While many anime portray neat and linear love stories, Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea's complex web of emotions is a more honest reflection of reality. The 26-episode anime series -- currently streaming on Netflix -- stars a group of seven friends brought together when people from the sea come to the surface to attend Mihama Middle School. Being from two different worlds, their relationships grow increasingly complicated due to new and unfamiliar emotions they must overcome.
The characters offer an accurate and messy portrayal of tackling uncomfortable feelings, such as jealousy and unrequited love. As the friends mature, their emotions evolve and change along with them, guiding them to a future none of them could predict.
Nagi-Asu: Seven Friends Awkwardly Come Together
Hikari, Manaka, Chisaki, and Kaname are all from Shioshishio -- the city under the sea. When they first come to the surface to attend middle school, Hikari is adamantly against mingling with the surface students, who reject them for being different. It takes several fights between the surface and sea students before reaching a mutual understanding. The group soon befriends Tsumugu, one of their surface classmates who has family ties to Shioshishio.
Nagi-Asu begins with a lot of one-sided love, spinning the entire group's feelings for one another into a complicated web of emotions. The four Shioshishio friends begin the school year with Kaname liking Chisaki and Hikari liking Manaka. However, Chisaki likes Hikari and Manaka's feelings remain unknown because she hasn't matured as quickly as her friends. They fight a lot while experiencing jealousy and love for the first time, creating a realistically messy plot.
However, their feelings grow more complex when the five school friends meet Miuna and Sayu, who are best friends and elementary school students five years younger than them. Miuna is the daughter of Itaru, who's dating Hikari's older sister, Akari. As a scared and confused young girl, Miuna doesn't want her father dating Akari and tries to sabotage their relationship, seeing it as a betrayal to her deceased mother. The group helps Miuna overcome her pain and jealousy by showing her that Itaru and Akari's love is genuine and they would make a happy family.
Despite their age difference, Miuna and Sayu are adopted into the friend group that now comprises seven people. They work on events and travel together as their bonds deepen and new love takes root. Sayu develops a schoolyard crush on Kaname despite his age difference and knowing he likes Chisaki. Meanwhile, Chisaki continues to like Hikari and suffers in silence while knowing he likes Manaka. Miuna also develops a crush on Hikari, despite him becoming her older uncle by marriage when Itaru and Akari marry. While it's initially unclear whether Manaka likes Hikari or Tsumugu, the latter suddenly displays feelings for Chisaki. This group dynamic leads to raw and painful emotions that remain unresolved when their lives suddenly change forever.
Nagi-Asu's World (Literally) Freezes
Throughout Nagi-Asu, the plot warns about an impending freeze that will impact both the surface and the sea. The citizens of Shioshishio prepare to go into hibernation by thickening their 'Ena' which allows them to breathe and live underwater. They eat a lot to make their Ena thicker, protecting them from the cold as the sea freezes over. The sea students' families want them to come home to prepare and hibernate together, but the group decides to throw an Ofunehiki festival in a last-ditch effort to prevent the freeze from occurring.
Despite the chaotic event, they fail to stop the sea from freezing over. Hikari, Manaka, and Kaname all fall into the water and end up going into hibernation at the last minute, leaving their surface friends behind. The surface people spend years waiting, with no idea when the people of Shioshishio will reawaken. After five long years, Hikari, Manaka, and Kaname all return from their hibernation one by one. By this time, Chisaki and Tsumugu have aged and become adults in their absence. Meanwhile, Miuna and Sayu are suddenly the same age as the three returning friends -- and they're all in the same class at Mihama Middle School.
Nagi-Asu Brings Newly Matured Feelings
The sudden twist in fate turns their lives upside down, causing their emotions to drastically change. Being left on the surface with her family and home frozen over, Chisaki has nowhere to go and ends up living with Tsumugu and his grandfather. The pair grow into adulthood together while overcoming the pain of losing their friends to hibernation. When their friends suddenly return, Chisaki grapples with the reality that her childhood friends are now five years younger than her. She feels guilty that her romantic feelings for her first love, Hikari, have faded, before finally accepting her naturally matured feelings to return Tsumugu's love.
Kaname initially denies that his chances with Chisaki are over when he returns, until he painfully accepts that she's an adult who's matured past him. In his sorrow, Sayu works up the courage to tell Kaname how she's always felt and points out that they're now the same age. Kaname is shocked by her confession, growing happy and thankful that someone on the surface was waiting for his return. He tells Sayu that he'll view her as a girl his own age from now on instead of the little girl of the past, allowing them to move toward their new future together.
Meanwhile, Miuna is happy that Hikari's now the same age as her, which initially gives her hope to have a chance with him. However, she's soon forced to endure her first heartbreak as it becomes clear that Hikari and Manaka have mutual feelings for one another. Despite the pain of rejection bringing her to tears, Miuna is optimistic about the future and knows love is out there for everyone. This leaves Hikari and Manaka's relationship as the only one left virtually unchanged from Nagi-Asu's beginning, while their friends experience wild and drastic shifts in their emotions as they grow up.
While Nagi-Asu: A Lull in the Sea is a fantasy romance with unusual circumstances, its depiction of young love is incredibly realistic. In real life, love is messy and often comes with its fair share of problems. Although it can be beautiful, it can also be painful and unpredictable. It's common for a person's first love to gradually fade into memory as they mature into adulthood. Emotions are fluid and dynamic, and Nagi-Asu proves young love can change with the tides of life.
