When there is beauty in life, a utopia lies beyond the horizon.

The utopia in question would be Gargantia, the setting in the show Suisei no Gargantia is centered. We are thrust into a world with no boundaries, no territories, and no international law anymore. It's just the endless sight of oceanic currents and the clear blue sky. It's not often we get a mecha anime with this amount of ambiance or majestic atmosphere that could almost be as close to Aria quality to a bit degree. Going into this show to form my opinion of a positive or negative nature is still hard to express because the anime is excellent in quality, but it could have been a masterpiece in the grand scheme of things.

Gargantia opens us up with a galactic conflict that involves Ledo, who gets miraculously teleported out of it from a wormhole. However, it is never clear what it was, so don't take my word for it, and lands on Earth that are now engulfed in water with no dry land in sight. He is now put into a world where there is hardly any war besides the occasional pirate attacks on Gargantia. Still, it is nevertheless portrayed as a peaceful city with lively people on every corner. From here, he meets the heroine of the show Amy who he kidnaps to gain some information on where he is. Once he is accepted into the culture, he soon tries to examine the world he is now a part of and make sense of its ideology.

How the show builds up Ledo into growing into Gargantia's society as he interacts with the people, seeing how he doesn't know what type of society everyone else is living, is the most vital point. You have the character Amy who is Ledo's guide in showing how Gargantia works in its resource management, and its overall world-building makes for a sensational character story. You can deeply feel Ledo's confusion and fascination just from his expressions and the fact that he was raised to fight in wars while the people here aren't. While it can be argued is a cop-out to build up a romantic interest, Amy is portrayed in a down-to-earth fashion rather than trying to make her seem like she's there just to put a cute girl into the mix. She's mentally and physically capable of handling herself, making her not a useless character, and she's written to have a lot of willpower in giving the show an excellent needed level of charm and sublime beauty. Ledo is no exception when it comes to excellent character writing. His development through the eventual twist near the halfway point in the show shows how he changes as soon as he is shown this whole new reality that he had never considered authentic.

Do the rest of the characters have the same development as our two main leads? No, but then again, it's not needed to be given in context to the scale of the show. You have the sexy female character Bellows who has some degree of involvement in Ledo's development in how she shows him how fishes are the primary source of food for Gargantia. The other person who helps Ledo is Pinion, a sly, cocky sidekick character who does have some decent exposition about his past and how he has felt towards the whale-squids involved in his history. The rest of the surfaces come and go, but they don't carry much weight to the show, but considering how some of them eventually do become important figures in Gargantia in the latter half of the show can be forgiven. One example is Amy's close friends, who at first seem as though they are just there for sex appeal, but they do contribute to the plot so that they don't seem like filler characters.

That is not to say that Gargantia doesn't have fan service since the show is set on an ocean and like you would've guessed, we get to see Amy and the rest of the females get into their swimsuits and play in the water and relax. However, if you look at how these people live and how their clothing represents how they go about their daily activities, it is not distracting or comes out of nowhere. With fan service you get from many shows these days that do them to arouse the audience, here in Gargantia, it seems natural to the setting and breathes all new life into it for everyone.

Before I talk about the writing itself, it would be safe to state my position on Urobuchi's credibility as a writer and his recent popularity in the current mainstream of anime. I'm one of the few who is indifferent to the man. I never understood the love or hate this man gets each time he writes or produces a show. The man knows how to write a show with excellent action and psychological thriller aspects with really stylized flair in the characters, but he doesn't know how to write convincing meta-theories within his works when he tries to implement them. It's a situation where the man has the potential to write great stories on the one hand. But on the other, he needs to implement the themes in a better way that seems convincing. With the case of Gargantia, it can be safely said it's probably one of his better ones simply because of the way Gargantia handles its philosophical themes with less melodrama and is directed more subtle to add more clarity them rather than making them muddled or confused with itself. That is until it quickly isn't fully realized in the end.

With all the compliments mentioned for Urobuchi's contribution, Gargantia falls into an unfocused narrative in the last act. Without spoiling the show for people who haven't seen it, it involves another group of people who are not a part of Gargantia or the pirates who aren't fully realized with their intentions or way of life. There is a brief explanation of how the people live, but it felt like Urobuchi just wanted to show a dark element to the story to remind us that we are watching a show written by him. Not that there is a problem introducing us to a darker side of the setting of Gargantia. But in this particular case, it doesn't work from how predictable and uninspired it was because they pulled off a "Heart of Darkness" sub-plot right out of nowhere that isn't very convincing or effective in the slightest bit. It does reach a nice climax involving Ledo's mecha Chamber, but not even that could have saved it from a poor narrative focus.

Then there is the art and animation with lush colors and extraordinary effects. It's one of the most beautiful shows to grace the screen in a long time. It's not even the most technically impressive show concerning the high-budget shows of today. Still, given the amount of detail given to the water and how its reflections are drawn on, everything provides Gargantia with are very relaxing atmosphere and makes you feel like you're a part of this utopian society from the art alone. One scene involves an aurora borealis. Amy performing an elegant dance for Ledo makes for a memorable and beautiful scene based on the careful detail the animators put into making it. Or whenever you see the Hideauze swim underwater, and how they glow underneath the water is lovely from an ascetic point of view. While the animation may not be the most fluid in some places, it does its job exceptionally well in creating a beautiful atmosphere to make the city of Gargantia and the people living in it astounding to look at.

The music, composed by Taro Iwashiro, not only contains standard orchestral instruments but also some New Age musical endeavors as well. Pan flutes can be heard in a few specific scenes that almost give off a Chrono Cross vibe that makes it seem very natural to the world of Gargantia. The OP, while catchy, isn't especially anything unique or memorable. However, the female singer of the Ending song sings a lovely melody backed up by some instruments that fit well into the show rather than your standard J-Pop song.

Gargantia, while not the masterpiece that everyone was hoping for, is still a great show to watch regardless of its poorly written last arc. The show's first half alone should be well-regarded as brilliant with its relaxing slice of life aspect. Sure the previous act is quite disappointing in that it didn't live up to its expectations, but it's hard not to give the show a run for its premise. The characters and atmosphere make the show a splendid joy to watch; it might be evident that we might see a continuation of Gargantia shortly, not anytime soon, that's for sure. It can't be denied that the story could be more fleshed out that way. It can achieve what it wants to be in a better scenario. One can only hope.

Grade: B+