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Ken Hayashi
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
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Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:39 pm
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Craeyst Raygal wrote: | Key's right on Ai Yori Aoshi, Hakootoko. Yes, when Tina was introduced I too shuddered as if the series had just flushed itself down the crapper.
However, after they took a few episodes to play around in cathartic fanservice, we started to find out that not only was the romance between Kaoru and Aoi growing and developing, but we were starting to see that the supporting characters had some surprising depth to them as well. It's actually quite surprising the emotions that are written in Tina's character. When we really get into the series, it's revealed that her persona is a product of self-loathing for not being born a Japanese woman in a Japanese society and for having such desirous feelings toward Kaoru. As also shown in the manga, she asks to her non-present parents "Papa, Mama, I'm sorry. Your daughter's a terrible person".
In all honesty, Ai Yori Aoshi has been - since the moment I first saw the Pioneer preview - a beautiful, touching, sweet hearted series that entertains and delights to no end. |
I agree. AYA is extremely well done and very entertaining. The first 4 episodes were superb. I can't even begin to count how many times I watched them over and over again. It got muddled a little in the middle, and when Mayu made her appearance (and I still don't really like her, she only began to redeem herself in Enishi) it got to be pretty silly. But the later episodes were great. Like the episode when Kaoru and Aoi went shopping and then decided to stop by his old apartment. The last 3 episodes were also very good, as everyone seems to agree. You should have seen the ending of the last episode when a youngAoi kisses the young Kaoru as he sleeps by that tree. Most of the other characters got their share of character development too, especially Tina and, to a lesser extent, Taeko, that made me look at them from a different perspective. Specifically, the episodes when all of them went to the beach and Kaoru went to the fair with Taeko, and the episode when Kaoru spent the day at the zoo with Tina and the night at the K-box. Before that, I had thought the other characters were just fluff, but they really had some depth too.
Some might find that this series is too saccharine sweet, but personally, I love it.
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Maclam
Joined: 01 Oct 2004
Posts: 104
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 4:42 am
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Ai yori Aoshi
Ayashi no Ceres
Voice of the distant stars
Samurai X ova
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Ken Hayashi
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 5:52 am
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Maclam wrote: | Ai yori Aoshi
Ayashi no Ceres
Voice of the distant stars
Samurai X ova |
And your reasons are? Please post reasons so this thread will not be locked for degenerating into a list thread.
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gnikdrazil
Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 50
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:32 am
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I've seen a lot of people mention Ai Yori Aoshi and Escaflowne, but I have to disagree.
Escaflowne - Van and Hitomi loved each other. Van went back to the Mystic Moon to bring her back to Gaea just to see her one more time. The problem extended from the ending. If these two loved each other so much, then why did they not try to find a way to stay together. Hitomi goes back home without a way to return. He probably just got rid of Hitomi so he could wait for Merle to grow into Naria or Eriya.
Ai Yori Aoshi - Aoi scares me. She has been bread to be the obedient to her husband. Fortunately, she fell in love when she about 5 with her future husband. Falling in love at 5 doesn’t happen. A crush maybe, but not love. Girls were still icky to me when I was that age. She had a crush on another boy at best. The crush turned into an obsession over years. She’s probably been sheltered most of her life and clutched onto the only thing she saw on the outside. Kaoru better not break her heart or it may turn into Fatal Attraction for him.
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Maclam
Joined: 01 Oct 2004
Posts: 104
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 3:07 pm
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Ken Hayashi wrote: |
Maclam wrote: | Ai yori Aoshi
Ayashi no Ceres
Voice of the distant stars
Samurai X ova |
And your reasons are? Please post reasons so this thread will not be locked for degenerating into a list thread. |
sry i'm new here and didn't't carefully read the rules but here's the reason
Ai yori Aoshi has one of the best soundtrack for sure concerning anime music... i also like Aoi Sakuraba character a lot...just a delicate and traditionnal little girl that do everything for her love.... of course this is not reality , but a guy can dream . The story of Ai yori develop at a good pace also, not too fast but not to slow... the only thing that annoy me a little is Tina with her bad habits of... you know...
Samurai X .... I really really enjoy this Ova a lot...this is in my opinion the most realistic anime when it comes to romance... i really like the plot a lot....To see Tomo get close to Kenshin to kill him then finally falling in love with him, how she turn her hate to love.... how she express her feelings, her thoughts, the music, the passion everything in this anime is PERFECT or near it
Voice of the distant stars... this Anime is very short about half an hour long... but Makato did a really great job... the graphic was awesome beside the chars and the music superb...I enjoy this anime mainly because of it contrast...It very nice to see how both char maintain their feelings for each...I don't know about you but everytime Noboru received a mail from Mikako i feel happy myself... Although this movie was really short, at the end of the movie i don't know how to explain it, but just like graves of the fireflies...i feel some sort of void, i wasn't confortable...
Ayashi no Ceres
This movie was quite disturbing... i mean it's not everyday we see brother and sister kissing each other, not everyday you'll see cousin trying to rape each other... but beside those facts, the main Plot (why Ceres hate her husban soo much) is very interesting, the serie itself was not too long and the music again really nice
*** this is one anime you wanna watch in SUB version trust me
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sariyana
Joined: 01 Oct 2004
Posts: 68
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 6:14 pm
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i think that rurouni kenshin, fushigi yuugi and sailor moon are good love stories. especially sailor moon, since darien and serena's romance is the focus of the whole show pretty much
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sariyana
Joined: 01 Oct 2004
Posts: 68
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 6:25 pm
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sariyana wrote: | i think that rurouni kenshin, fushigi yuugi and sailor moon are good love stories. especially sailor moon, since darien and serena's romance is the focus of the whole show pretty much |
InuYasha is a good romance too, although romance isn't the entire focus of the story. There's so many potential couples in that show and so many romance scenes. Inuyasha and Kagome, Inuyasha and Kikyo, Kouga and Ayame, Sango and Miroku, Sesshomaru (yes sesshomaru) and Kagura, Rin and Kohaku. And the list goes on...
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Ken Hayashi
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:01 pm
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gnikdrazil wrote: | Escaflowne - Van and Hitomi loved each other. Van went back to the Mystic Moon to bring her back to Gaea just to see her one more time. The problem extended from the ending. If these two loved each other so much, then why did they not try to find a way to stay together. Hitomi goes back home without a way to return. He probably just got rid of Hitomi so he could wait for Merle to grow into Naria or Eriya.
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When did this happen? Van went back to the Mystic Moon? Is this fan-fic? I don't remember this happening in the series or the movie.
As for Ai Yori Aoshi, if you follow the series closely, you'll learn that Aoi Sakuraba is hardly the kind of girl who would go crazy and take up a knife and try to kill someone. She is not obsessed with Kaoru, she just loves him deeply. And I can connect with that sort of feeling because I am deeply in love with my wife too. Perhaps you just need to experience this sort of emotion to know that it is not impossible to feel this way.
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Ken Hayashi
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:07 pm
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Maclam, yup, Voices of a Distant Star is a very good romance anime. I just didn't really like the character designs, they looked a little elfish. But it was very touching to see them still hanging on, keeping in touch via email. I wished it was longer than it is, because Makoto Shinkai has a very good concept here and I would like to see it expanded. Let's say a 3-episode OVA or something, and give it a happy ending please (I don't know, maybe I missed something, but some people have been telling me it DID have a happy ending).
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18385
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 9:52 pm
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Ken Hayashi wrote: | Maclam, yup, Voices of a Distant Star is a very good romance anime. I just didn't really like the character designs, they looked a little elfish. But it was very touching to see them still hanging on, keeping in touch via email. I wished it was longer than it is, because Makoto Shinkai has a very good concept here and I would like to see it expanded. Let's say a 3-episode OVA or something, and give it a happy ending please (I don't know, maybe I missed something, but some people have been telling me it DID have a happy ending). |
I think VODT ended exactly the way it should have. It would not had quite the impact it did if it wrapped things up neatly. The whole point of the dialogue between Mikako and Noboru was to evoke a sense of longing and a desire to make a connection which transcended time and space, after all, and that melancholy sentiment is critical to furthering the mood.
There's a lot of speculation about how things really turned out in the long run, given what the Tarsian said to Mikako and Noboru's stated goals. I have doubts, for various reasons, that things ultimately ended well, but that's just speculation.
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Ken Hayashi
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
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Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 11:53 pm
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Key wrote: |
Ken Hayashi wrote: | Maclam, yup, Voices of a Distant Star is a very good romance anime. I just didn't really like the character designs, they looked a little elfish. But it was very touching to see them still hanging on, keeping in touch via email. I wished it was longer than it is, because Makoto Shinkai has a very good concept here and I would like to see it expanded. Let's say a 3-episode OVA or something, and give it a happy ending please (I don't know, maybe I missed something, but some people have been telling me it DID have a happy ending). |
I think VODT ended exactly the way it should have. It would not had quite the impact it did if it wrapped things up neatly. The whole point of the dialogue between Mikako and Noboru was to evoke a sense of longing and a desire to make a connection which transcended time and space, after all, and that melancholy sentiment is critical to furthering the mood.
There's a lot of speculation about how things really turned out in the long run, given what the Tarsian said to Mikako and Noboru's stated goals. I have doubts, for various reasons, that things ultimately ended well, but that's just speculation. |
You're right in that the anime benefited from the open-ended ending. But it was just my personal preference that it have a hapy ending. I just hate sad stories, and having viewed it just once, that was how I felt about it.
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Maclam
Joined: 01 Oct 2004
Posts: 104
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Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 12:24 am
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In VOTDS the ending was not a happy one, but not a bad one... and yes i do agree on the fact that the ending is perfect the way it is, because i'm pretty sure it wont have the same impact if it was different.
As for Aoi Sakuraba I really envy the Love they feel for each other... but You know, right from the starts, Aoi leaving home to look for Kaoru... hmmm yea it is very touching, but not very real, they've been away from each other for 18 years after all...
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Ken Hayashi
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 752
Location: Singapore
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Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 12:50 am
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Maclam wrote: | As for Aoi Sakuraba I really envy the Love they feel for each other... but You know, right from the starts, Aoi leaving home to look for Kaoru... hmmm yea it is very touching, but not very real, they've been away from each other for 18 years after all... |
Butthe fact remains that even after 18 years, she has remained as devoted to him as ever. I know there's a fine line between devotion and obsession, but Aoi manages to walk that line perfectly without falling over into psychotic obssession.
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Maclam
Joined: 01 Oct 2004
Posts: 104
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Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 1:47 am
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Of course the movie put us through that feeling as well, and it is indeed very sweet to see how much Aoi is devoted, but it's just a little overdone since they were around 4 years old when they met each other
And you know how Aoi react when tina or any other girls hang around Koaru... it is very noble of her of course, but i know i'll be sooo mad if someone decide to do that to my lover
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18385
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
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Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 11:05 am
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Maclam wrote: | Of course the movie put us through that feeling as well, and it is indeed very sweet to see how much Aoi is devoted, but it's just a little overdone since they were around 4 years old when they met each other
And you know how Aoi react when tina or any other girls hang around Koaru... it is very noble of her of course, but i know i'll be sooo mad if someone decide to do that to my lover |
Remember, of course, that one of the whole points of that series is that she can't let on that she is in love with Kaoru, or how much.
It's also admirable how well Aoi can restrain herself in the face of romantic adversity (a rarity in anime) and remarkable how understanding she is; scenes that would have led to traumatic misunderstandings in most other romantic anime instead become tender scenes here. That's one of the many things I love about that series and one reason it stands out in its genre despite a lot of stereotypical elements.
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