Reviews Literature / Otherside Picnic

A Way to Kill Time

Otherside Picnic, based on a light novel series, it is about a college student named Sorawo Kamikoshi, someone who loves to frequent abandoned buildings and Japanese urban legends, discovers a door to a place known as the Otherside where urban legends and creepypasta become real. While there, she is saved from nearly dying by a Canadian-Japanese girl, Toriko. She explains to her that she was trying to find her friend Satsuki who disappeared during one of her expeditions months ago. While in the Otherside, they also collect artifacts to then sell them to a researcher of the other world named Kozakura.

The show is not the best, but it has its moments. For one, I feel that the Otherside is not fully realized. They do provide exposition of what the Otherside is, but the way that the anime presents in, we are already launched skin deep into the story without fully explaining how these characters discovered the Otherside, nor how the dimension works as there are many ways that someone could accidentally wind up in the Otherside.

While the Otherside is a very interesting concept, it felt more like a backdrop to establish the setting of the series. Because of this, there isn't much investment that one can take in the story due to it barely scratching below the surface of the inner mechanisms of the world.

Animation. It is serviceable, that I can guarantee, and some shots of the Otherside do look adequate. When it comes to representing the monsters, however, a lot of the action/intense scenes are blatantly CGI-animated that it takes you out of the scene if you think too much about it. With having an intriguing plot such as going to another world, it doesn't live up to its full potential and is barely creative with how the world functions.

But with an uninteresting story, are the characters at least good? Sorawo and Toriko are the lead characters and they do have great chemistry with each other I won't deny that. Sorawo is someone who starts off introverted and would rather be by her lonesome. This does make her hard to like at first because she really isn't much of a "hero" at the beginning. She was someone who could come across as cowardly and would have to be pushed by Toriko to save people. This came as the result of past trauma that is reflected on, but whether the show does a good job at depicting her PTSD is another question. She does get better towards the end of the series, however.

Toriko was a little more interesting. She was trained by her JTF 2 mother in arms and is motivated by her goal of finding her "friend." She tends to be more optimistic and energetic which does serve as a good contrast to Sorawo. There are also some inclinations that she is drifting away from her in favor of Sorawo.

Kozakura is a good supporting character. As mentioned, she collects strange artifacts from the Otherside and mainly does indoor research due to her fear of going out in the field. She is a cute character and is often deadpan in her behavior

There were two others introduced in the middle of the show's run, childhood friends Natsumi and Akari. Akari was taught karate and is involved in two supernatural cases; Natsumi works with cars and other vehicles and is obvious that she is crushing hard on her friend. But they are...kind of there. They don't really contribute much to the overall story and are slightly bland. I had to look up their names again because of how forgettable they were.

The show has that kind of effect on me: aside from interesting character traits and flaws, at the end of the day, are they characters that I would remember long after the show is over?

It isn't a must-see masterpiece, but I do like it for its concept.