Anime Review: Uta-Kata

I don't know what it is with me and the Magical Girl genre, but I tend to watch a ton of anime of this variety. I pretty much stopped watching these particular shows after the feels and trauma caused by a certain Incubator and the suffering that followed (Go watch Puella Magi Madoka Magica, just do it!), but decided last week to give it another go. I mean, they're all happy shows with the one exception, right? I didn't think I'd stumble across an anime that went from light, to dark, to somewhere in between. But, when I found Uta-Kata, I realized I was slightly mistaken.

Found on fanpop. Leave a comment if you know where it's from, so I can give proper credit - I'm not sure if savage genius is the proper credit!

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a Madoka Magica kind of dark, but more of a "I'm about to lose my flipping mind" dark. I'm not even sure if that would be the proper term for it, but it's definitely a nice change from the stereotypical Sailor Moon type. With that said, here's the review.

Uta~Kata (うた∽かた)  is an anime from 2004 that was written by Keiji Gotoh and brought to us by Bandai Visual. The story followed the life of Ichika Tachibana, a 14 year old who meets the otherworldly Manatsu Kuroki right after her school's closing ceremony. The anime then details their summer activities and the summoning of special creatures called Djinn, which are supposed to be some form of elemental spirit that lend their powers to Ichika to help her and her friends when they are seemingly in peril, and eventually start using her for their own motives.

While this story can be loosely considered to be a magical girl story, the series deviates from the conventional magical girl theme, adressing topics such as eating disorders and child abuse. Regardless, it does an excellent job of showing us Ichika's coming of age, becoming more and more emotionally intense as the story goes on. What starts off as a very lighthearted anime with magical transformations and a lot of quality time at the beach becomes the oh my god what is going to happen to I need some ice cream and a bucket to hold all these feels anime. The ending is rather bittersweet, but the OVA follows up to give the show a much deserved ending.

As far as character development goes, it was mostly Manatsu and Ichika who seems to mature the most, while two of Ichika's friends also had their time to shine. I think the characters were well written, especially Kai, Sei, and Manatsu. Ichika had plenty of time to shine here, but I think comparatively speaking that her development stalled a bit early on.

The soundtrack was done by Megumi Ohashi, whose only major previous works include composing for BLUE DRAGON and iDOLM@STER RADIO. With this in mind, the BGM was beautifully composed, shifting tones and the like when it was necessary.

The animation was pretty nice, my only minor complaint being held in the lighting of hair in some situations. I can't really say much more than this in regards to animation, as it was pretty well done.

Overall, it's a decent anime and if you're looking for a light drama with magical elements, this should definitely be on your list. With the OVA it racks up a total of 13 episodes, but it's worth the short amount of time.

Score: 4/5
Reccomend: Yes
If you like Uta~Kata, you may also like Puella Magi Madoka Magica, as it also deviates from the conventional magical girl genre and is very emotionally intense.