AIR (anime)

Director: Tatsuya Ishihara
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Original run: January 6, 2005 – March 31, 2005
Episodes: 13
Developer (of the original ‘visual novel’ game): Key
Publisher (of the original ‘visual novel’ game): Visual Art’s (PC), NEC Interchannel (DC/PS2),Prototype (SoftBank 3G/PSP)
Demographic: Seinen
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance

Info from Wikipedia

This is one of three KEY’s famous visual novel work, the other two being KANON and CLANNAD. Anime otakus out there should be familiar with these 3 animes, especially CLANNAD which is airing in Japan now. This anime is a story of a travelling bum, Kunisaki Yukito, who arrived in a quiet little seaside town. Being a good-for-nothing NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training), he performed puppet shows to earn a living. Interestingly, he has a mysterious ability to telekinetically manipulate his puppet without need of any kind of physical manipulation (aka he has The Force). Despite that, however, the first group of kids he encountered (and subsequently most kids) found his shows boring, so he doesn’t earn anything at all. While sleeping off his hunger along an escarpment, he awoke shouting “ramen set”, and saw a girl by his side stretching out her arms facing the sea ala Titanic style, looking as if she’s flying. The girl then turned to him and greeted him, thereafter befriending him easily with no fear (he’s just some homeless stranger afterall) and treating him to a packet drink. Ok, i’ve just about described the first quarter of the first episode. Sorry for the spoiler. haha.

Anyway, that girl turns out to be a very cute middle school kid (she’s supposed to be 15 i think) named Kamio Misuzu. Ever since watching AIR, I have decided that Misuzu is THE most moe (japanese slang meaning cute, look it up in wiki) anime character ever. No one, I mean NO ONE, can beat her, Haruhi and Mikuru included. She has a very cute habit of saying “Gao!” which is her way of mimicking a dinosaur’s roar, which is her favorite animal group (preference for 4 legged herbivorous was noted). She also has a very childish idiosyncratic speech pattern, as well as child-like mannerisms. (Just for info, KANON, AIR, and CLANNAD all features lolis, so there).

Now at this point, most who haven’t watch or heard of this anime before will probably think this is yet another romance-type anime, between male lead Yukito and female lead Misuzu. The MOVIE version was like that (which was done by TOEI by the way, which also did the first KANON anime series), and was different from the original storyline. This anime/visual novel however, turns out to focus more on the theme of friendship and family love, especially the bond between mother and child. As it turns out, Yukito will meet other loli girls in that town, and they all have a very heartwarming (or rending) story to share. As i mentioned before, Yukito was a travelling bum, however his reason for travelling was to find a ‘girl with wings in the sky’, whom his mother (who also went around travelling and performing the same puppet show) had tried to find, and apparently many generations up his family line too. The girls in the town will somehow connect with this story of a winged girl in the sky. Each of them also expresses the dream to be ably to fly in the sky. This is where the title, Air, is sort of derived from by the way. And Misuzu, it becomes apparent that she is connected with this winged girl, and have recurrent dreams of being the winged girl. However, these dreams shall end tragically for her…

I guess I shall only reveal this much, else really too spoiler le. This anime is a MUST WATCH! It is very cute and funny, yet heartwarming, and also heartrending at the end. I must warn that this is a potential tearjerker, as I myself had shed tears when watching the finale. Also, this anime takes after the visual novel in that it also has the 3 story arcs, with the first arc being about Yukito’s encounters with the girls until Misuzu’s sickness, then a dream arc about a legend of the last winged beings in ancient Japan in 996A.D., lastly a repeat arc in which Yukito’s wish came true in a weird sort of way. The last arc is also the most touching one. By the way, the official sub title for the game and anime is 1000th Summer. The story takes place in summer, and i guess it’s most likely set in 1996, 1000 years after the events in the 996AD arc.

Some AMVs (anime music videos):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk1eledzgpQ (this is purely the opening song for the anime, no visuals)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kT1VzbrzUZk (some scans of artwork. low quality)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KiHVGPSuA5

Lastly, besides the great storyline and great artwork, this anime also features some of the best music there is to be. My number one favourite is the hauntingly beautiful ballad, Aozora 青空, an insert track in the anime, which means ‘blue sky’ in japanese. It is sung by LIA who also sang for both OP and ED track, Bird’s Song (Tori no Uta) and Farewell Song respectively. The lyrics were written by Maeda Jun, who is also the main scenario writer for AIR, KANON, and CLANNAD, as well as a major music writer cum lyricist, writing for most of the 3’s soundtracks, though of course he didn’t do that alone. Anyway, here’s a very wonderful live version performance of Aozora by LIA: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Sy85N0OEvl8

Lyrics (edited from gendou.com for some errors and what I felt to be inaccurate translations):

Ano umi dokomademo aokatta tookumade
Ano michi dokomademo tsudzuiteta massuguni
あの海どこまでも青かった遠くまで
あの道どこまでも続いてた真っ直ぐに
That Ocean, no matter where, was very blue, even from far away
That path, to the utmost, stretched straight ahead

Ichiban hayaku sunaoni waratta mono kachi
Ichiban sukina anohito waratteru
一番早く素直に笑った者勝ち
一番好きなあのひと笑ってる
Let’s race to see who can make the most honest smile
The one I love the most is smiling

Dare yorimo tooku e ittemo koko kara mata waratte kureru?
Hitomi wo tojireba futto natsu no hi no nioi
誰よりも遠くに云ってもここからまた笑ってくれる？
瞳を閉じればふっと夏の日の匂い
If I went far away, further than anyone else, can you still smile again like this?
When I close my eyes, I can almost smell the scent of those summer days

Ano kawa asonderu futari kiri doro darake
Ano kumo otteiru todoitara shiawase to
あの川　遊んでる　ふたりきり泥だらけ
あの雲　追っている　届いたら幸せと
In that river, we were playing together, covered in mud
That cloud, I’m chasing it because, if I reached it, I can be happy.

Ichiban hayaku kono saka nobotta mono kachi
Ichiban sukina ano basho mezashite
一番早くこの坂 登った者勝ち
一番好きなあの場所　目指して
The first to race up this hill wins
Lets head towards that favourite place

Takusan no omoide ga aru hoka ni ha nani mo iranai gurai
Hitomi wo tojireba sugu ano umi no nioi
たくさんの思い出がある　他にはなにも要らないぐらい
瞳を閉じればすぐあの海の匂い
I have so many memories. It’s almost as if I didn’t need anything else
When I close my eyes, I can immediately smell the scent of the ocean

Mata natsu ga kuru gin iro ni hikaru
Minamo ni utsusu futaribun no kage
また夏がくる 銀色に光る
水面に写す ふたりぶんの影
Summer will come again, glimmering with a silver color
Two shadows are reflected on the water’s surface

Dare yorimo tooku he ittemo kokokara mata waratte kureru?
Hitomi wo tojireba futto ano hi no aozora
誰よりも遠くに行ってもここからまた笑ってくれる？
瞳を閉じればふっとあの日の青空
If I went far away, further than anyone else, can you still smile again like this?
When I close my eyes, I can almost see the blue skies of that day.

Some final notes. This anime was produced by Kyoto Animation, who later went on to make the sensational hits Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu and Lucky Star, and their latest work, CLANNAD. In one scene, there was a cameo of the female leads from KANON. Apparently that triggered fans to implore KyoAni to make KANON (it had earlier been animated by TOEI), thus that is why KANON has 2 versions. Well I haven’t obtain KANON yet, hope to do so soon hehe My rating for this anime is 10/10

Post notes: The full series run for 12 eps. Ep 13 is a summary episode. There’s 2 OAVs featuring more of the dream arc in 996AD (it’s real cute and funny too). Yukito in the anime version is voiced by Ono Daisuke, the same guy who did the ESPer guy for Haruhi too (as well as many other major animes). Misuzu is voiced by veteran Kawakami Tomoko, who appeared in many other notable anime like Elfen Lied, KANON, Nodame Cantabile, Tactics, History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi etc.

There’s a very weird miniature poodle character in the anime, that goes “piko piko” like some pikachu wannabe…

Midori no Hibi (Midori Days)

From Wikipedia: “Midori Days (美鳥の日々, Midori no Hibi^?) is a shōnen fantasy manga by Kazurou Inoue. It was published by Shogakukan in the magazine Shonen Sunday from January 2003 until October 2004 and collected in 8 tankōbon volumes. It is licensed in in English in North America by VIZ Media and in Singapore by Chuang Yi. The series is about a high school boy who one day finds his right hand replaced with a girl named Midori and his attempts to return her to her real body.

The series was adapted as a 13-episode anime series produced by Studio Pierrot. It aired in Japan between April and June 2004 on the anime television network Animax, who has also broadcasted the series across its networks worldwide, including Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Latin America and other regions. It is licensed in North America by Media Blasters.”

At first i thought the “midori” is 緑 which means ‘green’. Turns out that it’s actually 美 (mi) 鳥 (tori, but as an adjective is attached in front, read as dori), which is the name of the female lead. As can be read above, it’s a story about a high school delinquent who is a very notorious fighter known as “Demon Right Fist Mad Dog”, but for 20 times he tried to confess and date a girl, he got rejected. So one day he made a passing remark that he might as well stoop to falling in love with his right hand. And turns out that he awaken to a curiously strange event of having his right hand turn into a girl named Midori.

As the show progresses, it quickly becomes apparent that Midori had been having a crush on the delinquent Seiji, and that her real body is lying inert in her extremely luxurious mansion, unable to wake up. Thus Seiji has to deal with this weird situation of having a girl as his right hand, losing his famed ‘Demon Right Fist’. he keeps her head wrapped in bandage so that he can hide her away as if his right hand was injured.

This is a shounen romance story, with quite some otaku references, as well as ecchi scenes (but nothing much really, just some exposure of breasts; by the way, question to animators: why the hell are girls’ nipples PINK? but then again in most anime hair are very unnatural riot of colours, so i guess i should just overlook the inaccuracies.) The plot device seems inspired by hand puppet, which Seiji uses at some point as alternative explanation when discovered. All in all it was light-hearted story about their trials and tribulations together, ending quite well as a sweet romance, with plenty of gangster fights and funny gags along the way. Rating 6.5/10, as it isn’t something to die for, but quite watchable and interesting. Also the ending theme, Mou Sukoshi Mou Sukoshi (Just a little more, just a little more) by Saori Atsumi is quite nice and gentle.

And oh, the female lead seiyu (voice actor) is Nakahara Mai, the same seiyu for current anime craze Clannad’s female lead Nagisa. She also voiced the following roles: Rena in Higurashi and Higurashi Kai, Aono Morimiya in Sola, and many more.

Cloverfield

Directed by Matt Reeves
Produced by J. J. Abrams, Bryan Burk
Written by Drew Goddard
Starring Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Yustman, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T. J. Miller
Running time 84 min.
Budget $25 million

Official Website: http://www.cloverfieldmovie.com/

Caught it with xx and his friends and yac last sunday. It’s about a handycam retrieved by the US Department of Defense (DoD), which contains footage of a group of young people having a farewell party at Manhatten, New York, which got interrupted by an earthshaking and loud explosion from the harbour. As things unfold, it becomes clear that a strange and unknown giant monster has invaded New York ala Godzilla style. The monster looks like a cross between a simian and a bat to me, with a reptilian tail. It has smaller monsters (approximately slightly smaller than a human adult) on its body that looks like tarantula though, which drops off and attacks the humans directly.

Shot on a handycam ala Blair Witch Project style, it can be quite a pain to watch it at some points (whereby the cameraman gets frightened or shaken and so on and thus the camera view gets shaky as well). Having seen the trailer for it at a previous movie from the 4th row in the front, at that point i got really quite sick and dizzy by just the trailer! but thanks to that probably, i was much better prepared to watch the real movie, although sitting farther away behind this time helps alot too hehe. Therefore I did not get dizzy at all this time, though xx complained so after the movie. Guess its where u focus at that counts, as i remembered focusing on a single point in the screen during the shaky scenes. Even so, this movie has been quite well put together i felt, combining a monster thriller with a romance story in the making well. But the ending was a lilttle too abrupt i guess, with a very audible “huh” going up from the audience at the end. But i guess the monsters were finally defeated for the DoD to be able to comb through New York and finding this handycam. hehz, the handycam sure lasted very long, and in various adverse situation too. If in real life got such a zhai cam, i would buy it! haha.

Well the style was refreshing, the suspense well kept throughout, points have to be deducted for the motion-sickness inducing shaky shots. Otherwise I found this movie very enjoyable and well done. My rating would be a 7/10. If you haven’t catch it yet, please do! And oh, get seats at least halfway away from the screen.