Set in a cozy catastrophe future where sea levels rising abruptly has sunk cities and produced a shiny maritime experience, ATRI is either the story of a boy, a girl, a gold-digger, and a robot… or just an exercise in telling a story through really weird camera angles.
The show introduces us to our main character, who lost a leg in a disaster years ago. He has a prosthetic now, but it’s rather crummy, and this and a general need of money has pushed him to work with a very sketchy lady to retrieve some manner of treasure from his sunken family home. Along the way, a peer of his, seeming to play the cute girl with a crush on the guy who’s oblivious to her, helps out and acts as another voice.
They get a mini-sub running and take it down to investigate the house, which turns up a humanoid robot. The robot wakes up from its stasis, which causes a little havoc that she mercifully saves the main character from. This robot is the titular Atri. Since she belonged to the lead’s late grandmother, ownership falls to him. Since she’s a rare model in excellent condition, the initial plan is to sell her off and make a load of cash.
Most of the episode is spent on getting Atri and starting the process of arranging her sale. However, it’s clear that the lead is a little reluctant to just ditch her, and she claims to have something important she needed to do, a last order from Grandma… but she can’t remember exactly what that is. After the sketchy lady takes Atri home, losing one of the new shoes that were bought for her much to the lead’s chagrin, she shows up at the lead’s place and declares that she’ll be his leg.
A few things to note in the setup. One is that the world looks great. It’s got vibrant colors and a distinct feel to it that, while not unique, is at least a little charming. It’s simultaneously a bit run-down and rather inviting, and while it is explicitly the future (with rising waters and humanoid robots) it has a very timeless feel to it rather than seeming like a dated vision. It’s not as far off as Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, but there’s a similar vibe of sun, sea, age, and community.
The other bit is what I may have mentioned about weird camera angles. There are a lot of flagrantly strange shots in this show, even in episode one, making the directing very noticeable. Most of the shots like this don’t last too long, and they aren’t really awkward or detracting, but we’ll often enter scenes from a direction where we see an object in a way it’s not normally seen, and a few times there’s a very heavy and noticeable use of white light to compose an image in a specific way that I don’t think lines up with physical reality in the show’s universe. But, while these shots don’t really detract, I can’t put together yet if they’re really in service to anything.
The director of this is, since the directing wants to be noticed, is Makoto Katou, a creator with several previous credits but none that I’ve really talked about more major than having directed specific episodes of Aldnoah.Zero. However, if you told me that it was Tsubame Mizusaki from Keep Your Hands of Eizouken!, I’d find that very credible since the little tricks in Atri seem to be showing off the kind of attention to detail – even pointless detail – that was her major style over in that show.
I guess we’ll see how that gets to work out for a full run of anime.