Otherside Picnic: AniTAY First Impressions

I did not know much about Otherside Picnic before I started watching. I only knew it involved two young women exploring an alternate world, and it maybe involved a yuri romance. I had heard that the source material, a light novel series by Iori Miyazawa, was good, and I had added it onto my to-maybe-read-someday list. Despite not knowing much, I was looking forward to the anime premiere.

In a nutshell, the little I knew proved to be accurate. Two young women, Toriko and Sorao, meet in an alternate world that Sorao refers to as the Otherside. Sorao has gone there to be alone, and possibly to just disappear from our world. Toriko has been there before, and has returned to find her missing friend Satsuki. The Otherside is a dangerous place, filled with various incarnations of urban legends, traps called “glitches”, and strange entities that will drive you mad if you look at them too long. It appears to be a post-apocalyptic version of our world, with abandoned railways, ruined shrines, and crumbling buildings.

What the Otherside actually is remains a mystery for now, but it seems to be accessible by anyone, so long as they can find a doorway to it. Sorao entered through a door in an abandoned home. One man entered through the gate of a shrine in the mountains. Toriko found her way into the Otherside through an elevator. This is my favorite entry point. Not only is it a transitional space between floors in the building, but also between our world and the Otherside. And it gets better, because the person must press the buttons, and stop on floors, in a very specific and ritualistic order. These are all similar to legends throughout the world that tell of reaching some “other” land beyond the fields we know via rituals and gateways.

Since this is an anime, the art and animation are important. And…it’s a mixed bag, honestly. The backgrounds are done very well. They are detailed and give the sense that the Otherside is an empty and ruined world. When in “our” world, they portray a city that is lived-in and imperfect, rather than sterile. Weeds grow at the edges of sidewalks, puddles show imperfect pavement, not everything is spotlessly clean. The characters are drawn and animated fairly well. There’s nothing too special or lacking. The animation, though, is what’s a bit hit-and-miss. It’s generally solid, but with some eye-wrenching scenes in the Otherside. But those scenes do fit with the storyline and involve madness-inducing entities. There are also a couple of more comedic animation sequences that feel a bit out of place. The above screencap had some rather comical animation, for example.

Through two episodes, the show has my attention, and I’m looking forward to more. Some various things that have me intrigued:

• When the women return to the Otherside, Toriko (oddly wearing a skirt and high heels) mentions that she and Sorao are partners in crime, and she says it is the “most intimate relationship” in the Otherside. Is this the beginning of that hinted-at romance? Or a clue to her relationship with the missing Satsuki?
• Sorao seems to be suffering from depression, and Toriko has lost a close friend. Their emotions already play into what happens to them in the Otherside. How much will this anime explore the mental / emotional state of the characters? And does that emotional state affect whether or not a person can find their way into the Otherside?
• There’s an interesting partnership between the two women emerging. Sorao must be fully aware of something in the Otherside before Toriko can physically affect it. I am very interested to see where this show takes the idea of perception and reality.
• Both women change physically after encounters in the Otherside. Will that continue, and will it affect their lives in our world?
• Sorao has a fang, but does not have the mischievous personality of the typical fanged anime girl. I am not sure how to interpret this, and I must know more.
• The OP and ED feature a few young women we’ve not seen in the show yet. Is this going to become a “cute girls doing cute things, creepypasta edition” anime? That would not be a bad thing.
• Will the women ever get to enjoy a picnic in the Otherside? At least they get to enjoy some beer when they come back. Well, Toriko enjoys it anyway, while her feet bathe in a sea of Sorao’s tears.

Title: Otherside Picnic
Based on: Otherside Picnic light novel series by Iori Miyazawa
Produced by: Liden Films & Felix Film
Streaming on: Funimation
Episodes watched: 1 & 2

This article is part of a series where my fellow AniTAY authors and I offer our thoughts on the shows that caught our eye and twisted our mind from the Winter 2021 season.

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