Air 1-10

Apr. 9th, 2005 12:02 am
cerusee: a white redheaded girl in a classroom sitting by the window chewing on a pencil and looking bored (Default)
[personal profile] cerusee
Two to go.

Bishoujo game adaptations aren't generally my thing, although I enjoyed Kimi ga Nozomu Eien quite a bit, and I felt Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito had oodles of potential to squander. I picked up Air because I kept hearing two things about it--"pretty" and "good." And it is. It's also very sad. I started out several episodes behind everybody else, so I inadvertently spoiled myself at a couple of blogs. As it turns out, Misuzu dies. Which sucks royally, although now that I'm caught up on the Summer arc, I can predict the how and why of it. Which is just...argh. The Summer arc broke my heart. And I think the end is going to break my heart again.

Air reminds me a bit of Haibane Renmei...perhaps it's the quiet atmosphere, the attention to the small details of life... Air doesn't stir my soul the way Haibane Renmei did, but it does touch me the same way.

I can't help that Air would be improved by dropping Kano and Minagi's stories entirely from the show. They're distinct from the main narrative, even if they do carry the same themes (WINGS and MOTHERS); I don't know how this sort of thing works in game format, but I actually found it jarring to go from disconnected arc to disconnected arc, and neither Kano nor Minagi are as compelling as Misuzu.

Misuzu is intriguing. She seems like the embodiment of the klutz cliche, but she's focused beneath her ditzyness--"Gao" and the tripping are superficial; on a deeper level, Misuzu knows exactly what she wants and needs in life. What that is becomes a little clearer, later, and why she fixates on Yukito so. (Random emotional fixations in anime are normally my bane, but I've never seen one so plausible or sympathetic as this before.) Misuzu's problem is painfully close to my heart. It's a horrible thing to see someone so...abandoned. The circumstances that have led to Mizusu's isolation are unusual and fantastic, but the loneliness itself is utterly accessible.

Anyway, I'm very interested in the movie adaptation, which, I'm told, focuses entirely on Misuzu's story; perhaps it will have a happier ending, too.

The art and animation for this show might be the most beautiful I've ever seen in anime. Depending on how I feel at the end, I think I might well want to acquire this on DVD.

on 2005-04-09 01:32 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] ex-res-judic324.livejournal.com
Is there a bittorent link for this? If so, link meh.

on 2005-04-09 02:23 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] cerusee.livejournal.com
Batch torrent here. Individual torrent here. As far as I know, the series finishes up in the 12th episode, and 13 is a recap, so it might be more efficient to get them individually.

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