"Do you know the title of this song? It's Canon. Pachelbel's Canon. It repeats the same melody and crescendos gradually, peacefully, and beautifully. It would be nice if life changed like that: slowly but surely, while being seemingly unchanged from day to day."
— Kurata Sayuri
Kanon 2006, if you don't already know, is the second attempt at adapting Key's 1999 visual novel into the anime format. I've not yet seen the original 2002 anime, but the visual novel was actually my first visual novel ever, and since reading it, I've watched the 2006 anime twice. Needless to say, I wouldn't have watched 48
...
episodes of anime if I didn't like the story. So why the relatively low score? Well, MAL's suggested rating scale calls 7/10 "good," so there's that, but why not a 10/10 masterpiece? Read on, and I'll explain myself.
MAL suggests 5 categories for judging in reviews: story, art, sound, character, and enjoyment. So first off, I'll discuss the story. You already have a synopsis written for you on the anime's page, so I'll just boil it down to "17 year old boy moves back to the town he left when he was 10, doesn't really remember anything, acquires harem of girls, drama ensues." Now, the anime improved pretty greatly on the visual novel in some areas, which I'll get to later, but the story suffered a bit from the adaptation. In the visual novel, there are five different story routes, one per heroine, and the choices you make decide which route you follow. Each route takes place primarily in the month of January, and has its own dramatic and romantic happenings that don't usually bleed into other routes. It works very well, and the stories of the individual routes (or character arcs, in the anime adaptation) are generally quite good. Two routes in particular -- I won't say which -- stood out above the rest, in my eyes, in the visual novel, though one of those two (the one that affected me most in the visual novel, unfortunately) suffered a bit in the anime. The other is still phenomenal, and I still teared up at one point despite having already experienced it twice before -- the first time, I have to admit, I bawled my eyes out >.> And that wasn't the only time, either. If there's one thing Jun Maeda is good at, it's creating very emotionally moving drama.
The biggest problem with the anime adaptation, though, comes from trying to connect those five independent routes from the visual novel in a coherent way. KyoAni did the best they could (the best anyone could, really), but it still wasn't quite good enough. For one thing, it's kind of...drama-overload at times, if you know what I mean. In the visual novel, they're separate stories, but in the anime, you basically end up getting five stories' worth of drama packed into one. And it doesn't help that so much of it is so similar -- half the characters suffer from plot-device amnesia, and/or "Key AIDS." On their own, each dramatic happening is very well done, but all in a row, it feels a bit excessive. Some of it just isn't even necessary -- there's one particular moment in one of the later episodes where a bit of drama just slams right into you out of nowhere, and I actually laughed out loud at how sudden and unnecessary it was. The romance aspect suffers from adaptation decay, perhaps even more than the dramatic aspect. There's a point in the series where Pimp Daddy Yuuichi gets the cutest kiss ever from one girl, and you're all "awwwwwww :'3," but then literally one episode later, he's kissed by and confesses his love to a different girl who had barely even appeared at all in the previous several episodes. I was re-watching it with my girlfriend, who'd never seen nor read it before, and I believe her exact words were "whoa, what? Sudden!" I had to shrug my shoulders and say, "just pretend he hasn't been involved with any of the other girls and roll with it." The last problem with the story that arose from adapting all the arcs into one linear story was the final episode. I won't spoil anything, but it's rather forced and confusing. People say that about Clannad After Story's ending, but this is significantly harder to swallow, in my opinion. It doesn't ruin the whole story, but it does cost it yet more points.
Now, onto art! As I mentioned earlier, the original visual novel came out in 1999, and the art for it was...less than stellar. Frankly, I don't think it was any worse than the art I've seen from the 2002 anime, but it's still pretty ugly. The 2006 KyoAni art, though, is MUCH better. Yeah, okay, their mouths and noses are still almost comically tiny and in the very center of their faces (except for the males), but it definitely looks good if you aren't bothered by that aspect of the style. The animation isn't always completely fluid, but it's definitely much better than average. Even if it's 2006 KyoAni, it IS still KyoAni we're talking about here.
Sound is definitely a strong point of Kanon's, and of everything Maeda does the sound for. His compositions set the mood perfectly, 100% of the time. Well, other than the ED song, maybe, which is sometimes jarringly bright and cheery after a dramatic cliffhanger episode ending, but I won't hold that against it. The OP is fantastic, and every background track is perfect. The voice acting is solid, as well, in the original Japanese. Not a fan of the English dub, due to uguu, auu, etc. 10/10 sound.
Character...This is a bit of a tricky category. On the one hand, the bulk of the cast are little more than one-dimensional moeblobs, but on the other hand...they are SO MOE. I'm not usually a "moe" guy, but geez. Maeda knows how to write some moe waifus. Frankly, the romantic aspects of certain routes -- particularly the h-scenes in the original visual novel -- felt a bit awkward to me, because not only do many of the girls look incredibly young, but they also *ACT* incredibly young, often giving off less of a "girlfriend" vibe and more of a "pet puppy dog" vibe, if you know what I mean. It's not a huge deal, since ultimately all that matters for the viewer, in this case, is that he or she becomes attached to the characters and wants (Yuuichi) to love and protect them, and I think most viewers would agree that Key was successful there. Some people might find the characters to be "obnoxious moeblobs," but most will adore them. My girlfriend thought Ayu was annoying at first, but it didn't take too long for her to fall in love with her :P
Enjoyment is the trickiest category, I think. I mean, typically, if I gave the other categories high scores, I'd give this one a high score, and if I gave the others low scores, I'd give this a low score, you know? But I can't just average them together and call that my enjoyment score, because for me, it was more than just the sum of its parts. I criticized the various failings of the story earlier, but when I first read the visual novel years ago, I adored it. I knew the art was bad, and I knew the plot depended on too many conveniently forgotten memories and "Key Magic," but I didn't care. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me gasp, it made me sigh...It just moved me, emotionally, more strongly than most anything in fiction. I really enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy the anime quite as much, but the visual novel might have made me slightly biased compared to a viewer who's never read it. That doesn't erase the flaws in the story that I described earlier, but they might not bother new viewers as much as they bothered me.
So to sum it up, Kanon is a VERY emotional, though somewhat flawed story, with solid art for its time, lovable characters, and the perfect musical score. It's not perfect, and viewers less tolerant of forced drama, moeblobs, and "Key Magic" will probably tear it apart, but I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who thinks they might be interested. Watch it in the snowy winter, with someone or something to hug when things get serious. I think you'll enjoy it.
Nov 4, 2012
Kanon (2006)
(Anime)
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"Do you know the title of this song? It's Canon. Pachelbel's Canon. It repeats the same melody and crescendos gradually, peacefully, and beautifully. It would be nice if life changed like that: slowly but surely, while being seemingly unchanged from day to day."
— Kurata Sayuri Kanon 2006, if you don't already know, is the second attempt at adapting Key's 1999 visual novel into the anime format. I've not yet seen the original 2002 anime, but the visual novel was actually my first visual novel ever, and since reading it, I've watched the 2006 anime twice. Needless to say, I wouldn't have watched 48 ... 
Oct 3, 2012
Let's pretend for a moment that Code Geass, the series as a whole, is a pizza. You like pizza, right? I love it. At first, Code Geass was looking like a pretty jawsome pizza -- the world's BIGGEST pizza, in fact! A pizza so big that you'd need to be piloting a giant mecha to even toss it, I bet. But see, before long, things start getting a little messy: First, a land shark from Gyo charges through the kitchen. You jump the shark in your mecha, dropping the pizza and drowning Japan in cheese and tomato sauce.
...
Apr 28, 2011
3-tsu no Kumo
(Anime)
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I've never heard of Naoyuki Tsuji, but I can say one thing with near certainty: He was high as a kite when he drew this anime. I don't know what his drug of choice might have been, but judging by all the "cloud" imagery and the events of episode 2, I'm guessing it was something you smoke.
ANYWAY, 3tsu no Kumo is basically the most bizarre thing I've seen since The Apple Incident (which, by the way, I'd recommend to anyone who likes this kind of surreal, trippy-as-balls animation). The page here says it's 3 episodes at 12 minutes each, but it's actually ... 
Apr 1, 2011
Training with Hinako is basically just the same ten frames of this big-chested teenager doing push-ups in her underwear and counting aloud while crazy-ass Initial D music plays. If you like jerking off to girls doing push-ups and/or eurobeat music, this is the show for you. Hell, it's not even a bad way to learn to count in Japanese, honestly. If you want to actually get fit, though, I don't think this will really help you. That is, unless you can touch yourself and do push-ups simultaneously, in which case you're probably already in pretty good shape.
STORY: Totally non-otaku girl ... |
