Nagi no Asu Kara, Episode 2: The Ocean Otaku

Yup, this guy right here. At least for now, he is the reason why we have a very curious Manaka and a very jealous Hikari. And depending on how you take these romances, it could either be delightfully entertaining or excruciatingly corny. Apart from Manaka’s goofiness at times, I think the story manages to curb the latter just enough to help us focus on things I think we as viewers care more about than typical character pairings, such as Tsumugu’s genuine interest for the local sea village and its inhabitants. This was something introduced in the opening episode and is only revisited this time around via brief flashbacks of his outings by boat to the ocean surface. Why exactly he is this fond of the sea is still a mystery.

Nagi no Asu Kara, Episode 1: Love At First Catch

Well, you don’t see this happen quite often. Imagine setting up a cosplay shoot for this exact frame; I better start making some friends who love to fish, own a boat, and find a model willing to be trapped in a net for a few minutes just for this seemingly awkward shot. Awkward, that is, until you understand that this isn’t an ordinary girl being hoisted out of the sea via fish net by a well-dressed fisherman in a fashionable middle school button-up short sleeve in the middle of summer. Read on after the break for a bit of a history lesson behind this world’s underwater life and how this moment in the story is probably the de facto scene for which the struggles of our main characters will be based around.