Air

A few people came to Kyoto Animation through Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, their first series as main animators. Many, many more discovered them when Haruhi Suzumiya made them perhaps the animation studio to watch in the last half-decade. For me, Air was my first encounter with KyoAni, the first of three adaptations of Key visual novels – followed by Kanon and Clannad. Air came first, though, and it was Air that introduced me to the incredible visuals the company could produce on weekly anime.

Key’s character designs are always a little odd, and the 2002 attempt at a Kanon anime showed how ugly they could be if not consummately animated, but Air manages to be beautiful despite faces occasionally looking somewhat malformed. The slow-paced, thoughtful anime centres on a boy called Yukito and his visual novel-based relationships with various girls he meets when he arrives in a new town.

At first, it seems that the anime will be entirely realistic (except for Yukito’s strange ability to make a little doll dance through means unknown), but it soon becomes clear that the girls each have their own problems, and their dreams have manifested themselves – but dreams are not reality, and each of them has much to overcome before they can return to normal life. And just who is the girl with wings who lives in the skies that Yukito’s mother told him about?

Towards the end, the anime gets extremely strange. The timeframe shifts back to the feudal era, where we learn the characters are reincarnated, and an ancient curse is still in effect. Yukito may have given his life, but he can still be close to his love in the form of a crow, who has always been there, another aspect of the same soul.

To put it plainly, it is very pretentious, convoluted and confusing. The reaction of most online seemed to be ‘lolwhut why is Yukito a crow?’, which in my view was quite reasonable. Air is the favourite of few Kyoto Animation fans, because it is so very strange, as well as being very slow and solemn, giving it an air – no pun intended – of annoying superiority.

The first few episodes had the right mixture of humour and sweetness, and the comic relief of the silly little mascot dog Potato didn’t hurt. I loved the ‘Gao Gao Stegosaurus’ logo and the characters’ relationships were intriguing. The trouble is that six years later, what sticks in the mind is struggling to understand the concept of the metamorphosis, and once it was explained, finding it absurd and irritating. While this is a shame, because it is a beautiful anime and heralded the rise of a superb animation studio, at the same time both Kanon and especially Clannad do the same thing better – so I don’t mourn Air.

(expanded from impressions, 22.2.05)

ｶﾉﾝ / Kanon (2006 remake)

First Impressions, 11.10.06


As expected, the Kanon remake is much the same as its predecessor but with much nicer art. Yuuichi definitely looks better now that he’s less deformed, even if he looks, acts and speaks almost exactly like Kyon from Haruhi Suzumiya. For some reason, having watched the original series makes me feel like a fanboy, and picking up the little cameos in ep. 1 made it lots of fun – but I’m sure in a few eps I’ll remember just how bored the series made me and how goofy it becomes. 


Final Thoughts, 8.6.07

A little while back, I reviewed the original 13-episode Kanon series, and today reached the end of the Kyoto Animation remake. I have to say, my reaction to this new version was far more positive than it was to the original, even though the same flaws were present. It wasn’t just that the art and animation were far more appealing, Kyoto Animation being far abler to pull off Key’s extreme art style without the cast looking deformed, either.

Being 24 episodes rather than 13, this new Kanon was given more time to breathe and develop its characters. Yuichi in particular is less bland, given a wry sense of humour probably influenced by Kyoto Animation’s previous protagonist, Kyon from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. Yuichi’s sole male friend is either a new character or actually gets something to do, and the swing from one girl to the next is not quite so jarring, since storylines get more of a sense of conclusion – though jar they still do, Yuichi going through traumatic experiences that are soon forgotten.

And yes, familiarity with the more ridiculous supernatural elements meant my proclivity to decry them was somewhat assuaged. But stupid bits are still stupid bits, supernatural guff is supernatural guff and girls who fight ghosts that are most definitely not explicable in rational ways, even if their nature isn’t quite as it would seem, are still just that. Kanon has heaps of absurdity, and none of it works in favour of the story.

This time around, though, the same voice actors seemed much more likeable, much less whiney. I suppose it’s simply because they seemed to fit their appearances better, no longer looking like they had some otherworldly deformations. And yes, the art and animation were pretty stunning.

But in the end, an anime that stuffs in the main storylines of all the girls of a dating sim/visual novel, one by one finding flimsy reasons to abort romances, and still seems rushed at the end, cannot be counted a success.

But oh my, was it nice on the eyes, and oh, were those girls cute, especially Makoto.

カノン / Kanon (2002)

Kyoto Animation, the up-and-coming animation company behind Haruhi Suzumiya, are about to start their remake of Kanon, so I decided it was high time to finish watching the original adaptation.

First, a bit of background information for the uninitiated. Japan’s anime otaku tend to have a great fondness for erogames, computer games that tell a story almost invariably about one guy who knows a lot of girls, all of whom fall for him. You can pursue different girls, with the aim of getting to a stage where the character gets to sleep with them. Emotional attachment to a character + pornographic scene = happy otaku. As these games got more sophisticated, so too did their plotlines. I’ve never played an actual erogame (they’re mostly fully Japanese, and they sound a bit boring really) but most of the anime I’ve seen that has been adapted from them has been middle-tier but cute, the best of them being Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. Many of them contain an element of goofy supernaturalism, like Da Capo, which was almost unwatchable in places, and, of course, AIR.

AIR was one of Kyoto Animation’s previous projects. It’s also the reason they’re remaking Kanon, because they both come from the same game company, Key. I think that Kanon and AIR are the only erogames Key have made (and one non-erotic dating sim), and both have been hit anime. When adapting to animation, the writers have to take away the pornographic content of the film and choose which girl to focus upon for the main plotline, squeezing in the rest along the sides.

That’s the problem with most of the anime adaptations, including AIR, Da Capo and, yes, Kanon. One guy meanders around talking to different girls, hearing their (usually totally ridiculous) stories, getting lusted after by all of them while usually remaining comically oblivious, and then the others have to be disposed of in usually even more ridiculous ways so that he can have a monogamous relationship. In Kanon, for example, two girls moved abroad and another one turned out to be...well, not human. Yes, I did mention the goofy supernatural elements, didn’t I?

I just find this kind of anime annoying. Unfocused, unrealistic, full of lifeless characters and stupid pretentious speeches, I just can’t get into them. And I don’t like Key’s daring art style – huge eyes, tiny squashed-up noses and mouths but huge cheeks. It sort of worked in AIR with the powerhouse of Kyoto Animation behind it, but here, the animation and art only really looks good in the intro – the rest of the time it’s very ugly. The voices are also just that little bit too childish and grating for my tastes, apart from the aunt character, who was perfect.

The story, despite ending with a bit of a surprise, was really a huge mess. I’ll watch the new version out of curiosity and respect for Kyoto Animation, but I really can’t expect much.

(originally written 24.9.06)