Air in Summer

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 ... 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.

If you are considering this two-part OVA special, it is under the assumption you have completed the main series of Air. The plot of "Air in Summer" is merely an expansion on the events that transpire in episodes 8 and 9 regarding Kanna, the original winged-maiden alluded to in the main series.

The first episode of this OVA's runtime spends about a fourth showing events from episode 8's events to give context. At first this gave me the allusion the special was going to basically be the main series' episode 8 and 9, with a few new scenes. However, episode 2 broke away ... more into events not seen in the main series' portrayal of their journey.

Does the special add anything new to the show? Yes and no. While one could easily skip the special and lose nothing on the outcome of the show, it does give some treats of more insight into "the little things," as well as a definite push of more character development to Kanna, Ryūya, and Uraha.

For example, we are given a small dabble on the affections between Ryūya and Uraha, Kanna's protectors. In the anime, their eventual union (episode 9) is pretty much devoid of any hints of infatuation before they decide to wed, so this gave a bit more understanding.

We also get a look into Ryūya past and upbringing in the second episode which is definitely a pleasant expansion in terms of exposition.

This special gets a low rating in my book because of personal bias. It frankly was the least enjoyable part of the show for me in the main series. And even though this OVA deepened the three characters from episode 8 and 9, I still didn't find it extremely necessary to the show. It was a fine addition for sure, don't get me wrong....but it wasn't "great."

The art is obviously of the quality of the main show and the sound does not deviate either. Again, if you are here, you obviously finished the main show and most likely enjoyed it. You'll be right at home.

For someone who only gave the main series a rating of 6, it's difficult to rate this special very high right from the start. I felt these specific episodes (in the main show) shifted away from the established setting too much, and would argue it is where the series started to decline in my investment towards the outcome, as well as getting a little too confusing for its own good.

Overall, a good solid special if you enjoyed the show or are simply completing your experience of Air.

This didn't answer any of my questions about the end of the anime it's supposed to be a continuation of. While I thought the girl character was cute and some of their interactions were pretty fun, I don't see what it has to do with anything. I guess that's on me for not playing the visual novel. If you really want to know the story you've got to play through it dozens of times to get all the endings and only then will you unlock the choices that let you get the really real ending that finally explains everything but you won't even understand it ... unless you played everything up to that point anyway. Maybe it's because I've been watching too many of these adaptation lately but I'm just so burned out on them. I really hope Kaginado is funny enough to be worth all this trouble I'm going through to familiarize myself with the characters.

6/10