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Old 07-30-2007, 02:54 PM   #1
big bad birtha
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Air

Yup, I have received the first DVD today (w00t! 15 days before the release date). It is kind of a shame that there's no special edition to this. I so would've bought it. Anyway, I watched the dub, checked out some of the extras, so I will go ahead and tell my thoughts on each.

There are hardly any extras in this. It just has the OP the ED and some trailers. That's it. I kinda hoped that they had a little more to it. I'm not sure what would be good to add, but at least something, like maybe the Japanese commercials for it, the Air prelude, the blue ray OP, the visual novel OP, or something of that nature. It isn't a big deal, because Air is great, but it just feels like I have been jipped.

Now as for the dub. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good either. Yukito sounded wierd, and I hated the horrible karate (you know, like "hwaaaa!!") noises he made when he was arguing with Michuru. Yukito seems more like one of the guys in an RPG with a bad attitude and used to be an enemy, but soon becomes a reluctant member of the team, kind of guy. So a deeper voice suits him much better instead of Edward Elric -_-;.

Misuzu was pretty good. It definitely doesn't have the gentle and childlike innocence that her Japanese voice has (I love Misuzu's Japanese voice), but it was one of the better voices in this. Her "Gao" seems forced, and she doesn't have that adorable laugh. Her "Nihaha" was just so adorable. Oh, and if you want to be convinced at the power of Misuzu's laugh here's a little fun-fact that will convince you....Misuzu's Japanese VA = Sayuri's Japanese VA >=D

Everyone else kind of varied. The best adaptation was Potato (-_-), while everyone else was so-so. Haruka's voice was something I expected, Kano's a little on the deep side, Kano's sister was pretty good, Minagi and Michuru were decent as well. I listened to the cameos made by Ayu, Nayuki, and Makoto, and I nearly laughed my ass off. Ayu and Nayuki's voice are extremely deep. It's like they hired some hobo from the streets to do them XD. Makoto's wasn't bad. I just hope they don't use these same people when/if ADV decides to license Kanon (ADV is waiting to see how Air does before they license Kanon).

There is one thing that bothered the hell out me though, and I encountered this during Haruhi as well. The dub vas keep mispronouncing peoples' names. Pronouncing Mizusu, Yukito, and Haruko are quite easy. They should correct the VAs when they do that. Like how Haruhi's English VA can't pronounce Mikuru right. I don't know if it bothers anyone else, but it bugs the hell out of me. It doesn't piss me off, just bugs.

Anyway, enough about my bitching. As I said earlier, Air is a great series, and it was still worth it in my eyes. Here's a very brief introduction to Air for all of you.

Air is about this guy named Kunisaki Yukito. He is looking for this "girl in the sky" that was passed on to him by his mother. He wanders around looking for her, and makes money by having a little puppet show. He falls asleep on this wall, and wakes up to this strange girl standing over him, with her arms out and feeling the breeze. The strange girl's name is Kamio Misuzu. After she notices that he is awake, she constantly bugs him to play with her. Misuzu lets him live with her and her mother later on. Yukito later runs into two other strange girls. One talks about using magic, and has this strange dog names Potato. The other doesn't speak much, and is always around this girl named Michuru. Is one of these three strange girls the "girl in the sky" that Yukito is searching for? Watch the series and find out for yourself.
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Old 07-30-2007, 06:25 PM   #2
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Re: Air

How much was the DVD?
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Old 07-30-2007, 11:04 PM   #3
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Re: Air

At a store, it probably costs $30, but I bought it for $22. Rightstuf is really amazin' to have not only given me a good deal on the DVD, but delivered it to me 15 days before the official release.

There's something I forgot to mention about this. The start screen, the language screen, and the extras screen are beautiful. The case art is also beautiful. The next DVD comes in an art box, so I will buy that and keep all of my Air DVDs in it ^o^. However, I still wish they had a little more in the package than the show and the OP & ED.
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Old 07-31-2007, 03:44 PM   #4
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Re: Air

Can't believe they couldn't be assed to put the extended intro from the Blu Ray version in. Also can't believe I didn't make the Sayuri/Misuzu connection before.

Yukito is as Dopple would say, a pretty "gar" protagonist about on level with Yuuichi. He may not be as witty but he makes up for it in other ways. Like karate chopping people in the head when they're being annoying, and being man enough to wear a dinosaur shirt.
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Old 10-12-2015, 12:06 PM   #5
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I'm sorry guys. Despite BPK's reservations, I'm having a lot of fun with this show. Being a godless, vile scumbag helps a lot with trivializing the emotion. I'm so desensitized I might as well be a sealed alcohol wipe.

First, I do like the atmosphere and the music. The music is very reminiscent of the mid aughts, I dunno how to describe it except I've heard music like this in VNs, MMORPGs (like Maple Story) so it's nostalgic and comforting. The HUGE, overpowering scenery makes the characters feel small and insignificant in spite of living in this rather large city. Quite the contrast to the almost winter oasis-like feel of Kanon.

Something broke when I saw this scene:



...



Hint: It wasn't my heart.

Spoiler: show
It was a smile.
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Old 10-12-2015, 09:01 PM   #6
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This anime has it all. Wrist-slitting. Roof jumping. I bet we're in for some car asphyxiation, hangings and sleeping pill OD in the near future, right?

Oh, there's also this.
Spoiler: show



HIPPA violation.
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Old 10-12-2015, 11:01 PM   #7
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So, Episode 06

Spoiler: show
I saw the Michiru twist coming a mile away. It's oddly similar to the same-named character's route in Grisaia. My Japanese ain't great, but I heard something like "misuzu dekiru" when Michiru was describing the girl with sad dreams. Who is a bird that leaves feathers of mercy that tend to bring misfortune for people.

Hmmmm!

This anime feels like an old elementary school math problem I struggled with decades ago, but revisit now that my math-fu is high and it seems basic and easy to solve.
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Old 10-14-2015, 09:35 PM   #8
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Mcsweeney was man enough to wear a dinosaur shirt the first time I ever saw him.
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Old 10-14-2015, 09:57 PM   #9
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I had to order mine from CafePress. Can you believe that Kyoani/Key don't sell official Gao Gao Stegosaurus shirts? Do they not like money?
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Old 10-15-2015, 12:12 AM   #10
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Okay, I've finished this.

Overall Rating: Mediocre

BPK said he doesn't recommend Air anymore and I can see why. While Jun Maeda was a pioneer in making crying games, Air feels like a rough draft of his later stories with more coherent plot lines. That undersells Air a bit since the two "side arcs" were fairly straight-forward and well developed, but Misuzu's was a mess.

I take major issue to the involvement of supernatural elements, as it dilutes the emotion and confuses the viewer as to who to focus on. This isn't like Another where the phenomenon has rules and the characters have to deal, or any other supernatural phenomenon where there's a clear cause of it. I have no freaking idea what caused what in Air and without a clear understanding, I can't fully connect to the sympathies.

There isn't a strong lead in this title. Misuzu might be the main girl but she isn't a mascot in the same way Ayu, Tomori or Nagisa are. Yukito bails out in the last 1/4 of the story. I can't build relationships with any of these characters from Episode 1 to Episode 12.

I don't understand Air's message or themes. It was some vague/general will of the stars, inherited will thing. The ending was un-satisfying.

This might sound like dissing, but I did like some of it. Potato's arc was okay if formulaic. Tohno's was the peak of the series even if I predicted every twist. The imagery with the logo was also confusing.

Um, I really liked the atmosphere of the story. The music was also tops. But the messy themes and hamfisted design of Misuzu's route really choked out a lot of enthusiasm for it. The supernatural elements didn't help.
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Old 10-18-2015, 04:15 AM   #11
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All right, I need to explain my feelings about Air to you and Talon.

Yes, the show is highly flawed, but I really respect the central plot involving Yukito, Misuzu and Haruka. I'll go into spoiler mode now:

Spoiler: show
I think that all the side stories involving the other girls are useless and I mostly forgot what happens in them (it's been many years since I watched the show). For this reason, I like the first few episodes, which sets up the engrossing summery atmosphere (as you mentioned), and also does a great job of introducing Misuzu as a lonely girl who is desperate to make a friend in Yukito (she struggles to make friends due to her condition of freaking out whenever she gets close to people).

Misuzu: Now we can play, right?
Yukito: What do you want? Why do you keep following me?
Misuzu: We're going to play at the beach. We'll race each other, splash water on each other, then at the end, we'll say, “See you tomorrow!” and go our separate ways.
Yukito: That almost sounds like we're friends.
Misuzu: Yes, friends! We're friends. That's why … [starts tearing up] I want to play!

Aww, poor kid . Soon afterward we find out that Misuzu lives with her aunt, but she's not the greatest parent and she entrusts "the freeloader" Yukito with helping to take care of her problematic niece.

The middle of the show I'm not so hot about since there's more focus on side characters, and jumps back in time to 1,000 years ago, but the last few episodes return to form as they finish off the premise set up in the first three. Nobody likes a recap episode, but Air's recap episode which shifts the focus back onto Yukito, Misuzu and Haruka at least puts an interesting spin on it. It shows scenes that we had already seen, but from a different perspective, so we could see things that were not initially known: for example, at Yukito and Misuzu's first meeting, we find out that Misuzu was nervous about waking up Yukito, so she took deep breaths trying to muster up the courage to do so, and actually rehearsed what she was going to say to him.

The defining episode of the series is the second to last one, 11. After all of the encouraging bonding that had been going on between Misuzu and her aunt, who comes to love her as a daughter and decides to legally adopt her, Misuzu starts to lose her memory. Her dad (Haruka's brother), who clearly doesn't seem to care about Misuzu that much, comes to take her back, and this includes an interesting comment where during the argument, the kansai-speaking Haruka says something like, “...And stop speaking in that dialect, it makes me sick!” This suggests that her non-kansai speaking brother also spoke it at one point, but doesn't anymore because he wants to fit in as a normal salaryman. This succeeds in getting the viewer to empathize with Haruka even more, and not want to see Misuzu taken back by that sellout jerkjob. Misuzu's health and memory continue to decline, and she no longer feels attached to her aunt, but Haruka and her brother agree that she can spend a few more days with Misuzu to try and change her mind. Haruka desperately tries to get Misuzu to remember the good times, but fails, it's so heartbreaking. At one point she's so frustrated with Misuzu's petulant attitude that she just abandons her while taking her to the beach, then she falls out of her wheelchair and tries to crawl back in, it's so damn pitiable.

Haruka finally gives up and comes to meet her brother at the beach, and resigns herself to losing her to him. She goes off with her dad. Suddenly, we see Misuzu struggling with her dad, and she staggers toward Haruka, crying out something, but we can't hear what … then Aozora hits and we hear that she is actually crying out:

“MAMA!”

What a scene! I love how the entire episode is just one big build up to that single moment. Like I always say: any hack can write a cry-worthy scene that involves somebody dying, but it takes real talent to write a tearjerker that does not involve death. The beach scene is comparable to “Wonder Boy” Jun Maeda's other masterpiece of melodrama, the Clannad After wheat field scene. Both are all about familial bonds. Air finishes off with episode 12, which also has some good emotional stuff, but doesn't match the excellence of episode 11.

I admit that Air has problems; I would have liked for there to be a more realistic disease that Misuzu suffered from rather than the “It's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit” plot device, but in a show where a dude turns into a goddamn crow these things are to be expected. I also wish that the unnecessary side characters were removed, but the central plot is still valuable enough to overlook all of these flaws. Plus I love the fact that there's no romance between Yukito and Misuzu. I really dig those platonic relationships between a young girl and a slightly older protector figure guy (like Phoenix Wright and Maya … well I've only played the first two games, so no spoilers please if they end up hooking up later!).
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Old 10-25-2015, 07:22 PM   #12
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I haven't been able to fully get Air out of my head for the past week or so, and I feel like the "bad end" is a really big reason why. It really felt to me like it didn't have to end the way it did, due to a collection of some painful misfortune and general attitude.

But I think what's been bothering me the most is the Ryuuya-Uraha-Kanna event depicted in the past (Wiki calls it the 'Chouhou Era', a.k.a. Butterfly Cannon).

Uraha is really interesting to me because I don't know exactly where he loyalties lie. The anime didn't give enough information for me to make a solid judgment of her. After Kanna died in that bizarre sequence, Uraha seemed really eager to take advantage of the despondent Ryuuya to bang her. It makes me wonder if Uraha was never really as sincere toward Kanna as she displayed, and was always hoping Kanna would be killed so he could have Ryuuya. Similarly, how Ryuuya felt toward Uraha when he deeply loved Kanna at the end there is very curious.

In my head, I have a lot of difficulty separating the sex/love. I think love can be simulated just through the stimulation from sex, which is a partially emotional experience. Pleasure impacts the senses, overrides logic, and artificially forces endearment. If a guy bangs a girl for a long period of time, they create some kind of connection that in my mind is love on some basal level. So you can follow my logic that it would seem that if Ryuuya did not love Uraha to begin with, just because of the constant intimate contact, she would be able to beguile him into losing affection for Kanna.

The stated idea - let's make a child to save Kanna - makes no sense to me as presented in the story. On the one hand, it's pretty endearing that two friends of Kanna would love her some much they want to save her even after death. But in the real world, humans experience the death/ending of life stories of others many times, they are merely events in their own life story. It seems paradoxical to me outside of the narrow scope of narrative that Kanna/Ryuuya would devote their whole lives to Kanna if Ryuuya wasn't destined to die so soon. Humans don't have that kind of supernatural willpower, especially toward the dead.

Ryuuya is fairly easy to get, I think, except at the end there. He loved Kanna, didn't care for Uraha, but was friends with her. Uraha proposes what is basically intimacy but characterizes it as utility, offering herself to replace Kanna in his heart, and Ryuuya accepts for Kanna. This is a really alien/exotic concept to me.

What should happen: Ryuuya rejects Uraha angrily, saying he can only ever love Kanna, and dies while keeping his love pure. After-all, what's the point in "having a child to carry on your legacy" when no one could help Kanna anyway?

Then, was Uraha 1) jealous of Kanna, 2) genuinely loved Ryuuya, 3) loved Kanna and is genuinely pairing with Ryuuya to help Kanna, or 4) simply trying to make the best of a bad situation?

...

Where did this tangent come from? Earlier, I talked about this scene disturbing me. I had to ask myself "why" it disturbed me because I wasn't satisfied with just "because". Now, I think this scene is pretty debate-worthy in retrospect.
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Old 10-25-2015, 08:47 PM   #13
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Of the three Key works I've seen -- Kanon, Air, and Clannad -- Air's writing is definitely the roughest. But with special regards to the Kanna backstory arc ...

Spoiler: show
  1. I didn't like the sudden turn the story took into the supernatural.
  2. But in hindsight I felt that the Kanna backstory was the strongest element to Misuzu's story.
"The curse" is meaningless, stupid without the origin story. The origin story is what gives us ground to stand upon when we later look at Misuzu struggling with the consequences of getting too close to someone.

I have to admit that I don't remember the Uraha character. Consequently, I can't weigh in on your postulations. But what I do remember, vaguely, from watching Air years ago ... was that I really liked Ryuuya x Kanna, felt that it was made perfectly clear how loyal Ryuuya was to Kanna, and that this in turn set the stage for what we witness in the present between Yukito and Misuzu. So I wouldn't lend much credence to a "Ryuuya didn't really care that much about Kanna after all" theory. I don't think that holds water, at least not from my vague memories about the flashback.
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Old 10-25-2015, 09:07 PM   #14
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To give a parallel in Ever17,

Spoiler: show
Haru and Ryogo, made friends from the LeMu disaster, teamed up and spent 17 years engineering a plot to rescue Takeshi and Coco. It was hinted at that Haru had a crush on Takeshi during her time in LeMu, while Ryogo liked Coco. But Haru x Ryogo didn't become a ship in subsequent 17 year wait, they stayed true to their original crushes.

Had Haru and Ryogo gotten together, I feel like it would have sabotaged their intentions, given how crazy, ridiculous, and expensive the test of the Third Eye Hypothesis was. Their dedication was powerful and moving because they stayed true to their principles, and so it was admirable. I feel like deep down we instinctively understand that it's fairly easy to get over a tragedy like that, no matter how traumatic it was. Life goes on, even for say, Vietnam veterans who never left the jungle.


I could have used Remember11 as a similar case, but Satoru didn't team up with anyone and his motivations in the notes were weird, and not really relevant to this situation.

Granted, I can only mildly sympathize with Urara/Ryuuga's situation. Kanna is not only dead, but her spirit is cursed. They didn't really know what to do to help her, unlike in the Ever17 case where a plan was laid out ahead of time for them to work toward. They also didn't have much time - barely a year while the Ever17 cast had seventeen.

But it still seems really emotionally compromising. Very similar I feel to when Archer died in the original FSN route, and it's immediately followed by an H scene. Mood whiplash, I guess we'd call it?
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