Amanchu! Advance
The original Amanchu! didn’t have the most unique collection of plotlines. Its cute humor isn’t difficult to find in other slice of life anime either, although Amanchu! does a much better job with visual gags than most shows do. Amanchu! really shines when it comes to visuals. The show is strikingly beautiful and well-animated, with some shots of the ocean that are absolutely gorgeous. It’s rare for an anime’s visuals to be so well-drawn that I’d stop the show mid-episode just to marvel at the scenery.
Amanchu! follows the story of Futaba Ooki, a shy, introverted girl who moves to a new town. It’s at her new school that she meets the hyperactive Hikari Kohinata. Hikari loves scuba diving, and convinces Futaba to join the Scuba club with her, even though Futaba doesn’t even know how to swim. The adventures these two girls embark on comprise most of the episodes of the show, but every so often the anime switches focus back to teaching Futaba the wonders of scuba diving.
Much like Dagashi Kashi, Amanchu! is very educational. Audiences learn a lot about scuba diving over the course of the show, and the level of absurd humor makes the learning fun. Hikari’s blank stare when she’s enjoying something is a running gag of the show, and will make audiences laugh out loud every time.
A second season comes as a surprise. Although fans of Amanchu! have been clamoring for more since the end of the first season, the show itself wasn’t widely popular as it was originally airing. Most of the fandom sprung up around the show months after the final episode. It’s awesome to see that Amanchu! made enough money to warrant another go, and I guarantee that Amanchu! Advance will prove even more popular than its predecessor. I’m just excited to be transported to that beautiful world again. Outside of The Ancient Magus’ Bride (which is itself a fantasy anime), there hasn’t been any anime in recent memory that’s been able to create such fantastical imagery from such an ordinary setting.
