Nagi no Asukara

It's got the themes of racism and stuff, on both sides. There is no doubt in my mind that the whole "Let's drag Manaka into the sun!" Thing was included to show that the land-beings did not see the ocean-beings as "human" whether they were aware of their bias or not.
The gum graffiti scene was also good for establishing the conflicts between the land and the sea.
There's some ominous foreshadowing that the ocean is becoming less habitable- like the salt rising and the dead fish and how there's no boat drift festival. I wonder how that will play out- will it become a plot point in the last couple episodes like in Tari Tari (incidentally another PA Works anime) or will it be apparent really soon and initiate more plot?
So far I've been thinking that Hikari is all tsun, for the most part. He treats Manaka like she belongs to him and she must do as he says or he's going to assault her. No wonder she likes the land guy, I like him too. At least Manaka tries to resist him, and she does stand up for herself sometimes ("No, i will not insult my new classmates!") Even if in other cases she bends to his will ("Fine- I'll go home and change!")
Another thing that I liked about Manaka was when she stood up for herself against the sea god scale when he was creeping her out. Interesting things I picked up on- she wants to fit in with her new school and just get along with everyone. I'm wondering if we'll get a scene where she says things along the lines of "I wish I'd been born a land-person!" It does seem likely, with her growing crush of Tsumugu. GAH! I just want her to end up with Tsumugu. I want to see, also, how the show handles the themes of an interracial relationship.

I want to see how it handles all the themes it's brought up so far. I will admit that my first reason to watch it was "Oh, childhood friend love-triangle anime? I could do something easy and cliche, I guess." but now that is the theme that is, for me and my stoked-level, taking the backseat to the racial and cross-cultural themes of the show. I'll say it again that I don't want this show to let me down!

Lets see. This is just beautiful, the setting and animation that is. They put a lot of work with the background and setting, especially the underwater city.
There's going to be a lot of themes in this episode; from discrimination, some SoL romance..... Looking real good so far.
I think my only nitpick is Hikari, as a character. He is way too overprotective, understandably but still irritating. I wonder how 25 more episodes is going to work out with this series.

I don't like the main char. There's Tsundere, then there's plain jerk. For now, he's leaning towards plain jerk for me. That said, this was better than I thought it would be. I'm mainly interested about the "in heat" thing for some reason. Sexual tensions between middle schoolers. Yep. I'm interested in that.

There's also the fact that the underwater folk are kinda not 'human'. Like a certain oppressed species...

well it's scenery is just lovely, seriously i love it, though i expect nothing less from PA works, i could go into saying all that but it's been said enough now so no point repeating everyone else.

At first i was thinking to myself how the main guy was just being over protective and he didn't want to loose his girl to some looser land guy (because living on land is so mainstream no days... how many of YOU live in the sea .__. ) so i was able to brush of his Tsundere side but good god, i tried to ignore it telling myself 'he just wants to protect her' and 'he is just jealous' but one can only tell one's self this so many times till you establish the guy is a dick who wants to run her life! yeah in a normal series when he isn't a prick i would understand the whole childhood friend vs new guy love triangle but in here... well im sure she will choose land guy because how dumb he is, and annoying x.x
Shoving him aside i think Manaka was great, she was cute,dittsy and funny, i love it :3 that other girl... what's her name, well not sure why she has a thing for the prick main guy... seriously has she not been living underwater with him long enough to see how he is? imagine dating him... so self controlling over everything .__. i thought she was going to couple with Mr pointless guy who doesn't speak to much but...
Anyway i liked the bias and prejudice themes going on from land people, notice sea people didn't start the conflict so i cut them the slack here, land start it and im glad to see them rebellious sea people stand their ground (sorry i just love the idea of them living in the sea).
Anyway anything else i have to say has been said, the interesting points about salt levels and how they need to return to water ect, pretty neat really.

i liked that episode.

First off- So really, it's clear as day Manaka has a thing for the surface guy, i like they developed this so fast here, normally im one for slow and steady for she is laying it out there, sucks for the main guy but he's a dick so no worries xD
I find it funny she doesn't realise it yet though, i mean really, she is desperate to have that fish back just because he said it was pretty, she is fishing for compliments here (no pun intended) which in it's self is partly affection showing through but she gets flustered by reading the guys name, kind of weird but there you have it xD
Moving on

Akari, i like this thing happening here. One thing this anime did well here was the whole 'you can't leave or your banished' thing - some say it's dumb but i like this concept as it's rather old, that's what makes it great. Normally it fails and feels dumb but remember, not many live in the sea now and they all used to, so having such a old tradition is quite fun, especially one which makes people choose 'land or sea', it's actually more 'love or sea' but not in all cases. Anyway i like this old tradition thing as it sure stirs things up, especially how it was brought up to their group xD
To be fair i do actually LIKE something about this guy (yes i actually found something good about him o.o), i like how he is dedicated to the sea, yeah he is a prick about it but i like seeing how he is dedicated to standing by it and doesn't like how surface treat em, it is good to see he is someone who stands by the water life. I mean Manaka clearly belongs on land, and the others show no real concern either way so he has this one and only good trait... i guess.

See the main guy is good at one thing, he does a great job shining out how that other guy is so much better a person than he is. Though in a way i like he is prick, makes change from the main being the 'good guy' stuff, well that and i like watching him fail xD
Still no idea why his other friend has a thing for him, (yeah i can't remember the names) he isn't nice to her but she should get with her other friend :)

i can't wait for the episode to come where Manaka tells Hii-chan "Stop it! I'm not a child I can look after myself, you're such a dick to all my friends just let me make my own decisions for once!" If i were her i wouldn't have even started calling tsumugu by his last name. figured it out, yeah, but HE was fin with her calling him Tsumugu, so there.

laughed about her throwing stuff at the god.

I was half expecting the priest/dad to throw his daughter out just then. It would have been a fantastic way to show how traditional these people are and how they stick to their rules and just how much Manaka stands to lose. for that to happen really effectively i'd have wanted their family to be shown a bit closer than they have been. i'm sure they are a tightly knit family and that's why the director chose to have the dad now disown her right then.

This is a weird one for me but, I just can't think what's so weird about it.How the
main character is the boy then the girl?But I also like how it changes to that.Also what
caught my eye is how the sea people and the surface people seem not to agree with each
other.Also around the middle of the episode a fish was dead and also the raising salt
water soo maybe that'll turn to something later? ;P But what makes me sad is the love
triangles between everybody.Something tells me this anime is going to make me cry and
my heart hurt. ;__; I didn't expect all this love things so fast I actually thought
this was going to be a comedy anime with school life oh how wrong was I ;_;

I can summarize all of what I felt in these two senteces: "I have never been so wrong"
and "Can't we all just get along?!T__T" I thought this anime will be comedy and fun
but wow all this romance and anger and ;_; I'm going to keep watching but I wonder
if my heart can take it...