(12ish episodes)
What’s it about ?
Adaptation of a sci-fi “otome” visual novel. Interestingly, according to the Wikipedia description it seems to have switched point-of-view characters from the very young dude (who’s yet to show up) to one of the girls (which feels much more conventional).
Characters
Koharu is a girl who’s forgotten nearly everything about herself (it takes the whole episode for her to remember her name), who one day feels to compel to head for a shuttle that leads her to THE WORLD. Not the stand, but a huge ship (big enough to host a town and some bits of lands inside) that travels across the globe… and maybe spacetime, if the appearance of Koharu’s hometown is any indication (The World looks much more futuristic).
The only crew (and inhabitants) of The World are about a dozen teenagers, who seem to have been recruited similarly. (The big difference is that Koharu somehow got her hands on an uniform before she even got inside.) They spend most of their time on the chores required to living on The World (fishing, growing crops, etc.), and frankly I have no clue how they do this with so few people given the sheer size of the thing. On the other hand, The World appears to be self-driving, randomly relocating itself to whatever crisis they are meant to solve. (The show remains mysterious as to what those are yet.)
Oh, and a tower explodes at the end. Good way to keep my interest up, show !
(It’s apparently called “Norn9” because there are 9 dudes aboard, and somehow the three girls – including Koharu – don’t count. Whatever)
Production Values
Quite sharp-looking ; it’s certainly very good at selling The World as a setting with a huge scale and on a completely different technological level from anything else.
As you’d expect for the source, there’s a decent amount of manservice, mainly in the form of a bunch of the guys spending noticeably more time than narratively necessary swimming around.
Overall Impression
Usually I’m not in the audience for otome adaptations, but I have to give points to this one for sheer ambition. Sure, it spends most of its time faffing around with nothing particularly interesting happening, and the main characters don’t deviate much from the usual archetypes, but it almost feels like there’s an actual plot and purpose to the show.
I’m probably going to be disappointed, but I’m giving this a second episode.
