Initial Impressions: Arata Kangatari

I get the same impression from this adaptation as when I read the manga for the first time; it's not exactly the most gripping start.

I'll admit that it has been a while since I read Arata Kangatari properly. It's a manga I liked, but it was one that grew on me over time and then became too tiring to follow once I got busy. That doesn't mean I think it's a bad manga, however. Watase Yuu is skillful in what she does, and what she's doing is bringing together the shounen and shoujo manga worlds into one series. Her shounen characters have a tinge of the shoujo composition (note the abundance of bishounen, for instance) but the shoujo elements are also used to a mostly interesting effect. The normally overdramatic bullying convention, for example, fits quite well with Hinohara Arata's (Okamoto Nobuhiko) situation, and it adds a rather brutal coloring to his life. The shounen elements too are less pronounced and conventional than a shounen mangaka would make them, though Watase-sensei clearly tries to adhere to that staple whenever possible.

However, this isn't a review of Arata Kangatari the manga; this is an overview on the first episode of Satelight's adaptation of Arata. Yet, I can't help but feel the same about this premiere as I did at the first chapter of the manga. In truth, the opening sequences of both aren't all that awe-inspiring, and that's even less so for the anime, which has much less time in which to tell the same story. The premise is quite basic, and surrounds the circumstances of two boys named Arata living in parallel universes. One, Hinohara, is a boy living in the modern world and plagued by bullying, while the other Arata (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka) inhabits a fantastical world where he must act the part of a woman to buy time for a sacred ceremony. When things go badly for Arata and he's blamed for the murder of a sacred princess, he escapes into the forest, only to find himself switching places with Hinohara. The rest of the episode then focuses on Hinohara's bewilderment and his coming into contact with a power that will change everything.

As interesting as that sounds on paper, the premise has never quite managed to hook me the way it's supposed to in either manga or anime. There's something almost flat about it all, or difficult to empathize with, and it doesn't really sink in all that well. There's a lot of jargon surrounding Arata's circumstances and not much of it is explained, which only makes things that much more difficult to follow. The characters too, at least on Arata's side, are more shounen stereotypes than not, including Arata's retainer Kotoha (Takagi Ayahi), who dutifully fills in for the slightly ditsy female sidekick. However, I do have the benefit of hindsight, so while I don't particularly find the premiere to do that great of a job, I do know that if done properly, Arata Kangatari should become a better series over time. That being said, I'm on the fence about whether or not this will go on the schedule; I suppose Satelight will convince me one way or another soon enough.

N.B.: Thanks to Ivan for the wonderful screencaps!

Episode 1 Screencaps: "Arata's Life"
ED "The Misfit Go" by OLDCODEX