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Forum - View topicAir - How Does It Hold Up?
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tintor2
 Posts: 2167 |
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Nice. Can we have on about Darker than Black? I think we reached its 15th anniversary
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5600 |
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Just ignore everything except Misuzu and Kanna and it's fantastic.
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Villain-chan
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I'd argue Angel Beats! is their most iconic alongside Clannad (and After Story), and while I didn't watch the Air movie, I did see the TV series by a dif studio and personally, I wasn't happy with the ending becus spoiler[nothing was resolved, the MC wasted the power his family for gens built up trying to free Mizusu and no one was happy in the end besides having to accept the loss of loved ones. To make matters worse, 2 kids who I have NO idea on who or what they are, have little to no info on them on wikis and the like, and the boy made it sound like the 2 would be ok in the end which was bs. I've pondered if the boy and girl r the MC and Mizusu but reincarnated into the past (Or present I guess) but can't get confirmation. Either way, it ended POORLY and I didn't like that. If it had a better ending, I'd have said its a good Key anime, but nah, its not imo, unless u'r into heart breaking stories :P]
Honestly, Key had a few hits but its clear their stories (esp as of late) have lost that master piece and magic touch they once had... oh and back to Angel Beats!... the kicker here is it was rushed (still really great though despite that rushed ending!) and even though they claimed they're redo the whole thing, nothing mroe came of that besides last I heard 1 small part (VN i think?) but they never finished the rushed parts... least from what i last heard. And seriously, if u've yet to watch Angel beats! then do so, trust me its not as bad as am making it out to be with the rushing. |
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2486 |
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(I didn't watch the video nor read the article)
Air has the best Key-related OP. God that's a banger. Sure, there are other good ones but by golly the Air OP is so good. Seeing this article made me go and listen to it again, so thanks for that
Planetarian was really good. Really really good, even, imo. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Not sure how you can say this when all the drama involving Kano and Minagi/Michiru has to deal with the curse that was placed upon Kanna. Air is basically the only Key story where everything is all related to one central plot, a mother's love (be it biological or not) for her daughter. That's what all the stories are. |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2485 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Is it even legally possible to watch Air in 2022? AFAICT, it's not available streaming anywhere, has disappeared from Funimation's site, and the DVD is out of stock at Right Stuf (although they say they're expecting more).
A lot of these peak-VN-era series seem to be getting left behind. Most of the shows that got DVD releases didn't get re-released on Blu-Ray, and some pre-dated the streaming era. Discotek has dabbled with this kind of thing (True Tears, arguably), and Air seems like it would be a particularly welcome license rescue. Also, thank you to the writer for not mentioning the elephant in the room when it comes to the EN dub. |
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Dayraven
Posts: 184 |
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Air doesn’t hold up, it just floats.
….fine, I’ll show myself out. |
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09jcg
Posts: 538 |
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Absolutely did not expect to see an Air article today. I recently played through the VN, and while it isn't the strongest of the Key Vn, I really believe it had the best "atmosphere" out of all of them. That carries over to the VN as well, the visuals and music really pull you in.
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rizuchan
 Posts: 980 Location: Kansas |
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Air was the first Key adaptation I ever watched, and I'll never forget the feeling of loving it so much but being so frustrated and angry by the end that I had to immediately go watch Clannad in hopes of it being Air, but less infuriating. (I personally thought it was, although I know many others didn't feel that way)
I tried playing the visual novel a few years ago, hoping that it might make some of the more difficult plot points easier to follow, and I was really surprised how much of the main story was adapted faithfully by the anime, despite the anime's short run time. It actually made it hard for me to get through the VN, because I felt like I already knew everything that was going to happen, so I never managed to finish it. One day...
I think Justin wrote pretty extensively about this on Answerman a number of years ago, but Air is part of the era of digipaint anime that weren't drawn in HD to begin with and tend to look dated (to put it nicely) even when they're upscaled, so a lot of the licensors here don't want to touch them unless it's something that was massively popular, like Haruhi. That said, Air did get an upscaled blu-ray release in Japan with a cleaned up Opening theme, I would love to at least get that version here. But I don't think these shows ever pulled great numbers for ADV or Funimation to begin with, so that's probably not a lot of incentive for Funi to even keep the licenses renewed. |
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Doctorkev
 Posts: 87 Location: Scotland |
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If you don’t mind importing a Region 2 DVD, MVM entertainment in the UK just recently released the complete series of both Air and Kanon. I ordered them both, as I’ve never seen either of them before. Not had a chance to watch them yet. |
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2495 Location: United States |
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Man, I remember this show so well. This was one of the first anime I downloaded fansubs for before it got licensed. I even still have all four DVDs that ADV put out back before they shut down. I ought to rewatch it at some point, because I remember really liking it.
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raikochan
Posts: 8 |
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I bought a copy of Air just in the past couple months myself from Robert's Anime Corner Store. Though their website may look like an abandoned relic from the 90s, they are legit and in fact still doing business. |
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Takkun4343
 Posts: 1586 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
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I first watched Air off of the first DVD single that my sister had, only getting four episodes in before putting it on indefinite hiatus. Learning about spoiler[Misuzu's death and the circumstances behind it] hastened my motivation to go and finish it, but after well over a decade to make peace with it, I decided to revisit the show in 2020, this time carrying on to the end. And personally, I think the above spoilers really helped with my ultimate appreciation of the series by its end, letting me know what to expect so it wouldn't negatively color my opinion on the rest of the anime. Because that's not the kind of person I am.
Most importantly, though, Air got me reinterested in Key anime adaptations after Charlotte got so obnoxious with its running gags in episode 4 that I put off watching episode 5 until I could say I hiatus'd it. Took my damn sweet time finishing Kanon after starting it early last year, and it's very solid, probably the best KeyAni show of the bunch. (I haven't seen past episode 2 of CLANNAD After Story and even the first season had moments of melodrama that were more than a little forced for my liking, particularly spoiler[Fuuko being a comatose astral projection that everyone was destined to forget about, like they were taking up a challenge to make Ayu's arc in Kanon even sadder.]) I'm hoping to get Air in Summer watched this summer, as a fun aside, so hopefully I don't put that one off for too long.
spoiler[Confirmed or not, it was pretty obvious (moreso in hindsight than in-the-moment) that the random boy and girl were the time-displaced reincarnations of Misuzu/Kanna and Yukito/Ryuya. Not entirely out-of-place, either, considering Michiru was reincarnated via time displacement as Minagi's new step-sister, and Yukito post-sacrifice wound up reincarnated back to the events of episode 1 as the conveniently offscreen crow. As for the boy's words, they were indicating that despite the tough times that laid ahead for Misuzu and Yukito, despite the tragic ends they would undoubtedly face, they would ultimately break the 1,000-year curse suffered by them and all of Kanna and Ryuya's prior incarnations; thus allowing the boy to live happily with the girl who reincarnated alongside him without risk of death.] It's still a bit confusing, yeah, but this sort of thing isn't the kind to make sense in words alone. |
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Cryten
 Posts: 1161 |
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Most of the writing for the first 3 visuals novels was about putting you in a certain mental / emotional state as setup for struggle and payoff. I feel like Misuzu's father as a final arc was to make use defensive about Misuzu and Haruko who where finally bonding. This puts you firmly in their corner for the finale.
I loved air when it first came out. It was such a shame to find out later its source had.. how do you say this without offending a bunch of people.. unhealthy sexual material about 11-14 year olds. When I was a teen it didn't seem askance at all as it was just a story about emotional memories between a young adult and some children. Looking back now I just have to stick to the memories of the younger me lest in rewatching I taint that old experience with how interested he was in innocence of young kids. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2687 |
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I think if one approaches Air as a loosely connected anthology it works better. I think it has stood the test of time, it isn't perfect but it touched many with it's stories. For me, the most impactful were the Kanno/Michiru arc and Fuuko arc. I appreciated that the story wasn't dependent on the hentai scenes because I almost avoided it, having heard it was an eroge between older teen and pre-teen girls.
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