REVIEW: ‘Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness And The Secret Hideout The Animation’ Is A Pleasant Fantasy Adventure

The Atelier Ryza anime focuses on Reisalin Stout (Yuri Noguchi), who has spent her whole life helping her parents tend their farm in the quiet town she grew up in. Based on the long-running series of games, we see Reisalin longs for more than just plowing fields and picking crops. She yearns for adventure. When a pair of explorers arrive on the island and introduce Reisalin to the wonderous craft of alchemy, her world soon grows far larger than it felt like it ever could. Now, with her friends Tao (Yui Kondô), Lent (Takuma Terashima), and Klaudia (Hitomi Ôwada), she searches for adventure outside the confines of her sleepy little town, and the island it sits on in Atelier Ryza The Animation.

Reisalin’s story of a simple farm girl turned would-be adventurer presents its unfolding narrative at a leisurely pace. As she discovers her new obsession with alchemy, the series explores her early experiments with her new craft with an unwavering focus on fun and enjoyment. There is never any sense of danger or threat in the series, no matter how big the monster the group faces is. This lack of tension allows the Atelier Ryza anime to be a purely enjoyable ride for the viewer. But while the lack of danger in its action sequences doesn’t doom the show to mediocrity, the execution of the show’s dialogue does.

The thing that hurts this series the most is its weak dialogue. I’ve never seen so many discussions formed purely through declarative statements in my life. So much of the series’ conversations are individuals simply declaring things to each other that the conversations feel ridiculous much of the time. While this odd dialogue formatting never makes the purpose of the conversations hard to follow, it is so jarring that it always pulls the viewer out of the moment.

While the dialogue is often jarring, Atelier Ryza The Animation‘s story is smooth enough to follow. The steps Reisalin and her friends take on their journey to adventure are smooth and filled with light-hearted adventure. The show surrounds the main protagonists with a variety of characters who all have their own motivations and provide solid opportunities for different interactions, filling the series with a colorful set of personalities.

While the story provides a solid avenue for our heroes to grow into the adventurers they dream of being, none of the beats are overly memorable. One challenge after another rises before our fledgling adventurers, and one by one they find a way to overcome them. Whether it is a mundane task like clearing debris from the town square or facing packs of monsters in a cave, the show never manages to deliver any moments that are able to linger in the viewer’s memory. Even the final climatic battle that pits the group against a rampaging Red Dragon never truly sticks the landing.

Like much of the rest of the elements that make up the Atelier Ryza anime, the visuals that deliver the story are solid, but never truly impactful. The battles are simple affairs of sword swings and minor magical effects that lack the pop to stick in viewers’ memories. The one place where the show manages to score a victory in the visual department is in the character designs. Several characters have unique looks that help them stand out against the rest of the world superbly.

By contrast, the one major misstep the show’s visuals deliver is in Reisalin’s alchemy animation. After throwing the desired items into her alchemy pot and giving it a stir, the show cuts to an animation sequence that sees the protagonist skipping on disks of light and cheering. What this has to do with her stirring a pot of ingredients is unclear, but it always felt weird every time it occurred. Like the show knows what its lead is doing is boring so they threw together a nonsensical sequence to try to liven it up.

Atelier Ryza The Animation is a fine show. While it rarely excels in its storytelling and presentation, it rarely fails horribly either. Fans of the games or viewers looking for a laid-back fantasy tale will have something to enjoy here.

Atelier Ryza The Animation is streaming on Crunchyroll.