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Aug 2, 2012
5 Centimeters Per Second contains most of Shinkai's usual elements: lots of narration, awesome graphics and beautiful portrayal of emotion. This one doesn't have any Sci-fi in it, which makes the story feel more original than The Place Promised in Our Early Days, but fails in the fact it relies too much on narration. I can't think of many ways it can be fixed, and in many ways it added to the atmosphere and emotion. It is representative of the characters state of mind- the fact no matter what they do, that person is on their mind- their loneliness brings them inwards to observe, but
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I still think it's a little flawed with film. If it was a piece of literature alone, they'd be nothing wrong with it. However, it's not.
Animation
The backgrounds are almost like photos how realistic and detailed they are, and bring a beautiful atmosphere to the scenes. The lighting is gorgeous. Do I really have to comment on this? Look at a screenshot for crying out loud! The character designs are very nicely drawn. 10/10
The characters don't move too often because of the "montage" style of the anime, but when they do, it's very fluid and realistic. It's not static with no body language like most anime. Some camera angles are wonderful. 7/10
Sound
Beautiful piano pieces and violins like in Hoshi no Koe and PPIOED. The song in the third part is very well sung and the acoustic guitars.
Story
The stories are very sweet and sad. They start off a little dull, but build up to a dramatic crescendo. They're something everyone can relate to. Cute and sweet, but nothing too much more.
My only problem with this anime's story is the third part seemed absolutely pointless. It didn't move the story along, it was just a collection of scenes from the previous parts with some extra bits added in. It was essentially a music video, and that could have been put in the extras, not part of the feature film.
Character
The characters aren't the focus. The plot is. So the characters are rather forgettable, but they have some character detail, even if it is small. They're likable and relatable, and that's all you need for a story like this. Effective for what it has to achieve as an animation.
Value
The first two parts are worth a look if you're looking for some drama. I can't decide which one I like better because their setups are quite different. In future, Shinkai should try "showing" scenes rather than "telling", although some description is necessary. When the narration mentioned things like how a location smells or feels, brings a new dimension to the viewer, because as much as we can relate, we can't feel or smell anything. With this we can visualize it a lot better, and get a much better feel as to what's going on. As a result, we feel more involved and care about the characters.
Good if you want to introduce someone to anime. I wouldn't watch it again, but its worth watching once. Lend it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 2, 2012
AIR is different to what I expected. As beautiful as it is technically, it's story is more on the character-development slice-of-life drama than story orientated. For this reason, it is quite slow and loses some points in the entertainment department, at least until episode 7. Recommended to those who like drama anime.
Animation
No flaws here. Shiny, nicely colored, fluid, movement... detailed backgrounds. This show has it all. I can only imagine how gorgeous it must look on a big screen on DVD. The character designs all have big eyes, which may not appeal to some, but I found it very cute. The only downside is I
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thought the main characters mother was her sister initially.
Sound
The opening and ending songs are nice, the opening being the best 9/10.
The background sound is mediocre, sometimes even terrible if you take out the opening theme they repeat a couple of times. It is much like Elfen Lied in this respect. Some of it sounded like cheesy elevator/advertising music. For a drama series I expected better. If only Yuki Kajuira composed the music!!!
Story
Very interesting story here. It is cute, original with a very childlike premise. There are confusing twists and turns, that many don't like. They make you speculate and think though, which is a plus in my books. It certainly has more detail than you would expect from Episode 1, and many anime don't expand beyond that, so bonus points.
It mixes drama, fantasy and romance together. It is a very cool combination, with a bit of everything for people to enjoy. A similar theme to Full Moon Wo Sagashite is present throughout: live life to the fullest, and cherish the ones you love. It is very touching :)
Character
Greatly developed and altogether relatable and likable. All of them have their little stories to tell, quirks (spoilers!!! Dinosaurs seemed like a symbol for Mizusu's soul being very ancient and long lived) and are nicely drawn. I love Yukito and Mizusu, they are very adorable together.
The useless characters were the ones at the start of the anime who just disappeared around episode 7.
Value
I wouldn't recommend this anime at a drop of a hat. It certainly isn't for everyone.
I would recommend this anime if you are looking for a more character orientated, sweet, "realistic", "slice of life" anime.
I'd watch this over Fruits Basket any day.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 1, 2012
The AIR Summer special was just an excuse to show Kanna doing cute things and getting into fights with her protectors. It fails to add any extra character development, it just elongates the montage in the series of their travels. Timeline wise, it belongs in the series around Episode 9, however, it is rightly not part of the AIR TV series. It only exists to drag the story out. As much as I love Kanna and the AIR TV series, this didn't cut it for me. For fans, it's best to pick up another Kyoto Animation project instead.
Animation
The animation is as strong as the
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original AIR TV series, nice colors, beautifully detailed backgrounds and fluid animation. I have no complaints in this department.
Sound
The Opening and ending songs are the same as the series, and so is the sub par BGM.
Story
As I said, when you get to the part in the AIR TV series when they show the montage of Kanna traveling and practicing her juggling, this Summer Special elongates it, by filling it with lots of mildly entertaining, but pointless scenes. If it had enough story value, it would have been part of the series. Think of this as "AIR TV deleted scenes". They are entertaining but not essential.
Character
The characters are just as likable as they originally were. No character development appears in these 2 episodes, though.
Value
Little to no value. Even if you are an AIR TV fan, I would avoid this. AIR TV was at its greatest as the 12 episode series. Please don't try and make it longer. It was 12 episodes for a reason. If you want something similar to AIR, Kanon 2006 and Clannad have been getting rave reviews. Give those a try.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 1, 2012
Since the AIR movie existed to condense the series into something a little less drawn out, and focused on Misuzu and Yukito’s relationship dominantly, I expected something to have superior quality to the original series. How wrong I was. Besides the tighter screenplay, this movie fails where it should have been strong: its technical aspects.
Animation :
This was my major problem with this film. Because Toei Animation decided to take on the project (the guys who made Digimon) instead of Kyoto Animation, the animation style has changed greatly, and for the worse. I’m not saying Toei Animation is a bad studio. They are capable of beautifully
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animating their work (see any of the Digimon Movies to see what I mean). However, it’s as though they didn’t really care for this production, or just made it to make money, with little passion for what they were actually doing.
The change in character designs was not the problem- in fact the smaller eyes may sit better with audiences unfamiliar or who dislike Kyoto Animations work. The character designs were still cute, but the lighting and colouring was all wrong. In most shots there is so much light around the characters that you can’t even tell what is going on, and the lighting is so bright the colours and character designs become obscure and ugly.
The animators also threw in some split screens, which I wouldn’t a problem with normally, if they had kept the high quality animation Kyoto Animation did. But they used a lot of stills (stills in a movie, right??) – including hand drawn images as stills. The hand drawn bits (in colour pencil) looked higher quality than the actual animation itself .
The backgrounds look quite uninspired and the characters didn’t move around too much. This is unacceptable standards for a film, or anime itself for that matter. Kyoto Animation should have animated this project.
Sound:
Background music was also surprisingly mediocre- mirroring, if not worse than the original series. For a film, something along the lines of Tenmon or just orechestrated music would have been much more appropriate and up to standard.
I didn’t like that they re-used the same opening song for the opening. Rather, I’m annoyed they didn’t remix it or changed it slightly to show the movie was special compared to the series.
Story;
The story is almost as good as the original, the filler bits of the series (Episodes 2-6) have been cut. My only gripe with the script is I didn’t like how the Kanna flashbacks were for the majority, narrated rather than shown (rule of writing- show don’t tell!). Otherwise the script is a lot tighter. I didn’t like the change in the ending though. I preferred the soul switching twists in the original series. It didn’t seem that dramatic of an ending this time around because Mizusu wasn’t completely alone.
I did like the additional bits of romance between Mizusu and Yukito though. It gave a bit of what the fans wanted :P
Character:
The characters are just as strong as the original as they encounter all the same issues and their backgrounds are pretty much the same. No complaints here.
Value:
Overall AIR MOVIE fails. I was hoping to give it all 10/10’s (or close to it), like the Rebuilds of Evangelion. It has worse animation, worse sound – and they changed the ending for the worse.
AIR fans should watch the series instead, and Kyoto Animation should re-do the movie and make the show shine for what it is: a beautiful love story of living life to the fullest and not giving up.
I would not recommend this to any anime fan; it is a demonstration of pure laziness and something I don’t want to show off to anyone. It is an insult to call this a movie, or anime for that matter.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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