Anime 53428 Ayaka Reviews

This show is... well... okay. I have to admit that I was interested in how all of the story plays out in the end since dropping any kind of plot that is not a complete garbage makes me anxious (and I can't call this anime a garbage, it's at least not bad).

But in the same time I found myself skipping through the latest episodes just to get the glimpse of what's happening without paying attention to details. A trait of a good story is that you want to immerse yourself into it and read or watch without interruptions it for the sake of getting ... all those different emotions. It's much easier to be interested just in the plot than to be interested in a story as a whole. If you'd prefer to choose reading a short synopsis with all the events over actually reading or watching the story then it's probably not worth it.

And with this anime I feel like it fails to captivate the viewer enough. It has an interesting premise and an interesting setting, the powers used by the characters are very harmonious with the setting and fit very well. But aside from that I found it a bit hard to be interested in any of the characters since all of them are basically bland. Even those who have either tragic backstories or unshakable dedication to something seem to follow the typical cliche archetypes of characters with such traits without anything unique about them.

Also the plot is not that complicated to compensate for it. It's pretty straightforward and you can often guess what will happen next. The final "plot twist" or "grand reveal" of the show is more or less obvious from the start and thus disappointing. I won't spoil it here but the show gets out of its way to help you make a connection between the main character and one plot-important concept as early as you can.

So, overall, if someone asked me to rate this show to know if it's worth watching, I'd tell them 6/10 to not discourage them. But for me personally it's closer to 4.5/10. If you are more or less new to anime or haven't watched many shows with similar premise, it'll probably be a decent way to kill time and get a non-zero amount of positive emotions from it. In other case, it probably isn't worth your time.

Hi! This is my first time reviewing an anime so I will explain how I watch and rate things.

there are a few criteria that I look for, most importantly the animation quality, the story, and the characters. What is less of a priority for me is the concept of the anime and the music.

now onto the review:

animation: 5. The animation is alright. nothing really bad (ahem ahem... nanatsu no taizai), but also nothing to write home about. What is missing is dynamics and fluidity in the climaxes of the episodes. It feels static.

Story: 6. I think that the story line is pretty fluent. ... There is nothing really surprising at this moment, but the mysteries are slowly being laid out and are waiting to be answered.

Characters: 7. The characters are pretty good at this moment. Some are there for obvious reasons (Jingi), but most of the characters are playing well of eachother. It is to early to speak of character development (except for Yukito). So this grade could change.

Concept: 8. This is more of a subjective thing, but for me, the concept of this anime is what will make me watch the season. It's really interesting how the powers work in Ayaka. it has a mix of JJK and Naruto. which are both good.

Music: 7. good music, not groundbeaking but just good music.

all in all, I enjoyed the first three ep. and I think I'll watch the entire season

I've been waiting to write a review since the first episode came out. I just couldn't wait to tell you how much I hated this piece of garbage. boring art, more boring characters, typical plot about a nobody who finds out he was secretly awesome all along. There's nothing new here except maybe the level of awfulness.

Honestly, if you watched this and thought "hmm, this is acceptable level of quality", please tell how bad a show has to be for you to drop it.

• Totally unoriginal premise you've seen a million times before
• The art totally fits the story as both are extremely boring
• ... The characters are unlikable and unbelievable
• Whoever wrote these characters has probably never met a human before
• I don't see any reason why anyone would ever enjoy this garbage

Yeap...this was, and still is, hot garbage.

You would think that from the writing group of studio GoHands's most famed series, K Project, the anonymous GoRA would have another jewel on their hands. But this is 2023, not 2012, and what they had for the always risky anime original show that is Ayaka (or its full name - Ayaka: A Story of Bonds and Wounds), yeah sure, it was INDEED a story of bonds and wounds, but this somewhat simple story, to put it simply, is an absolute chore to sit through.

Just about the only thing that I appreciated about this show is the setting: similar ... to the Pokemon Adventures of FireRed and LeafGreen, there exists a range of islands that are all interconnected to each other, which make up the Ayaka Islands, along with the supernatural-backed mythology of the monsters and spirits they call "Mitama" and "Ara-Mitama" to separate between the good and evil. Especially those blue Mitama blobs that surround the island, they're such cute and adorable creatures that manifest life onto the islands.

But otherwise, this show is shitting the shat onto the trash all around, like a "wait for something to happen" scenario, because this show ultimately is driven balls to the wall with a simple premise that drags on and on until shit hits the fan, then literally, skate and die with emotions overflowing, thinking that it can win the people over by the now-infamous death flag.

Simply put, you have this boy who was wrangled off the Ayaka Islands due to the imbalance between the gods, and him not knowing of the rich history behind it, had to have a caretaker to accompany him...and then bring him back when the time is right. This is what is happening to Yukito Yanagi, growing from a child then to a young adult uneventfully, until the green jacket-laden Jingi Sagawa has to find him and escort him back to the Ayaka Islands, telling him that it's his duty to remain on the island and train up on their Ley Mastery magic system, and train until something bad happens to be able to put that training to use. Thereafter, with the others like caretaker Momoko Amamiya, Ley Mastery experts Haruaki Kurama and Aka Ibuki, and many more, Yukito's life begins to shake slowly as an innert feeling calls him from deep in the recesses of his heart, only to be told that he would be the key to determine the fate of the Ayaka Islands.

The TL;DR if you don't care about the story: it's simple, and simple stories can work well, but it's the execution that really counts, and this show is the embodiment of a sloth scratching its head and in its usual "question mark" brain of what to do next. It's just bad execution with a boring story and forgettable characters, even when given the death flag.

The same can easily be said about the animation, which coming from Studio Blanc, maybe you should change your name to Studio Bland, because it's not at all impressive. Though I could speculate the reason that the studio's pairing with director Nobuyoshi Nagayama on Winter's Saikyou Onmyouji no Isekai Tenseiki a.k.a The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World, was partially why they wanted to continue the good business relationship since he had secured a hit with the exact same studio for Uramichi Oniisan back in Summer 2021. And almost conspicously as everything was suspiciously in line, music artiste angela took the reins for the show's OP, which was decent at best, along with saji's ED.

Nevertheless, with each progressing episode, I was finding myself having to tune the anime up to 1.3x watching speed just so that there will be some plot progression, but I guess with the supposedly "succinct" writing that had limits placed all over the place, it isn't saying much that the anime basically had nothing going for it, and only showing its cards once everything falls into place as it should.

It's just really meh and boring, please don't waste your time watching this crap.

Great series, shaky beginning but it seems to have payed off very well.

Animation 6/10: not horrible it's not as refined as other anime but well made all in all. Lovely tame colors. Refreshing.

Characters 7/10: lots of different personalities, lovable and well designed keeping in mind the animation.

Plot 8/10: although the plot we've seen done so much, it is a charming rendition of it. It's not an edge of your seat anime by any means until the later episodes but well presented throughout.

Aggravations: tease of power from MC gets breaked up continuously but it seems to have had a reason too be, no clear ... plot path until a few episodes in.

I'd say in comparison with the other anime of the season it is underrated, typical plot with a good story behind it, nice and refreshing from the mid-isekai riddled market.

OVERALL SCORE: 7.5

First review ever, hopefully it was worth your time.

-xSasukeVz

(Only on ep 3) Well this anime makes me believe it's inspired by Avatar and Naruto although it has its own uniqueness to it. I'm sorry but as of rn I don't have any emotions towards any characters and main character is giving me no once of attachment although this anime is decent 👌 I wouldn't recommend this too someone who starts off watching anime maybe after there 40th anime then watch this. It does seem like it can get better as it's only ep 3 so don't go off what I say see for yourself!
Story: 6/10
Animation: 8/10
I would give it ... a 7 but not yet atleast let's see where this goes!

Hello to all of the readers around the world in MAL.
STORY: The story is so predictable IMO and disappointing in some manners such as character development and the plot is boring overall. the only characters that I cared about are Jingi and Ibuki. the Main character is ok but he needed more development. There is no villain in this story which makes the stakes lower and ara mitamas are not good villians the most problems with this show is by its story and there are no impactful scene that you will remember in the next few years.
ART/ANIMATION: in this department I ... have to say there are not major problems here. the character designs are cool and ara mitamas are designed decent. in the first two episodes that I watched it reminded me of studio ghibli movies from the mitama designs to the train on the water it reminded me of ponyo and sprited away but as I said the story is not even near this two masterpieces by Hayao Miyazaki.
Sounds: voice actors are good Kenjiro Tsuda is great as always with the voice of Makoto Yanagi. Umehara Yuuichirou also was good like how he was as whether report in JJBA. and soundtracks are nothing special but good for this show. the sound effects are good and nothing else.
as a whole I think if you enjoy simple stories with no complex this is for you but I say this anime had great potential but unfortunately its wasted. 5/10

I liked this anime it was good but there were things that could take it to the next level.

Character development wasn't the best and could have been better. They could have gone deeper in the connections between the characters and some of the conflicts between them. I believe that if they had more than one season they would be able to dwell into the characters more and make them more nuanced.

Animation was okay, it isn't the worst or the best I've seen. The Ara mitama could have been better animated and "drawn" to better fit in as they feel a bit out of place.

The ... story line could have had a lot of potential if they had more time to work with. They could dive deeper into the past, present and possibly the future after the end. The way the ending was presented made it seem like this story was over with this season which I think is a bummer as I would love for them to dive deeper.

TLDR
They could have made the story better if dived deeper into characters and slowed down the story.

A Story of Boredom and Whining.

I think I’ve become desensitised to the action genre of anime that try to pull inspiration from or feel like an outright copy of Naruto. The story of an orphan boy with a secret power he can’t control, but makes him potentially the strongest or/and the most special magic power boy out of all the magic power boys, and who also has a dead dad who also had magic powers and was the strongerest out of all the strong magic power people has been done to death at this point, and Ayaka: A Story of Bonds and Wounds doesn’t bring ... anything new to the table.

Even so, I think there's potential in its setting. The seven chain islands that makeup Ayakashima and their supernatural inhabitants are pretty interesting. I like the strange blue blobs known as “Mitama” which are either small and cute or become in desperate need of a Snickers bar when hungry, and the power system is pretty interesting.

Despite that, there is nothing else of interest this original anime has to offer. The art is bland and the animation is ugly, the main character constantly whines and complains over either not being able to control his powers or over his incredibly irritating mentor who’s always fucking around and never answers any valid questions the protagonist or the audience, may have just so the story can be padded and overall, the show is tedious. I watched four episodes of this and I couldn’t tell you much apart from the green man getting drunk a lot and throwing his trash in the river which angers a Mitama, and even then I’m not sure if that is what happened because I spent half my view time zoned out or on my phone trying to stave off my boredom.

It’s hard to focus on a story that isn’t interested in telling itself and it’s hard to look at an anime with such a distractingly bland art style. It has some neat ideas but none of them are capitalised on.

3/10 Wasted Potential.

The first episode was presented with scenes that were difficult to understand, is this the past? Or for a preview of the future? And this makes me not really like it because it shown the climax. Despite all that it turns out it was just a mere dream of the main character, boring.

That's the first thing I don't like about this anime, which already presents the MC's dream to the audience at the very beginning, another thing is the many Flashbacks of the MC's past, not only dreams but when he wakes up he is still replaying his past.

In my opinion, the main character here ... is also very boring to watch, just because of the mistakes he made in the past, making him pessimistic, anti-social, and prefers not to interfere too much with other people, an example of a character who is always trapped in the past and not use the past as a lesson to be better in the future. Please, does anyone really want to see the daily life of the main character whose life is boring? Unlike other anime which uses the past to make it stronger and doesn't want it to happen again.

As for the storyline or background, I don't really like it, because it has a Japanese style feel, and of course this is only known by local people who understand their own culture, in my opinion it wouldn't be suitable if it circulated outside of Japan who don't understand this.