Sidekick’s First Impressions
Escha and Logy are brand new alchemists in the Research & Development Department in the small town of Colseit, a town famous for its bountiful apple orchards. It’s a simple premise, but Escha & Logy is a simple show, and I think the first episode worked well enough.
I’ve played a bit of the Atelier Meruru games in the past, and while I’m not the biggest fan of the game I can safely say I enjoy the franchise enough and can understand its appeal. When the adaptation was first announced I was a little worried since video game adaptations remove all gameplay elements and can feel very awkward, I felt Atelier’s anime handled things pretty decently. Atelier’s main appeal for me was always the mostly calming atmosphere and the exploration aspects that really engaged me while I was playing the game, less of the gameplay itself. The anime translates this soothing atmosphere pretty well – Atelier Escha & Logy is basically an iyashikei (other examples are ARIA, Non Non Biyori, Tamayura) anime, and I’m happy to say Studio Gokumi understood the appeal of the genre. 
It’s slow-paced, with a lack of real conflict (apart from like 2 seconds of footage showing Escha and Logy fighting monsters which was totally glossed over despite the resource hunting aspect being a big part of the games), and this greatly helps to create a uniquely beautiful, peaceful world where our characters inhabit. There is also the mention of unexplored ruins in Colseit, but I predict (and hope) that the series focuses less on the action and more on the exploration aspect.
The characters so far are decent. With iyashikei anime, the focus is generally less on the characters but more of the atmosphere it tries to create, and in Escha & Logy’s case they are serviceable. Escha is a pretty standard main lead – a pleasant girl liked by everyone (basically she doesn’t have much of a personality), while Logy is also pretty standard, what a surprise. The two don’t stand out much individually, but their growing relationship was pretty charming to watch overall and enough for me to latch onto (at least until I get bored with the series). The other characters were forgettable though. I do hope the series will take time to flesh out some of these side characters more: they’re a big part of establishing Atelier’s atmosphere.
The animation was decent, but if I had to be a little stricter I’d honestly say I felt it to be a little cheap looking at times. Some frames looked like in-betweens, which is a bad sign. It does make pretty good use of colours and lighting to establish the mood and tone though, so overall it still gets a thumbs up from me. Music on the other hand, while decent, was also forgettable. I pretty much didn’t notice when a track played until I began paying attention to the music itself.
Escha & Logy won’t be for everyone, but if you’re generally a fan of iyashikei anime (I know I am) I think this series will be your cup of tea. It’s sweet, it’s calming, and it has the potential to be a charming adventure story once it focuses more on the exploration aspect of the series. For everyone else though, stay away. It’ll probably make you fall asleep.
Possibility of Watching: High. It’s relaxing, and a pretty decent time-waster. Why not?
Possibility of Blogging: The thing with iyashikei anime is, well, not much happens. So this means there’s not much to write about either.