Arte

For some reason, I keep picking the most controversial seasonals of 2020 to review! If you just took a quick glance at Arte, you wouldn't think this would be one of the most divisive and fiercely polarizing series of the year. One half of MAL thinks this series is really sweet, relaxing and wholesome. The other half is positively screeching about what a vile abomination this is and how it's one of the worst anime they've ever seen in their entire lives. Arte is based on a long-running and successful manga about a young girl in 16th century Florence who dreams of becoming a great artist.She is loosely based on an amalgamation of Sofonisba Anguissola and Artemisia Gentileschi, which is where she gets her name from. Arte isn't naturally the most genius painter to ever live, but she works extremely hard and is willing to devote her entire life to creating beautiful works of art. The director of Arte is Takayuki Hamana, who also directed the last anime I reviewed, Beast Player Erin. Arte actually shares a LOT in common with Erin in terms of its direction. They're both very feel good, slice of life series with very slow pacing that aim for tons of warm fuzzy feelings at the risk of being boring. Both are led by very strong, paragon female protagonists to serve as an idealistic example for a young female audience. I rated both series a 7 on MAL, but I do think Erin is a little better. On Anilist I gave Erin a 7.5 because intervals are a very useful feature. Meanwhile, MAL treats Erin as one of the greatest anime ever made and has Arte rated below Shoujo Ramune. Yes, it's rated lower than the infamous pedo hentai with that yogurt meme. So why is Arte so hated? The main reason is that it deals heavily with sexism and Arte constantly having to deal with 1500s attitudes towards women. Most of Europe didn't really have "The Woman Question" IE: "Should women have a purpose beyond being broodmares?" until the 1600s and the Enlightenment Period. Arte is correct that sexism was a very prevalent problem in 1500s Italy. However, Arte isn't historically accurate in portraying our heroine as the first and only female painter in the mid 1500s. There were actually many female painters during the Renaissance Period, so the shock and "BUT YOU'RE A WOMAN!" responses she gets in the first 4 episodes seem a bit silly. Arte seems to have confused the 1500s for the 1300s. Back in the 1300s, all artists were men and ONLY men were allowed to paint. That's because only the Catholic Church had the money to commission art and all paintings were done by priests and monks. Only men could be priests or monks. Painters during the Renaissance weren't the upper crust of society, they just made paintings for the upper crust and were considered lowly artisans. That's why it wasn't a big deal for "a mere woman" to be a painter at that time. The nobility didn't feel it was a threat to the social order because being a painter is just a shitty job anyways. Is Arte SJW propaganda? Should we REEE about it? No and no. Most of the anger against modern feminism stems from the idea that women have already reached full equality, but SJWs want to elevate women above men and get revenge on men. I'm not going to go on a tangent about maternity leave and whether or not the United States has actually achieved true equality yet. Arte wasn't made by America for a Western audience! Arte was made by Japanese people for a Japanese audience. They knew that foreigners would watch it, but the director was focused on how Japanese audiences would react to it. I've heard people complaining that Arte feels like something America would make in the 1980s or 90s, but that's culturally kind of where Japan is in regards to gender equality. America has female CEOs now. Japan still doesn't. Japan is still trying to get beyond the cultural concept of "office flowers". Japanese women who do really well in college, yet are hired to be gofer secretaries, fetch tea for their old man boss, and get a swat on the ass for their troubles. Then they get pressured at age 30 to quit and go be a housewife, so there isn't much chance of promotion. Even if you feel Arte is outdated and preaching to the choir, keep in mind you're not the target audience. You're not a young Japanese girl or an office lady! They see Arte as something bold and a breath of fresh air, which is why the manga has been running for 7 years and is doing well. Another complaint about Arte is ironically the art. I will admit that Arte isn't exactly pretty for a series about art. It was made by Seven Arcs, who is mostly known for making a shitty ecchi called Sekirei. They are NOT a well loved studio. I also suspect that the Covid Pandemic may have had an impact on the production. Arte starts out looking alright, but it starts to look REALLY ugly in the second half. I mean some utterly hideous CG. However, there are plenty of ugly looking anime out there, so I don't think that's a reason to give this a 2/10 and scream about it being the worst ever. Isn't Arte an annoying shonen protagonist like Naruto? No! Arte is Rock Lee! Naruto wants to be the greatest ninja of all time because his father was a ninja leader and he sees it as his birth right. Arte doesn't want to be the greatest artist of all time, she just wants to make paintings for a living because she loves doing it. Naruto doesn't take his training seriously for the first 200 episodes of his anime. He was born with an immense amount of innate talent and inherited abilities, so he doesn't need to work hard. He pulls stupid pranks, eats ramen, then bullshits his way to completely unearned victories. Arte works until her hands bleed and she passes out from strain on a frequent basis. Arte works HARD because art is her life. She isn't wasting her time pulling pranks or feeling sad for herself. So is Arte worth checking out? Hell yes it is! It's not a perfect series by any means, but it's pretty damn good. It's actually my favorite anime I've seen so far from 2020. It's also only 12 episodes, so you could binge the whole thing in an afternoon. If you just want to relax and feel good for a while, I highly recommend checking this one out.

Good god where to begin with this flaming pile of garbage otherwise known as Arte? Once in a rare while do you come across something so pointlessly dull and boring that you actually get offended by it, so offended by its poor writing, poor characters, poor shallow attempts at making "commentary", poor genre workings. Everything about this show is poor. After 4 episodes I had a bad feeling, after 7 I had no hope, and now? Now, I'm here to tell you to not bother wasting your time on this trash. Before we get into the slaughter of Arte I'd like to point out someMINOR good aspects of this show that keep it from being a 1. The character design isn't anything to write home about but the dress designs are historical accurate and add a level of elegance that I rather enjoyed. The VA work is also worth praise. It's not hard to find lots of new anime just putting VAs in roles to have a name to the project or so badly miscast that it takes you out of the story, but every VA sounds like they fit that character. It's rare to find and underappreciated when done well and I hope people star taking notice of this factor. It's a shame the cast is stuck to such a bad script but hey the little things right? As for the bad. God where to start? First, why make your setting one of the most interesting point in art history (Florence in the 16th century during the Renaissance) if you're going to make no attempt at displaying the beauty of this time period? The background art for FLORENCE ITALY looks so poorly put together that you could honestly believe that we were in just some nowhere town in an Isekai. For a show set in the town that had some of the greatest works of art during this time period every building looks the same. Their is NO differentiation in color pallets or depth. It is so poorly put together that you could honestly set this show in a High School and get more out of it. On top of that by episode 8 the character art and animation starts to take a nosedive which is super ironic because it wasn't like they had the budget there to begin with. It went from being passable (if not a little bland) to being something a visual novel would use for its animated scenes. In fact I think Persona has had better animation. Second, the plot. Let me take you through the formula for this show, because their is no real plot. Opening -> Mary Sue wants to do art related activity or is given art related activity -> Mary Sue is told "WoMEn CaNt Be ArTIsT" or "ArT iS FoR MeN" or "YoU CaNt Do ThAT, OnLY MeN CaN Do ThAt" ext. Whatever variation of surface level misogyny you can come up with goes here and for anyone who has ever dealt with misogyny you will laugh your ass off at how fake this comes off as -> Mary Sue does whatever activity the men think she can't do because the power of her WILL AND DREAMS -> insert either just enough comedy to not be take as a serious drama or Just enough "foreshadowing" of romance to be taken as a Romance anime without giving actual romance -> end credits. I'm sure defenders will say "it's taking its time to set up a believable relationship" or "It's depicting serious gender inequality" and to you I say...where? The relationship idea is broken by episode 5 when the only thing close to romance is a teenage girls chest getting tight because she's around this dude. Is this supposed to be Romance because it looks more like bullshit to me. BTW three months have passed at this time (or three years if you go off what the second dude said about progression in the system of being an apprentice) so if the only thing in show you have to show me as "romance" is something a one-sided preteen crush then I'm sorry you fail. As far as Gender Inequality... sure? I mean we get surface level remarks in episode 4 from the prostitute that are once again something a teenager could put together and grow up to realize theirs more depth and nuance then that surface level remarks. Everything else is comedic levels of FEMALE OPPRESSION you would find in a meme making fun of feminist. Theirs no interesting commentary to be made and no depth to it. It's laughable forced. Thirdly, what is the point of setting this show in Italy with Italian characters if you're just going to have them practice normal Japanese customs? Yes, I'm sure this is nitpicky but I'm not the only one asking this question. If you want to have character of different cultural backgrounds you have to build in those cultures to your narrative or else it's just changing the paint of a car. It might look and seem different but under it's just the same. This show could have took a look at the culture of Italy and made for a rather different type of anime that despite the issues could still have praise for something new. Instead it sticks with every single Japanese cultural norm we see in anime and comes off as rather immersion breaking. I think that's enough bashing on this show for it's piss poor quality. It seems alot of people liked this show, and to you I say great. Glad you did. This show is awful and bad and makes no attempt at coming into its own. All I see is another run of the mill "romance" anime that takes no chances and makes no statements. I hope it never comes back. I hope it gets forgotten in time with the shows just like it because if this show becomes "popular" or makes waves in the anime community I'll truly be shocked at the ability for the anime community to turn a blind eye to anything resembling quality. Then again Bunny-girl senpai is popular and that's just as bad so who knows...

Disclaimer that I have not read the manga for this. Don't know if I will, but in case the manga is much more well done, I just wanted to let you know I cannot testify to that. I think if you expect this anime to be good because of its unique setting and main character, I would tell you not to expect that. Overall, this anime is fairly generic. It's not really bad, but its also not fantastic which is why I felt like writing a review, it feels like most of the reviews already out there are very polarizing. The first few episodes areextremely heavy-handed with the sexism, and it felt like the author didn't trust the audience to get the message the first time. It was kind of awkward. But it got better, or at least, it got more subtle and natural in the ways it brought up the feminist themes and Arte's own feelings about her place in the world. Sometimes it was even too subtle. The animation and art style is very generic. It's not bad but it's nothing special. The only way it really stands out is with the historical clothing, especially for the women's clothes. I really liked that detail, although I think even that was unable to reach its full potential. At some point we learn that Arte's knowledge of lace and jewelry has a hand in her personal touch as an artist, but it's far too late in the show and we have to just take that as "obvious" just because she is a woman. I think some people expected the art of the show to be more captivating and creative, especially as the cities it takes place in are also gorgeous cities filled with unique and beautiful architecture and scenery. But ultimately, this show is about feminism and classism more than it is about art. I do think it could have elevated the viewing experience to have more detailed scenery but the show could also very well have spent even less time displaying the scenery and it could have still been done well. As it is, it feels like the show has an identity crisis. It wants to portray Arte's passion for art and infect the audience with it, but that's not the main purpose of the story so it ends up just being a distraction to the other more meaningful themes. Overall, this anime is more of a light entertainment than a truly meaningful piece of commentary. But if you like your entertainment to have meaning to it as well, I don't think its a bad show to watch. It may be a bit forgettable but sometimes there is value in watching shows like that too. It may motivate me to try out the manga and see if I like it any better. Thanks for reading

The concept of Renaissance Europe is not one that has been often explored in anime, so when I heard about Arte I was rather intrigued as a history bluff. I also had concerns as to how historically accurate the series would be. Fortunately, my worries were misplaced as Arte offers one of the best depictions of Renaissance Italy we’ve ever seen in the medium. If you’re a fan of history, character driven anime, or just want to watch an anime with a very original story, this is for you. As I said before, Arte is very much character driven. The series primarily revolves around Arte’s relationshipswith other people as well as her attempting to break the expected social role of women. If you don’t enjoy slower paced stories, you will struggle to get into this one. Personally, I appreciated the attention to detail that every character received. Each character felt like a unique part of the story who brought something very important to Arte’s development as a person and artist. I think the series is as educational as it is entertaining and does a great job of explaining the ins and outs of Italian art workshops during the era, gender roles, class, etc. Being able to learn while watching a show is a big plus to me. The show also features some really good animation/art design which remains consistent throughout. Arte was one of my top 4 shows of the season and I wish more people got a chance to experience this one. I believe if you check it out you will not be disappointed at all. I certainly wasn’t. Arte gets 8 easels out of 10.