Product: Air TV: The Complete Series S.A.V.E.
Rating: 5.0
Key/Visual Arts does it again
It's impossible to miss the signature style of Key/Visual Arts: Great character devlopment, awesome emotional involvement, stunning visuals, heart-touching, tear-jerking, amazing music, and lovable protagonists.The characters are relatable, believable, and sympathetic. The characters don't get handed the idiot ball (even though there were plenty of chances for it to occur) and do stupid things that make you want to bang your face against the wall; no, their actions/reactions are realistic. What I'm talking about is that some writers in series make characters behave like total retards just to make a plot point work. And that doesn't happen here. I can't remember any times that there was something incredibly to obvious to me, as the viewer, that they SHOULD have been doing that they were doing the OPPOSITE of.The animation, as already stated, is beautiful. The scenary creates feelings of pure bliss--especially the sky. It's obvious that they put a TON of effort into the blue sky with its white whispy clouds during the day, the orangey hues of dusk, and the starry skies at night. The sea is also very nice, whenever it's shown. The characters are also very nice to look at. Hair (usually Misuzu's) blowing in the wind is especially well done. The only thing I can complain about is that the male characters' eyes are "normal" sized (read: small) when compared to the girls. If you've seen Kanon, Clannad, or Angel Beats!, you know they like to have all the characters have big eyes. Oddly enough, the guys seemed to have missed the boat here. I don't mind big eyes, but if you're going to do them, it'd be better if you were consistent.To give you an idea about how clear and crisp it looks: Even though it's a DVD, it looks like a blu-ray (at least when both are viewed on an HDTV). I say this because it looks about as good as my Angel Beats! BD (except for certain special effects-driven scenes that weren't needed in Air), even though its 5 years older. This could be reversed to say that Kyoto Animation's quality has hardly changed in that much time, but really, when you see it for yourself, it's hard to believe it COULD be any better.The musical score is beautifully appropriate for the themes presented in the series. Most of them come from the game it's based off of, so they may be familiar to you. The intro song, "Tori no Uta," does the perfect job setting the tone in the beginning: pure, fantastic bliss. Insert songs are also light and "airy" (ha ha I'm punny), setting the mood for their respective scenes. If you don't cry to "Aozora" during the climax at the end, you'll probably never cry in your life.As you can expect with any classic Key/Visual Arts work, your tear ducts will get a work out (for both the happy and the sad). It's heart-warming, and heart-breaking.The English VAs are great (especially Haruko and Yukito, IMO).The relationship between Haruko and Misuzu is, I believe, the most relatable, realistic, and touching of them all. If nothing else, seeing Haruko's character develop--along with their relationship--is a good enough reason to give this series a shot in and of itself. In hindsight, she is my favorite character: My heart ached for her and her plight more than anyone else.I would've liked it better if the side stories of the other characters (Kano, Minagi, and Michiru to a lesser extent) were done better (I LOVED Minagi!). First of all, they were too short. I feel the series could easily have reached the 24 episode mark if they had expounded more upon these side stories, spent more time on the main story arc, and stuffed the content in the OVA into the main series. Second of all, once these two characters' arcs are done, they don't appear in the series anymore except for a brief cameo. Third, it would've been nice to see them tie in somehow with the main story of Michiru. And lastly, the characters (Kano, Minagi, and Michiru) should've had more time to develop on screen before we focus on them.This is the only thing that hurt the score at all (I rate it 9/10, but since this is Amazon...)tl;dr: Sad but beautiful and touching. Plot may confuse you at times if you don't pay close attention.