Air

Yukito Kunisaki is on a journey in search of the Winged Maiden who was bound to the sky centuries ago, after hearing an old childhood tale from his mother. As Yukito shows his puppet show to people in an attempt to make some money, he finds himself in a small town in which he did not expect to stay very long. However, when he meets an unusual girl named Misuzu, things take a drastic turn as he is invited to stay with her.

By staying in the quaint town, Yukito soon becomes friends with the locals. As he gets to know them better, he learns of their problems and decides to help, putting his search for the Winged Maiden on hold. With his search on hold, and his growing attachment to Misuzu and the small town, will Yukito ever find the Winged Maiden, or is she closer than he thought?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kamio, Misuzu Main

Kawakami, Tomoko Japanese

Kunisaki, Yukito Main

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Toono, Minagi Main

Yuzuki, Ryouka Japanese

Kirishima, Kano Main

Okamoto, Asami Japanese

Potato Supporting

Konno, Hiromi Japanese

Kanna Supporting

Nishimura, Chinami Japanese

Kamio, Haruko Supporting

Hisakawa, Aya Japanese

Ryuuya Supporting

Canna, Nobutoshi Japanese

Michiru Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Sora Supporting

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Hatta, Youko Producer

Nakamura, Shinichi Producer

Kananiwa, Kozue Producer

Ishihara, Tatsuya Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

May 19, 2024

Firechick12012

Recommended

I've been watching anime since I was a kid, growing up with stuff like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, and Hamtaro, but it wasn't until 2005-2007 that I began to really look into what anime really was and dip my toes deeper into stuff outside what was airing on TV. I actually came across fansubs of Air while looking for another show, and knowing nothing about it, I watched it and I wound up enjoying it. Fun fact: This, along with Ouran High School Host Club, were some of the first anime I watched fansubbed, before they were brought to the US on home video. I didn't ... learn about the concept of licensing until later. I used to think anything that wasn't on TV was only in Japan until I learned that anime and their English dubs could only be watched on DVD, not on TV (Depending on the series). I enjoyed Air enough that I bought the DVDs (The movie included), though I did exchange them for a complete collection later. Air is an adaptation of one of Key's visual novels, and the anime was pretty well-liked when it first aired, though it would quickly get overshadowed years later by Clannad. While I do enjoy Clannad a little more, I still have a sentimental attachment to Air as a series, and rewatching it now, while some parts of it didn't age all that well, I still think it's a great show made by people who clearly loved the source material and did it justice.

Traveling street performer Yukito Kunisaki arrives at a small seaside town called Kami, having traversed around Japan in continuation of his late mother's search for the "girl in the sky" who, according to a family legend, has been cursed to spend eternity all alone. Yukito's sole way of earning money is by performing a puppet show by moving a doll that has been passed down in his family with magic, but he fails to gain anyone's attention by doing so, and as a result, he's low on money. The next day, he meets Misuzu Kamio—a sincere yet clumsy high school girl who is eager to become friends with him. He accepts her offer to eat lunch at her home, and Misuzu's aunt and foster mother Haruko Kamio is later persuaded to let him stay for the time being. Later on, Yukito meets two other girls who go to Misuzu's school—sly, friendly Kano Kirishima and serene, quiet Minagi Tohno—who, like Misuzu, have strange personalities connected with mysterious pasts. Any one of them could be the incarnation of this "girl in the sky," and if the curse isn't broken, the girl in question could die.

If you can believe it, this is technically the first anime produced by Kyoto Animation all by themselves, without the need for outsourcing, which is what they themselves were known for providing to other studios throughout the 80s and 90s. If there's one thing KyoAni is famous for, its for its attention to making movement as smooth, detailed, and life-like as possible. Say what you will about Itaru Hinoue's over-the-top cutesy moe character designs, with their comically big eyes and small mouths on large chins, KyoAni managed to not only have them transition to animation quite nicely, but really put in the effort to make them come alive with fantastic character movement. Everything from clothing, walking, and hair animation is given as much care and attention as humanly possible, and even in scenes that would normally be static, such as characters standing around talking, the animators still put in the work. It helps that even mundane conversations are made visually interesting with intimate camera angles, absolutely stunning backgrounds, and creative, cinematic storyboarding. Real talk, I never had any problem with Itaru Hinoue's character designs, and still don't to this day, because I've seen way worse, and whether you like them or not, those designs at least made Air distinct and gave it a sense of identity. Personally, my only real issue is that the whites in the characters' eyes look distractingly blurry, like someone used the photoshop brush tool on them, which, to be fair, KyoAni improved on when they would go on to make the anime for both Kanon and Clannad.

Really, there isn't much to say about the soundtrack that hasn't been said already, so I'll be brief: Yes, it reuses music from the game, but all of it is great, and Tori no Uta is still one of the best anime openings ever, no cap. Before I even go into the characters, there is something I want to talk about: For as revered as the works by Key are even now, there are many who dismiss their stories and narratives as emotionally manipulative. On some level, I can understand where they're coming from, as most companies think having cute moe girls be sad is all they need to get people to cry and spend money. Hell, I have this view on Prima Doll, another Key property, which I feel tried way too hard to push being cutesy moe over making any logical sense and putting in the work to get you to care about the characters and story. Again, I haven't played the VN for Air yet, so I don't know how it handles its narrative and characterization, but personally, I don't think Air is emotionally manipulative because unlike most moe shows, it's very clear that the staff behind the anime respected the source material and put in the work to get you to care about the characters and their interpersonal conflicts, and any so-called "moe" qualities they have do have in-story explanations behind them rather than just being there for the sake of having them be uwu pwecious. For example, Misuzu's quirks—her clumsiness, acting younger than her age would suggest, and tendency to make cutesy dinosaur noises—are treated as weird and causes for concern rather than as endearing. Air takes great pains to flesh out its characters and develop them, making them feel like more than just squeaky-voiced moeblobs, even if their characterization still can't be considered three-dimensional compared to others down the line. Not every character gets this treatment though, and out of the three girls, Kano is the weakest one because her story is just there to give more info on the "girl in the sky" legend and make her into a red herring, that's it. Without going into spoilers, Misuzu's mother Haruko is the most complex, compelling, three-dimensional character in the whole cast, and Air did an amazing job at bringing this conflicted, hard-partying mom to life, especially in the finale. Even Yukito winds up having more to him than just being the snarky, disillusioned self-insert MC that Key is usually known for.

As far as the narrative goes, Air as a series is surprisingly well paced, having a clear plan on how it wanted to tell its story, build up to its twists, and wasted absolutely no time in doing what it needed to do. Being that this is a short series based on a much longer visual novel, I'm sure a lot of stuff wasn't adapted, and fans of the VN might consider it to be rushed as a result. I wouldn't say that's KyoAni's fault because they were only given 12 episodes to work with, and the staff made the most of what they had. However, much like the rest of Key's works, Air is a series that, while it does put in the work to have an overarching narrative that makes sense, a lot of the supernatural elements don't get a whole lot of explanations behind them and really require you to stretch your suspension of disbelief. I personally had no problem with how Air did it, as the series did try to tie everything together as much as it could, made as much use of its overarching themes as possible, and had it all work in the context of its narrative, but if you're someone who wants your stories to feel more complete and logical, you will find yourself disappointed. In my opinion, I think Air's story and how it tied everything together and made use of its cast of characters worked in its favor, allowing all of the drama it set up to actually feel earned rather than cheap and slapped together for the sake of easy emotional manipulation. I actually consider One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e to be fair more cheap in its drama and actually emotionally manipulative because unlike Air, One thought it could get by with just cutesy moeblobs, a stick thin storyline, and an MC who is a repugnant jackass and didn't bother putting in the work to make us care about any of it.

Say what you will about Air as an anime, it did help put KyoAni on the map as a serious animation studio, and its success paved the way for the studio's explosive success in the late 2000s, resulting in many other anime people still love to this day. I liked Air when I first watched it as a kid, and I'm surprised at how well it still holds up when I rewatched it as an adult. While I do enjoy the anime for Clannad a bit more, I still have a soft spot for Air, as it was one of the first anime I saw that showed me that anime could tell many more kinds of stories than just Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Digimon. Plus, now that I'm older and know how to use an emulator on my computer, I found a way to actually play the visual novel now, so expect a review of that in the future! Though with the new advent of Kanon finally getting an official release in English in the near future, here's hoping Air gets that same treatment. Is Air sappy and melodramatic? Sure. You can either embrace it as a heartwrenching drama, or just dismiss it as moe fodder made to cater to the fetishes of lonely otaku. Whatever floats your boat, and everyone's mileage may vary for something like Air, or Key's entire portfolio in general. But to me, Air is a nicely crafted drama made by people that truly loved its source material, made the most of the short time it had, and managed to expand my horizons for what anime is capable of, and for that, while it's not one of my favorite anime of all time, as I like several shows better than it, Air will always a place in my heart.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 13, 2024

RedBored

Mixed Feelings

The earlier episodes were great. They were funny and I liked the characters, the animation and colours were great too. About half way through the series they start to go more into the story and mystery they set up in the first half, and this is where the series started to fall apart for me. The answers to my questions were not interesting at all and at some points I was super confused as to why some things happened as well and that just frustrated me even more than I already was by how dull the series got after this point. The last half is ... super cry bait that was way too fast for me. I love Anohana and that's the most cry-baity cry-bait series I've ever seen but at least that felt slow enough for me to actually care while this gave me a few episodes to get to know ALL of the characters then goes 100mph into their tragic backstory or whatever. There were times where it was very obvious that I was meant to care about side character A during their super sad moment of sadness but because they had few appearances in the first half and maybe a few bits of backstory I just did not care whatsoever. Even with the two MCs I didn't care because before they got to their super tragic sad depressing miserable story I had to sit through all of the crap episodes (basically everything from 7 onwards) so a lot of the steam I had was lost.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 2, 2024

CBMiura

Not Recommended

I didn't enjoy the show.

The animation it's pretty good, the story it's debatable, but the problem for me it's the characters.

I won't say things about the animation because it's well done by the time it's made. The story if you think deeply and thoughfully for a few hours you can see the light in the end of the tunnel, and it kinda make sense, you can see the effort to not leave loose ends, even though it failed.

But the characters, ah the characters, are just too boring and annoying.

It was like a torture for me to watch a slow paced anime with such boring ... and annoying characters. I won't say a thing about the development of the characters because they didn't improve at all.

It was so hard to watch this anime and because of that I don't recommend it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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