Otherside Picnic First Impressions

“Pressing the elevator buttons in a certain order will take us to the Otherside. You, of all people must have heard this before.”

Otherside Picnic has a number of factors working in its favor, but perhaps the element that caught me off-guard the most was how it employed its in medias res opening. I mean, we all know how it works when a show starts its first episode in the middle of ongoing events. After the opening kicks in, we’ll jump back in time to see how we got to that opening scene. The only significant variance is the amount of time the show jumps back. So imagine my surprise when Otherside Picnic started off in the middle of a bizarre monster attack and just went forward from there. Still, while this defied my expectations, there are some downsides to this approach. I’m not entirely sure what this show intends to be, but I did enjoy this first episode, and I’ll probably stick with it. It’s quite possible this show will prove to be too uneven or confusing, but at the very least it seems like it will be interesting.

The episode kicks off with one of our leads, Kamikoshi Sorawo, staring blankly into the sky wondering if anyone in the real world will notice that she died. However, she hears someone call out to her. Together, Sorawo and the stranger succeed in destroying the strange wriggling mass of white that had attacked her. It’s a striking way to start the episode, but as I mentioned before there are downsides to the approach the show takes. When you throw viewers into a scenario with no explanation they’re going to be confused and disoriented. Many shows alleviate this by employing the aforementioned flashback to contextualize things, but by eschewing the traditional approach, you risk that sense of confusion persisting for a much longer period. This is a long winded way of saying that I don’t fully understand what this show is about, but that may be a deliberate choice as it appears to complement the tone of the episode. Anyway, the stranger is a girl named Nishina Toriko. Like Sorawo, she traveled to the “Otherside,” a strange desolate world that contains bizarre entities like the “Wiggle-Waggle” they encountered at the beginning. They find a bizarre cube that appears to be the creature’s remains, and Toriko takes it claiming she might be able to sell it. She tracks down Sorawo a week later and invites her to return to the Otherside together so they can gather more of the cubes. It’s a strange setup for a series which feels as if someone blended the storyboards of Mushishi and Flip Flappers. That’s a combination that really shouldn’t work, and I’m still struggling to decide whether or not it does.

The production here is being handled by Liden Films and Felix Film. I have something of a mixed relationship with the former, and a complete unfamiliarity with the latter. Liden Films previously helmed Killing Bites, Hanebado!, Phantom in the Twilight, After School Dice Club, and perhaps most infamously, the 2016 Berserk series. That’s a pretty mixed bag to start off with, and given the reputation of the Berserk series, it may come as no surprise that my biggest complaint about the production comes from the mediocre CG that the episode uses at points. Otherside Picnic mainly employs the CG when animating characters at medium range, so it’s by no means as obtrusive as it could be, but it’s still distracting. As for Felix Film, I’d never heard of them before, but it seems they usually do supplemental 3D animation for other companies. This might indicate that there is a lot more CG to be seen moving forward, so that’s something to be wary of. One of the factors that I’ve failed to really acknowledge is that this is a yuri series. While there is certainly the subtext of such a dynamic, Otherside doesn’t lean heavily on that content in this first episode. Still, I like both of the leads, and am interested in seeing how the dynamic between them develops.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• The idea of blending a “loose isekai,” where the characters can move back and forth between worlds, with a dungeon looting approach is a really intriguing blend of narrative factors.
• A “Wiggle-Waggle” is evidently an in-universe urban legend. I don’t know if it has any basis in real world myths.
• The OP hints at some intriguing repercussions to the girl’s encounters with the Otherside. I’m curious to see how that plays out and what exactly is being depicted (Sorawo is shown having dichromatic eyes and Toriko is shown having a translucent hand).
• I spent a good 15 minutes trying to remember the name of Flip Flappers. I never did watch past the first episode…