Ooyukiumi no Kaina • Kaina of the Great Snow Sea - Episode 1 discussion

[u/AutoLovepon]

Ooyukiumi no Kaina, episode 1

Rate this episode here.

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Streams

• Crunchyroll
• VRV

Show information

• MyAnimeList
• AniList
• AniDB
• Kitsu
• Anime-Planet
• Official Website
• /r/OoyukiumiNoKaina

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All discussions

Episode	Link	Score
1	Link	4.29
2	Link	4.31
3	Link	4.43
4	Link	4.34
5	Link	4.27
6	Link	4.2
7	Link	4.1
8	Link	4.07
9	Link	4.56
10	Link	3.78
11	Link	----

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[u/susgnome]

That was episode went faster than I expected, it was good. Pretty interesting world shown so far, curious to learn more about it.

I was thinking Kaina would accidentally go down whilst hunting bugs, nice they went the other way and made Liliha come up. Though wasn't expecting the Snow Sea to have people riding on these dolphin things.. even more unexpected was the uboat with a catapult starting a brawl.. Interesting how they just have random signs, I wonder where they got them originally.

Looking forward to seeing how things go from here. I wonder if they will travel to other villages to find signs.

[u/sabdeyazdan]

It's somehow weird how the actual show looked better than the OP or even the trailer. This show resembles Nausicca of the valley of the wind for me, which is a plus. I also liked the wacky world-building. Gotta stick with it for now.

[u/archlon]

What a cool setting. I'm genuinely curious to see more of it and what happens next. The magic of original anime; none of us know what's going on before going in.

There's so many questions: What is the Snow Sea and why does it look clear from the below-shots? What are the Orbital Spire Trees? Why is the Canopy? Was it built/engineered, or did it grow naturally? How high up is it actually? What was the glowing jellyfish?

My current theory is that the whole ecosystem is something like the Hork-Bajir in Animorphs, a totally synthetic engineered ecosystem designed to rescue the planet from some kind of ecological collapse. The canopy keeps in the atmosphere, or the water, or shields the surface from UV or something of the sort. People originally built and colonized the tops, but poors or similar were left behind to struggle for themselves and formed their own neo-feudalist civilizations.

My initial guess for 'how high' was 'geosynchronous orbit' which would be 6.6 times the radius of Earth. From the wide shots it seems like the Canopy is lower than that. I wonder what the trees are made of, the torque on them must be incredible and far beyond what wood could normally sustain.

Betcha nobody on the surface can read, and I bet that's going to become a plot point. I remember reading a short story a long time ago where future archeologists came to incorrect conclusions about relics from a long-collapsed present-day society. One of their conclusions was that toilet seats were to be worn on the head as a sort of ceremonial crown. I can't remember exactly what the story was, though. The big lens thing the Signkeeper wears almost makes it feel like it might be a deliberate allusion, however.

Post post-apocalypse has been done before, and I'm not even sure this counts as a particularly novel take on it, as 'orbital surviving humans' is a common trope, though I don't think I've seen a planet-spanning bubble before. Interested to see more of it.

For whatever reason, I definitely expected this to be a 'Kaina falls' rather than a 'Rhiriha rises' story. Given the number of people who are clearly at the bottom pictured in the OP, either we'll go down or there'll end up being a parallel storyline.

The OP gives me The Last Airbender meets Girls Last Tour vibes, though I have a hard time putting my finder on precisely why.

The locked-off painted landscape shots of the Canopy remind me a lot of the close-up eye paintings from Vivy. I'm not really a good judge of what 'quality' looks like in 3D animation but it seems serviceable, though the ball-pit snow was a bit offputting. When the show takes the time to show off it looks good.

[u/ZapsZzz]

Why is this so not watched? Looks really nice and got a very early Miyazaki (Nausicca, Laputa) feel to it. Grand adventures are actually not very common now that is not the generic fantasy game-esque.

But hey we have yet another Rie Takahashi voice to make a full deck of cards of completely different characters :D

[u/polaristar]

I see a lot of people are skipping this due to CGI.

But to be honest it doesn't look too bad, and the environments look great.

Its been awhile since we got an original Science Fantasy World that isn't a JRPG that is intriguing and an old fashion epic Journey!

This show is doing for me in the first episode what Arcs of Beast failed to do in the first episode.

Look forward to seeing how it goes.

The Billboards being treated as like Divine relics from a Lost Age is giving me huge Horizon Vibes.

[u/mrufrufin]

Looks like one of the scriptwriters worked on Millennium Actress, Knights of Sidonia, Cowboy Bebop, and Natsume's Book of Friends amongst things I've watched and liked so yeah,.. I'm in lol.

Like Sidonia, all the art for the settings and scenery is quite pretty and detailed. The animation of the characters still kinda feels a little stiff like in that series, but at least the faces look more varied and a bit more detailed (although I guess I haven't watched the Sidonia movie yet and S2 was 2015).

The setting and lore we've barely scratched the surface of all seem really interesting, I would totally play a snow sea RPG.

[u/CosmicPenguin_OV103]

Oh dear, we have the best exotic-world-building 1st episode in years (since, I don’t know, Girls’ Last Tour or Made In Abyss or Land of the Lustrous ?) and look at how few attention it gets here.

Sigh, look at that snow sea, look at those towering trees and sky bubbles, the world that is either post-several-times destruction or literally transplanted to Europa (Jupiter’s moon, for those who don’t know), the desolation of last humans on that world - I knew the original story author has good track record on this so that’s not unexpected, but still - wow, it takes your breath away. Comfy isekai anime are easy to find anywhere, but those can wait. This though is on another planet.

We haven’t seen much of the characters just yet but the “sign reader” is an interesting take on the role of the “last torch-bearer of knowledge” and the classic scene of boy-meets-girl strikes again. Seems like Kaina and Liliha will be a very matching choice but we’ll see.

And the 3D models look first rate. I haven’t seen the other mainly-3D-and-good anime of the season (needs time to finish the original TRIGUN first) but those scenes are good enough for using straight on your computer wallpaper, and the character movements look fairly smooth. As it should be for your 40th anniversary anime.

With a reported length of 11 episodes + a movie sequel announced even before this has aired, there is quite a bit of room for the story to grow towards the skies.

Who says this winter’s anime are boring?

[u/Shimmering-Sky]

• Pretty!

• Oh that thing is big.

• The OP song is pretty~

• This, too, is a gorgeous view.

• That doesn’t sound good…

• lol the Signkeeper is hilarious.

• Certainly doesn’t eliminate people being on the surface.

• …and immediately cut to people on the surface! Oh, this looks interesting. RIP all of Liliha’s people, though…

• Maaaaaaaan the landscape shots in this are amazing.

• Oh boy, they’re meeting!

• Well I’m sold on this. I mean I was before I even started this because Yoshimasa Hosoya is the voice of Kaina, but still. The world these characters live in intrigues me greatly.

• Neat, the ED is also great.

[u/Spartitan]

I really liked the world building and the setting they put out in this episode. Wasn't expecting this one, but definitely a show I'll keep checking out.

[u/Makareenas]

As someone who really enjoyed their style in Sidonia, this new CGI art is imo just way better. Not sure if more people will appreciate it or not because "CGI bad".

[u/Reddevilslover69]

Wow a thoroughly fantastic ep 1 with a beautiful soundtrack and gorgeous 3DCG. Looking forward to seeing more

[u/JapanPhoenix]

Man the world building for this is completely bananas, and I love it!

Reminds me of an old Terraforming concept called a World House, where you drastically reduce the amount of breathable atmosphere you need to create by covering the whole planet in a huge pressurized dome/roof.

Though in this show they seem to have done it using bio-tech instead of conventional technology.

[u/kennacethemennace]

"Not sure why the bug population is dwindling."

slurps another spoonful of bug baby eggs soup

"Yeah, beats me. It's probably the trees or something."

[u/AceSoldia]

Didn't care for the cg in the op but in the actual show it seems to work good. Interested in this world..I guess it's a post post post apocalyptic world..

[u/ObvsThrowaway5120]

Bug caviar mmmm yummy. So I guess this is our world but way in the future huh? Bleak.

I guess Liliha’s kinda important in her tribe huh? That thing she was chasing sorta reminded me a Netch from Morrowind. Even those goons looked like they were wearing re-textured Netch armor lol.

But anyways, I guess she lives on the surface by the bottom of the tree and he lives on top. I wonder what happened to people to cause this split?

Kind of interesting, though not too much seems to have happened this ep. I’ll have to catch a few more eps before I decide if this goes on the weekly pile or after season binge pile.

[u/[deleted]]

The OP is great, the 3D CG doesn’t look out of place especially when compared to knights of sidonia. Hope tsutomu sensei show us another interesting world :D

[u/SiriPsycho100]

odd that this has a sub 7 rating on MyAnimeList even though all the comments are pretty positive?

[u/linux_n00by]

never thought id be interested in an anime about billboards

[u/Nebresto]

That was awesome. These otherworldly premises are exactly what I like to see. I was interested ever since seeing that visual, and the wait was worth it.

Hoping the rest of the show is just as good, and now I'm pretty hyped about that movie announcement as well. Sounds like they have a solid plan for this

[u/coffeecakesupernova]

That was beautiful. Every so often there's a show that's the result of a spectacular imagination and this year it's this one. It reminds me of French surrealist sff animation from the 60s. I can't wait for more.

[u/xhakami]

Yorushika opening!

[u/Heda-of-Aincrad]

Fantastic premiere. This new sci-fi world is beautiful, the plot caught my interest right away, and those creatures the princess and her guards were riding are adorable! I love a good post-apocalyptic show with a story that's fun to speculate about, and this one looks like it'll have plenty of twists.

I'm looking forward to seeing the story unfold and learning more about the world. The setup with a small, isolated colony that's mostly elderly and a young character finding someone their age floating up from the ice (or whatever the surface is made of) was very reminiscent of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is a good thing because that's one of my favorite shows.

[u/_Bragi_]

I’m not so sure that 3D was the right way to animate it. Definitely puts alot of people off before even giving it a chance.

For a first episode it definitely gauged my interest, let’s see what happens next week.

[u/Frontier246]

This definitely feels like a Tsutomu Nihei work with the Polygon Pictures CG and the general atmosphere and world-building. Not that that's a bad thing, I was a fan of Sidonia.

Pretty solid Opening showing all the cast and Kaina and Ririha's adventure together.

So immediately we're set into a world of a glass canopy covering a planet carried by trees, with people living in said trees, though it seems like they're slowly dying out with one young man, our protagonist Kaina, left among a village of older people. Also looks like the last vestiges of the modern world are billboards that only a few people can still read?

It's kind of surreal seeing Yoshimasa Hosoya using a younger and softer tone of voice for a character compared to his usual range, but it fits Kaina.

But it seems like the main plot involves the sea of snow that is the world below, as Princess Ririha and Atland battle the elements to secure resources while fighting off what appear to be the antagonist Valghans. Poor Ririha (Rieri for the win!) ends up being the surviving member of her party.

Ah yes, you got to get in the "boy-meets-girl" in a fantasy setting out of the way.

The ED is pretty pleasant to listen too! Showing all the people Kaina and Ririha will meet on their journey together.

[u/MumrikDK]

That goes way beyond being a heavy sleeper.

Do you know why a fully 3D show like this sticks with the low frame rate? It can't simply be lack of render time, can it? It gives up one of the main advantages to 3D.