Amagi Brilliant Park is a thirteen episode anime plus an OVA based on the light novel series. The first episode launches straight into introducing us to Kanie and Sento on their way to Amagi Brilliant Park. Kanie is a high school student who is a narcissist, he loves the look of himself, ironically to the point of pushing everyone away. While Sento is a transfer student that apparently asked Kanie out. Their date location? The local theme park, Amagi Brilliant Park.
It is once at the park that you see the sorry state of affairs that it is in. It’s done in a joking way but the park is worn down, the employees are past the point of caring, the rides are outdated and there are very little people. It’s at this point that Sento reveals why she asked Kanie to come. She wants him to become the manager of the park to save it. The park has to have a certain amount of visitors before the deadline, otherwise they will be forced to close.
It is then revealed that a lot of the employees of the park are magical beings that rely on it in order to live. Take the park away, and they lose their power source (derived from the fun of visitors), eventually fading away. Naturally, Kanie doesn’t believe this but will eventually be swayed into helping. He only has three months to do the impossible, and the future looks bleak given the employees aren’t fond of Kanie in the first place, and have lost most of their hope already.
As expected, while Kanie does a commendable job, he’s not in the amusement park business and so doesn’t fully understand some of the consequences of his decisions. He has good intentions but this is where the Sento comes into play. On their own, either one is not sufficient, but together, they cover each other’s weaknesses and is able to do a sufficient job in keeping the park running decently at the very least.
The anime can be very silly at times, as it occasionally goes with the stereotypical “character looks extremely menacing but is actually a softy and coward at heart” angle. It already wasn’t that tense to begin with but it loses even that by the middle of the season. Yes, the fact that the park is going to close is still always in the background, but we don’t see the characters actively doing too much about it, we’re just told they are. Instead, the plot focuses on the various magical staff and their issues.
After so many distractions, the plot finally gets serious about the main issue in the last few episodes, that is, somehow getting enough visitors into the park. There are a few extra obstacles and higher stakes that were only revealed late into the season, and it requires pretty much a miracle. Kanie sets about bringing that miracle and it’s not as far-fetched as it could have been, but at the same time, it does feel like cheating a bit. However, it is still good to see that the efforts of Kanie have not been wasted, since the park is a lot livelier than when he inherited it.
The ending raises the tension but it’s all done in a predictable way. It’s hard to determine what you really want because if they tried to go for an unexpected surprise, you would have preferred the predictable ending instead. Either way, it still provides a warm fuzzy feeling when all the park’s inhabitants work together for the final push, including Kanie who is a harsh sceptic at times. It is weird though that the main problem is resolved by episode 12, but the season ends with another episode that feels like filler and more akin to something that should be in the middle of the season. As a result, the season fizzles out instead of ending with a bang.
It’s also pretty cool to see that the power that Kanie got given was not a once-off affair. Since it was a broken ability and the anime quickly moved on, you’d have thought that was that. Instead, Kanie uses it occasionally during critical moments so that it didn’t feel like a throwaway mention that was a gimmick.
Overall, Amagi Brilliant Park has a good premise but squanders that to a certain degree with generic and out of focused plot arcs. It had a lot of potential on the various magical beings working there, and ways that Kanie could turn the park around and make it successful. There are still good bits but there are scenes where the humor and developments are questionable.
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