While I knew Atri: My Dear Moments was adapted (via manga) from a visual novel, I came in knowing nothing else that wasn’t in the synopsis and cast list. But boy, if wouldn’t have mattered – I’d have known within 3 minutes this was based on a VN. There’s just something about them – the premise, the character designs, the tone – that’s unmistakable. The company behind this one is Frontwing, who I guess are best known for the Fruit of Grisalia novels (which have gotten numerous anime and manga adaptations).

My track record with VN adaptations is not great. But there have been a few exceptions, and Atri has a good staff with director Katou Makou and writer Hanada Jukki in charge at TROYCA (a pretty good studio who just had a winner in Overtake!). The protagonist is a guy named Ikaruga Natsuki, first met in flashback. He lost his leg in some sort of incident as a child, and now lives on a boat – not a bad call, given that sea level has risen dramatically and swamped the world’s coastal cities. He and a woman named Catherine are planning to find some sort of treasure in the house of his grandmother, now at the bottom of the sea, and split the take after they sell it.

This being a VN there has to be an osananajimi, and there is – Kamashiro Minamo. And I suppose there are likely to be a few more character classes checked off in the next few weeks. But for now the main girl is Atri, a robot (“humanoid” in this lexicon) Natsuki finds when he and Catherine finally get their sub working and dive for the treasure. Everyone seems very startled by how human-like Atri is, and there’s a reason for that – her generation of humanoids were all recalled for unspecified reasons. She’s quite human apart from her appearance too – forgetful and emotionally expressive.

The logical thing to do, obviously, is sell Atri (and Catherine is certainly gung-ho), who apparently has a lot of kitsch value. But she asks them to hold off until she fulfils her dead master’s (Grandma) final order, which she says she’s forgotten (which I assume is a lie). But Natsuki is already feeling guilty about that even before Atri declares that she’ll act as his missing leg until she fulfills her final orders. Not hard to see where this is headed, and indeed VNs are absolutely obsessed with the existential agony of humanoid A.I.’s. But execution-wise this premiere is pretty good, and I could see the story having enough emotional traction to work. VNs are tough to adapt but this team has some experience with that, so maybe they can pull it off. I’ll give it another ep or two before coming to a decision.