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Amagi Brilliant Park, one of KyoAni’s shows that has not stood the test of time, is a scattered mess of untapped potential. On one hand, the show has KyoAni’s signature character designs that are both adorable and beautiful, as well as thrilling and creative animation. On the other, we have a story that fails to leave an impact and characters that never grow out of their gimmicks.

On the surface, the problem of “how to keep this fantasy amusement park open” seems intriguing and potentially unique. However, the show focuses much less on the “amusement” and “park” aspects, and much more on the “fantasy” elements. In substance, the show is much more of a kingdom building fantasy dressed up as a work life comedy. Several episodes center on some kooky magical occurrence in the park, which the main character Kanie resolves with his all-too-perfect wit. And while they’re often entertaining, the episodes often left me thinking, “Ok great, but what about that whole park closing thing?”

As a comparison, let’s talk about another work directed by the late and great Yasuhiro Takemoto: Dragon Maid. Most of the anime centers on silly antics by the dragons, while learning more deeply about the characters along the way. It also juggles a decent sized cast as well as incorporating fantasy elements into a Slice of Life comedy. However, that show has more freedom to go in different directions because the premise isn’t as in-your-face. And I would still argue that Dragon Maid has a more complete plot resolution with what we’re presented, and plenty of character development, which Amagi sorely lacks. 

To elaborate on that, the characters are much like the story: intriguing on the surface but without much substance. To be fair, I don’t expect a show with a large cast to have particularly deep characters. But even our main pair, Kanie and Sento, do not really develop much outside their traits from the first episode. Even one or two more conversations between them would have gone a long way in making me more invested. In the entire show I can honestly think of one conversation between them that isn’t comedic banter. And before you call me fangirl shipper trash, this goes for any of the other characters as well. Moffle or Latifah could have equally had more going on, and the show would have been much better for it.

This lack of development causes the final arc to fail worse than an unprepared student on an exam. The show tries to shove drama down our throats when we still aren’t particularly invested in the characters. At that point my thoughts on the show shifted suddenly to “Dang this sucks” while maintaining the “...what about that whole park closing thing?”

Unfortunately, if the drama meant much of anything in the show, the OST would have been much better as well. But as the show is, the OST seems disproportionately dramatic due to the fabricated drama. Additionally, while the tracks are nice, as a whole there’s not much variation.

Unless you’re dead set on watching all of the KyoAni anime (in which case, hey there), I would not recommend this show. It’s not even that bad until toward the end when it tries to resolve all the plot, so one option would be to watch until you feel like dropping. Just beware of several years later a friend forcing you to watch it again. @Nekus