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Otherside Picnic / 裏世界ピクニック

Otherside Picnic tells the story of two young women, Sorawo and Toriko, who meet in a mystery world which they start to name the otherside. The otherside is not a pleasant place to be — monsters stalk the countryside, phenomena play havoc with the perception, glitches (sort of magical landmines) risk to blow you up if you're even making one wrong step. As you might guess, it's a (light) horror show, mixed between a very low-key romance between the two main characters.

The story is largely told from Sorawo's point of view who's about to drown in shallow water at the start of the plot, one of the monsters messing up her mind — a situation explicitly meant to evoke Ophelia's death in Hamlet. Toriko saves her and the two strike up an initially uneasy friendship that slowly matures into something more than this, though at least up to now not up to anything near a full-fledged love story. Both are increasingly, even physically changed by their encounters on the other side of things.

Toriko's fascination with the otherside is initially driven by her wish to find her former mentor, Satsuki, who had disappeared, though most of the details remain mysterious. A small set of other characters settle around Sorawo and Toriko.

Otherside Picnic is based on a so-far four volume series of light novels of the same name by the author Iori Miyazawa. And that's also where this anime's problems start. The light novels — at least the two volumes I've read so far — might not be earthshaking, but they are a good and coherent read. The story is relatable. We learn step by step how Sorawo and Toriko get to know each other, learn to accept their very different characters and temperaments, and at the same time seeing their fates evermore entwined with the otherside. We also understand more about how the otherside in many ways is a game of perception.

In my eyes the anime does, however, a pretty haphazard job of translating this story into images. It moves key connecting parts like the saving of the soldiers at Kisaragi station randomly around, making the story difficult to follow even if you know the underlying source material. This isn't helped by the many references to obscure internet lore that the novels elaborate on, but that most watchers will find completely befuddling in the frame of the anime. This way, some actions of the two young women seem bizarre, if not outright lunatic.

In spite of these rather heavy shortcomings of the anime enough of the original charm survives to make this series for me worthwhile — your mileage may vary.

Official webpage of Othersie Picnic

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