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Nah, fuck it. Blogging is the best.
Now before I talk about Air, there's one other thing I want to talk about that's anime related. (Deep breath) I FUCKING MISSED ANIME EXPO. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. DAMN YOU RYAN RUAN FOR NOT REMINDING ME. WELL IT'S NOT LIKE I WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GO ANYWAYS, BUT I REALLY CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT ALL ABOUT IT. I BETTER BE ABLE TO GO NEXT YEAR. Actually, lemme check to see where and when it is next year.
...(checking)...
Nope, I guess it's not decided. But the when is still the same. Just...not the where.
Ok. Enough of my gripes. On to Air.
Air. Also known as Air TV, apparently. It's 13 episodes long, the last of the 13 being a summary. It has its own summer specials (2 of them) and a movie. I only watched the first 12 episodes because that's all I needed to write this review.
I really don't want to say this, but this anime has pretty much been a waste of my time. And it pains me to say that about any anime that has a lot of potential, but somehow they F it up.
But before I say any more, you know what time it is -
ROLL CALL:
Kunisaki Yukito - Male protagonist of the series. Silver haired puppeteer that freeloads off the next character on the roll call, Kamio Misuzu. He befriends Misuzu and vows to stay at her side forever. He also meets several other characters that make his stay at the town interesting.
Kamio Misuzu - One of the girls that Yukito meets, but is the main girl character. She is a very lively, but sickly, girl that travels around with Yukito. She tries to befriend him during this whole series and eventually succeeds. She lives with her aunt, who she calls "mom", and is a very childish person in general.
Kirishima Kano - Another girl that Yukito meets. She is pretty random and unpredictable and takes care of this one dog named Potato. At least I think it's a dog. She has fantasies about flying in the sky and using magic and sometimes asks Yukito's opinion on her thoughts. She is the younger sister of the only doctor in the town. I don't even know what the town's name is, so I'm just gonna call it "the town."
Tohno Minagi - A quiet, calm, collected girl that also meets Yukito. She usually hangs out with a younger girl by the name of Michiru. She is almost always serious, but seems to be fun to talk to. Sometimes though, she gets very emotional.
So those are the characters. Sounds familiar right? Wait. It does sound familiar. Haven't we seen this kind of character setup before? YEAH WE HAVE. Let's recap. If you remember before, I talked about Clannad. I didn't talk about each character back then, but now I can.
So here are the Clannad characters:
Okazaki Tomoya - The male protagonist that meets a bunch of girls.
Furukawa Nagisa - Okazaki's closest girl friend.
Fujibayashi Kyou - Okazaki's lively friend.
Ichinose Kotomi - A quiet, intelligent girl.
And here are the characters of Air:
Kunisaki Yukito - The male protagonist that meets a bunch of girls.
Kamio Misuzu - Yukito's closest girl friend.
Kirishima Kano - A lively girl with a good imagination.
Tohno Minagi - A quiet, intelligent girl.
There are other characters in Air that resemble those of Clannad. Like Michiru (Air) is like Sunohara Mei (Clannad). Potato even has a counterpart in Clannad. Potato is a small, white dog that runs around saying, "Piko Piko." In Clannad, a small, brown pig named Botan runs around saying, "Puhi Puhi." I'm not trying to say they copied. All I'm saying is that the similarity of the characters was only the start of my disappointment.
This anime, like Clannad, came from a visual novel, which is kind of like a manga that you go through in an game-like fashion. The choices you make determine the ending.
The story is about Yukito stopping by the town in order to try and make a living there with his puppet show. He seems to have little success. During his stay, he meets several characters that make it sort of an adventure to stay there. The main story is interupted, however, by a flashback that takes about 3 episodes, which is way too long. But I'll talk about that later. During this flashback, you're introduced to what seems like the ancestors of the main characters in medieval Japan, I THINK. I don't know my history that well so don't criticize me please. Then it cuts back to the main story, which seems to have started over with a minor difference, that I won't spoil for you.
Ok, now on to the editorials. The biggest problem I had with the story is that there is little or no continuity. Things just seem to happen whenever they want, however they want, to whoever they want. The effect it had on me was that it left me confused and really hesitant to continue watching. In fact, the reason this review was so delayed was probably because I was so reluctant to keep watching. IN FACT...even though I have all 13 episodes, 2 summer specials, and a movie, I only watched 12 episodes because I really didn't want to watch the others. Not a keeper for me. Knowing that I have precious space being taken up by this make me nervous. I gotta delete this to make room for more things. The other problem I had, if you remember from my last post, was the damn flashback scene. When I'm watching an anime, I expect maybe a few flashback scenes. And of those, I expect them to be, maybe, 10 minutes, or the whole episode at max. NOT 3 whole episodes. And that's where this anime really kicked me in the balls. I waited forever to get back to the main story, because the flashback was as boring as shit. And after that, it was like getting flicked in the balls. The main story wasn't much better after that. It was painful to watch; not because the characters were struggling, but the anime was just...bad.
The characters weren't bad, but like I said before, they were repetitive. Nevertheless, it was entertaining to see each of them live out their lives and have their own little adventures. The ending was also cheesy as all hell.
Overall, I don't recommend this to you if you're a casual anime watcher. Hell, I don't even recommend this to you if you're a hardcore anime fan. I recommend this to people who play visual novels and like this kind of weird, mediocre stuff. This is similar to things like Clannad and Kanon, which are also visual novels. So if you like those, watch this.
Storyline: 6/10
Characters: 7/10
Mood: 4/10
Uniqueness: 2/10
Overall: 5/10
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