Yup, that’s a VN adaptation all right.

Summer officially kicks off with Island, a series which, based on premise and history, probably would have been pretty much off my radar.  But a couple of factors drew me in, the first of which being that it’s produced by .feel.  They’ve had as good an 18 months as anybody in anime, maybe, and anything they’re attached to is worth at least a look.  Island also features a very experienced and capable director in Kawaguchi Keiichirou (Hunter X Hunter: The Last Mission, various Minami-ke projects).

Given all that the hope was that there was more here than meets the eye.  Based on the premiere, though, I think Island is pretty much what meets the eye.  VNs are notoriously tough to get out of the starting gate in anime form  so I will give Island another ep or two at least, but what we got here was very formulaic and trope-driven – the harem people by familiar archetypes, the cipher of a male protagonist (no memory, but thinks he’s a time traveler), the song.  And of course mystery layered on top of mystery, none of which gets much exposition in the first episode (though that’s to be expected).

To the extent that it matters yet, the plot sees a guy named Sanzenkai Setsuna (we think) turn up on a reclusive island naked and amnesiac.  Among the girls he interacts with are the mayor’s daughter, a loli shrine Miko who insists she’s going to assassinate him to protect the island, and a girl named Rinne (she’s the singer) who Setsuna seems to know.  Rinne claims to have had the same experience as Setsuna five years earlier, and there is some evidence that if the whole time travel thing isn’t true, at the very least something pretty weird is going on here.

Frankly I don’t much care about any of that at this point, but it’s a mistake in my experience to judge any VN adaptation on its first ep.  I’m not encouraged, mind you – I would at least liked to have found one or more of the characters really compelling, or the humor really funny, or the production values impressive.  I didn’t get any of those things, but my feelings are more neutral than negative, so there’s still a crack in the door.  Now let’s see if Kawaguchi-sensei and .feel can force it open.