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It's different.
The storytelling in this anime is introvertic and unpredictable. It's one of those animes that go "Ok, we'll not be doing the conventional tropes. So... what will it be about then?". The whole experience of this anime is not about looking forward to the progression of the plot, but rather just getting more familiar with author's inner world and the characters he came up with. It's somewhat heartwarming experience, the development of the antagonist character was the most adorable and unexpected in all of my anime carrier (and I watched One Piece, mind you).

This anime wasn't super interesting, but it left a good ... emotional aftertaste, so I can vouch that it won't be a wasted watch for you.

Wellp, guess I'll be the first one to leave my very important opinion here.
Is it same kind of story as the anime that lead you here? No. Can you tell that it was written by same person? ... Yes.
I'm not a big fan of an art, but I must say that the facial expressions of the characters are a masterpiece. The plot seems to exist primarily to create opportunities for them to show these expressions. It's original setting, though there weren't any particular great plot twists so far. It may be comparable to Rugrats, if I dare say, we observe children worry about their children ... problems, like "what is love", "what is one's identity" and "should one keep living after their feelings got rejected" with few fan-service deaths thrown here an there. It's much more lighthearted than author's earlier work.

Not much happens here in comparison, but it's still an enjoyable read despite of most of it being characters just reflecting on the few events that happened earlier. Hopefully further plot development will make us care more, so far one death in one of the recent chapters was touching thanks to good build-up. Hope we'll get more good deaths like that.

Man, it was so many years ago that an anime last touched me this badly.
You know that every frame that Satou is on screen the plot happens.
The ambiguity between happy and grimdark was executed masterfully.
There is this border in storytelling where tasteless starts, but when story manages to come really close to it, yet not cross it, rather than getting bad, it actually ends up being unique and intimate.
It probably was not supposed to be funny, but I laughed at some of the darkest moments because of how much sense what happens makes and how you still don't see it coming.
The story ... has a lot of cringe.
It's not trying to be realistic, but the feelings of characters are very real.
I think the author cared a lot and their message was delivered.

Came for a weird song, but stayed for the unexpected feels.

Boy, does Abi Umeda know how to draw likable characters and keep you invested. Just looking at expressions of certain side-characters made me fall in love with this "Mud Whale" community. You can literally see the soul poured on the drawings. Every now and then a panel where a piece of the world comes into view, you get reminded that you are consuming a very high quality masterpiece of an art.

I liked how progressing the plot effectively always centers around finding a pacifistic solution to a conflict and trying to understand the bad guy instead ... of blowing him off with a rasengan, even if he keeps behaving like a total jerk. I think the author succeeded somehow to sell this idea of "even if you did some really awful mistakes, this community can forgive you and accept you nevertheless".

It's touching how even small characters, even bad guys genuinely care for someone. While their emotions are "eaten by Nous" and they only have a slight piece of conscience left and mostly behave like robots, exactly that gives a value to small gestures hinting that they actually _do care_. "I killed your sister" "*poker face*" *shoot* "why did you shoot that guy that killed your sister? There was no such order." "I don't know"

The title very precisely describes the "atmosphere" of this story. From time to time some insignificant technical details are dropped by indicating that the whole Mud Whale island is a living being that cares about characters as a parent. Be it a character climbing a wall somewhere and thinking how it's cold unlike walls on the island that were warm as a person, or how every single outsider adorably must mention that islanders "smell like milk" (because of the food produced by the island), or how Aima/Neri take human form and try to comfort people when they are feeling down. And the fact that other such living islands in the story are usually just as****es towards their inhabitants makes this bond between Mud Whale people and their mommy-island kind of precious. A very unique experience of slowly comprehending that a giant sentient being is looking after you and your tribe, I don't think I ever felt this cozy while reading a manga.

There were few small failures in the story, the biggest one was having the protag participate in it. Some characters that looked cheesy in the anime, were much better in the manga and got a decent development... except for the protagonist whose involvement in the main events was way to forced: he did not do anything, he was not even the one who gave the tide-turning speech, but he absolutely must do the final gesture and destroy the mood with some cliched bubble. Chakuro's personality _could_ have been naturally used in the story, he does his thing well when the crowd needs to relieve the mood with some ridiculous childish remark, being children is important part of "Children of Whales" theme after all, but there was just too much of this guy.

A breath of fresh air from the mediocre stuff I got across lately. Lured by the cover image, I pressed the play button and unexpectedly discovered that it is a gem and I'm stuck at my pc screen for the following 22 5-minute episodes. Probably due to short episodes format the storytelling is bold and fast-paced (same as in Saiki Kusuo). Jokes are very random in first episodes, somewhat resembling a softer version of South Park or Robo Chicken, but after some time become repetitive, and stories gradually shift from fun to touching (strong Gintama vibes).

I loved how artist put random funny stuff on background, ... and the details put into every character: each of them had a strong presence and added value to the story (except for tsukkomi guy, but he was more or less fine too).

One thing that somewhat ruined the mood was cliched settings of some episodes: "festival", "beach", "scary stories", sounds familiar? It only missed the school sports event for full set, but that's probably just because of insufficient air time. I swear there is some guy in editors board of every created anime that tells "you have to make your series as unoriginal as possible at cost of your lives!"

Well, that's all from me, I'm off to reading the manga!