intentions for this small aquarium. All intentions and wishes were very reasonable. But the actions are a little too weak. The story just goes on about how they wish to preserve the aquarium, but their actions are not exactly shown, except for a few. No team discussions, or seeking outside help, or taking more down to earth methods. There was no eff…
Read at the sourcetsubagakure
'Endless Oceans'
“The briny ocean, born of the human spirit, is endless, always overflowing.
The ocean mixes everything together, and the ocean remains the ocean.
Splashes of happiness melt away and become the ocean.
Lumps of sadness melt away and become the ocean.
Surprise, fear, shame, pride... All things melt and become the ocean.
When a person peers into the ocean within, strangely, they find peace.
They find peace, and they think to themselves:
'See you tomorrow.'”
-- Kudo Naoko A stellar Yashikei P.A. Works series, inundated with love and hope.
Taking place in Okinawa, at two different oceanariums, Shiroi Suna no Aquatope is a Slice of Life about new beginnings. Coalescing the love of youth with the ocean, and its vast life forms, we are taken to a lofty realm, where magic bl…
Read at the sourcetsujiri
Long version:
When I first saw the poster for this anime and MAL's low rating (at that time, around 6/10), I thought "probably another pretty anime without much depth." But I played the trailer anyway, and was pleasantly surprised.
Despite loving the trailer, the low rating still made me hesitant - how many other subpar animes have I watched thanks to MAL? I put it off month after month... and then last weekend, on my birthday. I decided to do something for myself instead of others (lol) and watch it.
I. was. in. awe.
Fuuka was extremely relatable for me. A young woman who moved alone to chase her career/passion/dreams of working in a glamorous but cutthroat industry... only to be denied a promotion after years of hard work. And that promotion to be given to someone young, inexperie…
Read at the sourceTheBlazingBlade
This is a peaceful slice-of-life type of anime. There is no massive story besides trying to save the aquarium, and each character has a side story. The story is straight forward and the characters have zero to little development. I liked the first 10 episodes, but I found Kukuru annoying. As the show progressed she stayed greedy, unyielding, childish, and pushed herself onto others. I understand these are high school characters. but the other 3 high schoolers acted more mature than her and were under similar stresses. Each time people create an excuse for her horrible behavior, everyone passes it off as "okay." There is tolerance to lack of character development and this anime pushes past that and keeps going.
Read at the sourceLhamatorrinco
Shiroi Suna no Aquatope is MID.
Where "M" stands for Mystic, which would be great for an anime that talks about the ocean and all the magic involved in the unknown depths... I say it WOULD be great, because the show forgets about the mystical side it has for half the episodes . Scenes involving mysticism only appear when it is convenient for the anime to be a tearjerker.
Where "I" stands for Informative, and that was, without a doubt, my favorite part of the show. All the technical conversations about fish and other sea creatures, as well as climate issues and species extinction, were very well presented in the anime. Too bad it's the smallest part.
And where "D" stands for Drama. And what a cheap drama... At first the story was interesting, but the drama became so poor and repetitive that…
Read at the sourceGleefulViolin
What a wholesome, educative, refreshing and soul-soothing anime!
I wanted to watch this anime back in summer 2021, but then decided to wait until it was finished before binging it. Unfortunately I forgot about it.. Until this summer when MAL having Summer Restack Challenge, that I remember about this anime.
At first, I was a bit skeptical with the aquarium theme. I'm a vegetarian, you see.. So the thought of seeing animals being confined and caged isn't appealing for me. HOWEVER! With the power of mighty anime goddess, I can't help but liking this.. A LOT! Please let me explain the appeal and charm of this anime.
I had never watched any anime produced by P.A. Work so I had no idea what to expect from the animation. But boy, it wasn't disappointing. The animation is not disappointing at…
Read at the sourcedirtydal95
Shiroi Suna no Aquatope is one of those series for me where I went in expecting to rate it a 6 or a 7 at best, but it came out as a 10 - a masterpiece. I understand that the use of this word might make some people stop reading this review and I will fully admit there is bias in my use of the word, but that's the nature of art/entertainment. I won't pretend to be some expert on media, or anything like that - I simply had to write something about this series.
In terms of the story, the realism of the world is tempered by fortuitous (perhaps influenced by the magic of storytelling) events that strikes the right balance between monotonous slice of life drama, and whimsically fantastic... well fantasy. There are crushed dreams, new hopes, disappointments, successes, significant changes, eterna…
Read at the sourceRushiaFangirl
I made this account just to preach on this show. Honnesty when i say it, this is one of the best shows i watched. I just want to say that this is definetly worth a watch. Aquatope shows how real life is, how it is unfair to individuals. Story of two girls with broken dreams is really cool. It doesnt use cliche to make ending good, in life some things are just out of our controll, no matter how hard we try we cant fix it. Kukuru is very hard working and tries to be happy and uplifting but everything she tries so hard to work for usually fails. Aquatope shows harsh reality and duality of humans, it shows toxic workspace, falling slowly in depression, running away from problems, It is not all depressiong however as there is humour that i really liked and genuinly good advices on how to look a…
Read at the sourceJonsitoa
Weakest PA works anime i ever watched, the background as always are great but the animation of the characters feel deformed, the openings and endngs are very beautiful, but the characters are bland and not interesting, only the legendary old man is unique, the two protagonists are not very particular fun to watch, the idol and the director of the aquarium are pretty, the friends or sode characters are forgettable. The first part of the show and second part feel different,i prefer the first part it was less boring and a little more interesting than second vour, im a big fan of PA works but shows like nagi no asukara or Shirobako are much better, this is a 6/@9 show for me guys.
Read at the sourceTheEasternModie
The show is my personal anime of the year of 2021. Not because of the story because this one is quite simple: A small aquarium is going to be closed, but the grand daughter of the owner doesn't want to accept it and tries everything to get more customers. Helping her is a girl that lost her job as an idol and who doesn't want to go home yet since she doesn't know where to go in live. It is a perfect coming of age story about two girls and their completely different starting positions. However, both of them develop over time and it feels great to see their growth over the 24 episodes as they help each other through hard times. Furthermore the side characters are really lovable and while some of them could have gotten a bit more time, you will love them all in the end.
The reason why I rate…
Read at the sourceKincaidP
I'm not even going to try and rate by category and just let my feelings flow with this one as this show has taken a special place in my heart. I'll break it down into what I liked and point out some parts I didn't like but there won't be a score attached to it. I'll do my utmost to avoid spoilers as I feel experiencing this show ep by ep without knowing what's next is best. I'll also talk some other experiences with this series I've had and why I feel so connected to it at the end just to give my full personal thoughts.
Story:
It's really a simple one to be honest. It's about two girls with hopes and dreams that don't pan out. The two main girls Kukuru and Fuuka they have their own baggage in their own way. The story focuses on how they support each other and grow from their hardships a…
Read at the sourceeaxcy
SPOILER FREE REVIEW:
Before you read any further I want to just say that the second half of this show is GODLY. I picked up this show from the opening on youtube without any expectations, I saw a beach, an aquarium and yuri(?) and immediately watched it. Personally speaking I LOVE the beach and fish in general, so it may come with some bias but the show is really easy to get hooked into. (get it? hooked? never mind....)
I'll start with the main character, Kukuru, who is the 'director' of Gama Gama, a small aquariam situated near the beach. Flawed and immature, she easily has some of the best characterization and growth over the series. Starting off as immature and self centered over the course of the series she slowly matures and becomes independent. Out of every character she was my fav…
Read at the sourceraisin-kun
Warning: There may be spoilers ahead
Aquatope of the White Sand is an anime made up of pure heart, soul, and passion by it's creators. Every week tuning in was fun and exciting. It is the embodiment of everything PA Works studio strives for. If I'll be honest, despite my great respect and like for the studio which brought some of the best original slice-of-life and drama anime to dazzling light they haven't exactly had the best of records especially over the past few years. Irodzuku was the last standout anime they made that could be called "good" and that was made all the way back in late 2018. Aquatope sees a return to form after a long hiatus with excellent writing, interesting and endearing characters, and the plethora of quirks that makes PA Works truly PA Works. It's an anime about…
Read at the sourceFlexySpagoot
Shiroi Suna no Aquatope was a show that honestly had some promise, but I think it tried to develop too many different ideas and ended up making the whole show feel half-assed. So may elements are introduced and then either not explained or not developed. I think if this show cut out 50% of its extra elements and instead focused on the best ones it could easily have been one of the shows I actually looked forward to seeing.
The art was one of the most consistently good parts of the show. The colors were vibrant and nice to look at, and the characters had nice, visually distinct designs. Occasionally a fish or something would look a bit strange in a scene, but otherwise the show was pretty visually appealing.
The characters were a bit more of a mixed bag. They were all fine on the surface,…
Read at the sourceOneFaintingRobin
This is very much a show of two halves, to the point that, if it wasn't for the shared characters, the two cours might feel like two completely different stories. And those stories have a fairly big difference in impact.
The first half of this show, as its own thing, is probably my second favourite show of this entire year. It's emotionally powerful, it's thematically rich, and it brought me not far from tears on the regular. It's a small, personal story about a small, personal setting that explores loss and dreams and it was absolutely beautiful. And it leads to a conclusion that feels tragic and sad but also incredibly satisfying in its own right. And, when that first half finished up, I was excited to see how they were going to carry these emotions forward, where they were going to ta…
Read at the sourceGalacticWeiss12
P.A. Works once again hits it out of the park for an anime series that is well done, well written, well paced, and has something to invest into. Now, maybe because I was spoiled by Shirobako is that I do not believe that other animes that this studio has worked on will top it. However, I have enjoyed some others with open arms. Now, not all the P.A. Works animes that I have seen are all great (Charlotte, Haaruchika) to name a couple of them. However, Aquatope is one where one path can end and the other can begin a new. The ending I will leave as spoiler free, but I was surprised by it to say the least. This is definitely a sleeper anime that needs more attention.
Read at the sourceMaylHikari
Story 8/10
The story must be relate to some people, its not like slice of life that I ordinary watch (School Based Slice of Life) , the story is based on the world of work
Art 10/10
The art its just Amazing
Sound 8/10
Its Ordinary And No Problem , thats what its should be
Character 7/10 Even though the story focused in two character , i wish the can more develop story about the side character Karin And Kuuya for example, like how about their past school life
Enjoyment 7/10
Actually kinda boring , thats how slice of life ordinary like, but depend on your mood its good while u need relaxed show and dont want to think hard
Overall 8/10
Read at the sourcee-rousoku
If they make 20 seasons of this anime, I will binge all of them and ask for more afterwards.
The plot is not outstanding. It's just slice of life. Nothing groundbreaking happens. What appealed to me so much is not _what_ happens, but _how_. Everything is captivating in a way which is not rational or objective - the characters just naturally behave in a way which transports you into the relaxed yet charming vibe they are all living in. They live in a very chill out place, but not the "all party" kind, yet not dull - more like a contemplative, philosophical vibe - and while watching you end up emotionally teleported into that environment.
This anime show is one of those you wish the places and characters were real, so you could pay them a visit and talk about whatever. And maybe move close…
Read at the source
