Aria the Animation Episode 1 - That Lovely Dream…
The OP music is Undine, by Yui Makino - not sure whether it’s the music playing over the sponsor message or the credit sequence, but I actually like the song, and Yui Makino’s wimpy singing suits it!
ED - Rainbow (Round Table feat. Nino) - I love Round Table anyway, and the song is wonderfully low-key, much like the series. Some really nice pencil-coloured drawings, too. Nice is a running theme for this entry, you’ll discover…
On a terraformed futuristic Mars, now known as Aqua, Akari Mizunashi is a gondolier in training in the watery city of Neo Venezia, working as part of the Aria Company. Although theoretically not supposed to be out on a job by herself, she gets co-opted into taking a sullen young girl named Ai out on a gondola ride, with the strange cat-like President Aria along for the ride. They meet one of Akari’s friends, Aika, and eventually Ai starts to open up a little - however, drama strikes when President Aria falls into the waters and almost gets drowned by a passing boat before the graceful and experienced Alicia (one of Akari’s co-workers) scoops him out of the water. Ai is returned safely home to her waiting parents, and the reasons for her reticence are revealed - Ai leaves having made some new friends and grown to like Neo Venezia (and baked potatoes!), and Akari and Alicia together reflect on the day as they look out over the waters.
Aria is so NICE! While occasionally the artwork suffers a little from the constant meshing of water (CG or cel) with the gondolas (boats are VERY difficult to animate convincingly, especially in anime style), and nothing is particularly detailed, HAL Film Maker have really captured a kind of European style with the background artwork in particular and, while it’s obvious there’s a LOT of people who worked on Kaleido Star on this project (check out all the Junichi Sato SD faces, and the character designs too!) that certainly isn’t a bad thing. The constant guitar music is gentle and soothing, and while nothing really important happened I really didn’t care for this episode - whether Aria can still remain enjoyable after how ever many bajillion episodes it’s planned for I don’t know, but for the moment I’m looking forward to seeing more as a nice way to relax - Akari’s life seems genuinely interesting, which is how to make slice-of-life work properly!
October 8th, 2005 at 5:33 pm
I’m still selfishly crying in a corner that you gave up on Zettai Shounen, but you’ve convinced me to check this show out (which I was reluctant to see because I don’t like the colours and there seems to be a huge lack of guys which is a surprisingly good indication that the series is not going to be to my tastes.)
October 8th, 2005 at 7:49 pm
I’m glad you liked ARIA. I still have one question that was bothering me since I read the manga: Where exactly are that white creature’s eyes? are they the blue rings or the brown circles at the top of its head? Why do all the bloggers think he is a cat?!
October 10th, 2005 at 9:12 am
Because Aria shachou (President Aria) IS a cat. A martian cat, that is. He is the mascot of the company, as every gondola company on Mars/Aqua has a cat as president and mascot.
I really liked this show, I had great hopes in it since I read Aqua’s volumes and almost every Aria’s volumes. It was so nice, and the cute music was gret, especially the jazzy part.
Great show, peaceful and all that stuff.
October 10th, 2005 at 9:15 am
Ho and by the way, about Aria’s eyes, I think the blue circles are like our blue/brown/grey circles and the white point is like the pupil of our eyes.
Well that’s only a guess, since I’ve never had the chance to meet a martian cat yet :p
October 10th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
Thanks for the information.
March 9th, 2006 at 7:44 am
i like aqua very much!!!! kawaii!!!!