First Look: Umi Monogatari

“When a girl of sea meets a girl of sky, another ‘sea story‘ begins”.

This “transforming magical girl action” story centers on Marin and Urin, two “pure” sisters who live alongside the fish in the sea, but yearn to be in the world beyond the water and above ground. One day, a beautiful ring falls in the middle of the sea, and Marin and Urin retrieve it. The two decide to leave their waterbound world for the first time to deliver the ring. After an arduous journey, they come across an isolated island where a high school girl named Kanon lives. The encounter between Marin and Kanon — the maiden of the sea and the maiden of the skies — awakens a hidden power as the world is threatened by an enveloping darkness. [ANN]

Umi Monogatari will be one of the first series to open up the summer season Summer (June 24), and will be animated by ZEXCS. For sure it definitely fits the season with its themes so it’s a great choice for them to have it airing on Summer. Plus points for that already~ And also, the one behind this is Junichi Sato, who is the director of the epitome of mahou shoujo anime Sailor Moon, and also the director of Aria, Princess Tutu, and Kaleido Star as well. For sure we’ll be having a mahou shoujo treat with this one.

Here are Marin’s and Kanon’s transformation sequences. Well deal with transformation sequences because it’s a mahou shoujo all right. It’s still up to the series whether they’ll make it repetitive-boring or offer something new to the transormation sequences department.

Umi Monogatari seems to have quite a big cast of characters. They’re divided of the ones in the ocean/Marin’s world, and then there are normal humans in Kanon’s world. …And there’s a grandpa turtle~… yeah.

From left to right: Sea Priestess Marin, her sister Urin, Sam, Warin and Matsumoto

From left to right: Sky Priestess Kanon, Kojima, Miyako, Oshima, Suzuki and Utasya

Seiyuus (and lots of them):

Kana Asumi as Marin
Minako Kotobuki as Kanon
Yui Horie as Urin

Aki Toyosaki as Oshima
Junji Majima as Sam
Miyuki Sawashiro as Kojima
Nami Miyahara as Utasya
Rokuro Naya as Matsumoto
Sachiko Nagai as Miyako Miyamori
Yukari Fukui as Warin
Yuko Gibu as Suzuki

Lol because I totally missed the count on how many shows Horie Yui is in XD. She will be quite busy this Summer ^^.

Other stuff about this anime is that the OP is titled “violet“, sung by marble (which sang the OP for KimiKiss Rouge~ Yay!). The ED theme is “Tomei na Inori” sung by Masumi Itou. Music is by Ken Muramatsu, who previously worked in Kure-nai.

Show the trailers ▼

So based from what’s shown so far, here’s what I think:

THE HOT:
– Junichi Sato, the one behind Sailor Moon, Kaleido Star and Aria.
– Based from a pachinko game?!
– Super-shiny animation and art~
– There’s a megane guy that I’m shipping with Kanon already :3.
– No singing so far (whew~ I thought we’ll be having Mermaid Melody again XD)
– I love the ocean ^^.
– Mustached grandpa turtle looks epic.

THE NOT:
– LOTS OF BELLYBUTTONS.
– A title that’s repeated 523780 times already.
– Costumes = ridiculous.. Oh my god Marin, wear something!
– They need to use more tails if they’re mermaids
– Guys are not that hot.
– Miyako looked manlier than both of the main guys combined.

I’m not quite anticipating it, but since it’s one of the early shows that will be airing this Summer, I’ll end up watching it of course lol. There’s no harm in trying to watch the first episode, and who knows that this one might end up being a decent Mahou Shoujo after all, and maybe ZEXCS can pull off a series worth watching and is above mediocre ^^. The outcome might be a hit-or-miss with the Mahou Shoujo fans.

Update >> FIRST EPISODE POST IS UP.