Otherside Picnic

First glance at the Anilist page for this show doesn’t give me all that good of an idea what is coming forward in the show. With a description that doesn’t tell me a ton outside of them traveling to a different realm filled with monsters. And a list of tags that form a very long and twisted path that doesn’t help that much ether. So really the only solution of course is to jump right on into the show.

And lets start with what I feel like was the weakest point of the show, and honestly contributed to my slow watch speed and enjoyment of the show in general. The start was horrendous, honestly the first like 4 episodes just weren’t very good at all. We start by just being thrown into the new world without any explanation or build up along with these characters we know nothing about at all. It all just leaves me confused to what I’m supposed to be watching and paying attention to, is this a character driven show where the story and world doesn’t matter or is it a story and world building story with a lesser character focus. In a world where I have hundreds of things to watch, play, and read, having such negative first reactions seriously hurts the show overall.

But, when we do finally get past that beginning. And finally do get properly introduced to the characters and the world and all those questions about it. It suddenly opens up and makes me fall in love. We have a character driven story with some strong hints of a future Yuri relationship between the main characters, a couple more side characters that are decently fleshed out. Along with a side group that is a major focus of 2 episodes, with some pretty good character building over those episodes.

Taking a lesser position is any story or explanation about the events that occur over the course of the show. Of which mainly involve strange encounters with monsters and beings in a world they call Otherside. Normally ending in defeating the monster, or just running away as fast as possible. These encounters or the world never get explained really in a form I felt was all that great, and it gives me the feeling that the full explanation is still to come. And if I want to see that I will have to pick up the source to explore various pieces of content that was cut, along with whatever comes next.

And with those cuts, comes some of the other issues I have with the show. Mainly being an issue in those first couple episodes, but still showing up in the rest. Is a constantly feeling that I was missing some info or some event. I feel like we skipped to all the major arc’s in the original source, but along the way cut the smaller side arcs that while important, weren’t as major of events. Leading to some disconnects along the way. Things like changing eye color, or characters left behind to only escape off screen. While I think it wrapped things up and helped fill in those blanks along the way, it still felt lacking in the end.

The final massive point that was lacking was the visual quality. To start this isn’t a show that was breathtaking in any scene, falling firmly in the average camp most of the time. But in those moments when it isn’t average, it is downright terrible. We are talking some completely rushed and out of place CGI that looks nothing like the hand drawn stuff at all. While it shares general shapes, it lacks any detail at all. And feels like a student’s first major CGI project and not a finished anime. I don’t know if this was a constraint from Covid or general issues, but it is a shame.

So in general, while I feel like it was a good show. It does take awhile to get to that point. And a feeling that I now need to read the source from the beginning for the true story never left me.