After watching the superlative Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, I started paying more attention to the substance of anime, and less on the flash and dash.  Sure, like everyone else, I cut my teeth on Sailor Moon, Ninja Scroll, Akira, Dragonball Z, and Tenchi Muyo!,  but I'd grown bored with just seeing action-filled fight scenes, "cyberpunk" sci-fi and/or slapstick visual comedy.  SaiKano, apocalyptic though it was, showed me that action could take a step back and play a bit part to the story and the characters (a.k.a. "well-written").  If it weren't for that show, I probably would never have started watching shoujo anime, which is almost always more character and story driven.  I started looking for stuff that was a bit more cerebral, a bit more earnest and certainly much more emotional; all of which apply to shoujo ("girl") anime. 

    About three years after watching SaiKano, I heard about a hotly anticipated show called Air.  Based on a "girl-get game" (credit for that moniker goes to Dom from Megatokyo) from Visual Art's/Key, Air is the story of Yukito Kunisaki, a traveling puppeteer who is continuing his mother's quest to find a winged girl who lives in the clouds.  She's sad and lonely, and only he can save her, his mother says.  Yukito finds his way to a sleepy seaside town, where he meets Misuzu Kamio, a clumsy and eccentric high school student.  The Air TV series tells the story of Yukito and Misuzu's friendship, as well as a few other tangential arcs that happen throughout the 12 episodes.  This was followed by a two-part special, Air In Summer, which expanded the series' "Flashback Arc" a bit, and a theatrically-released movie, which was more or less an alternate telling of the main theme.  Because of its sparkling animation, exceptional script and wonderful acting, it was certainly the hallmark show from the winter 2004/05 crop and ranks among the top five anime I've seen.

    This isn't the first time that VA/Key has produced some top quality goods.  Two of their previous games, Kanon and Clannad, have rabid followings for many of the same reasons that I like Air.  While I haven't played any of the games, I can say that among the three of them the art quality is consistently good (although, like SaiKano, the character design takes some getting used to), the voice acting is stellar and the music is un-freaking-believable. 

   Pretty much all the background tracks composed by Shinji Orito and Magome Togoshi and the vocal pieces sung by I've Collective supergal, Lia, punctuate the on-screen animations perfectly.  "Denshou," "Hane Mizu" and "Nomichi" all have a lazy, relaxed feel to them; "Ri," "Futari" and "Yasou" sound pensive and moody; while "Kawa," "Esoragoto" and "Sousei" are more earnest and immediate.  And when Lia sings the a cappella intro to "Aozora" at the end of the movie, it's simply overwhelming.  For reasons similar to why I have a hard time listening to the SaiKano soundtrack, I absolutely love listening to the Air CDs.  It's like being able to revisit the story and characters whenever I want to and in whichever order I want to.  I once played the instrumental "Natsukage" from the Air OST for a friend of mine, and she said, "Wow.  They're actually telling a story with just music."  So true. 

   (As a side note, Orito and Togoshi get huge praise from me for just being so damn good at what they do.  In addition to all the songs I've mentioned here, "Yuki no Hara" from the Clannad OST gets me choked up every time I hear it.  The music is just so hopeless and empty and cold...which makes sense after you translate the name: "Field of Snow."  Thing is, I didn't know that until after I'd heard the song a couple times.)

    Despite the gap in reputation, I really prefer Kyoto's art and animation in the series to Toei's in the movie.  Kyoto kept everything the same as the original game, while Toei altered the character designs to a more "standard anime" style.  What sets Air apart for me, are the little subtleties that Kyoto Animation put into the show.  Simple things like Misuzu mimicking running while she tries to convince Yukito to play at the beach with her, or when she can't quite deal the deck of cards and spills them on the ground (as well as the frighteningly realistic breakdown she has after that incident), or how characters who aren't otherwise involved will turn their head to look at a character who IS doing something.  Visually, Air comes off as realistic in a "people just living life" kind of way.  None of the actions look forced, though I suppose they could be considered melodramatic.

   As good as everything else is, the absolute apex of the show is the voice acting.  Daisuke Ono's Yukito is a brooding traveler who doesn't really like interpersonal relationships.  Tomoko Kawakami's Misuzu is darkly cheerful, full of personality quirks that enhance rather than define who she is (as opposed to Chii's "Chii..." or Kenshin's "...de gozaimasu"), though they tried pretty hard with her "Gao."  Aya Hisakawa's Haruko is an overexuberant, young, single mom who confides in Yukito that she's worried she isn't a good mother to Misuzu.  Like when you watch "Office Space" for the first time and say, "Hey, I totally know that guy!" the main characters in Air are probably people you know.  Side characters like Minagi Tohno, Kana Kirishima and dog-thing Potato are more stereotypical of anime, but they're not featured prominently enough in the series (and not at all in the movie) to worry about, and even their performances are spot-on for who they are.

   Air is one of those shows that you wish could go on forever.  While the final episode was certainly the end of the story that needed to be told, I think there was room for more shows in the middle.  The Air In Summer specials were horribly out of place by themselves, didn't tell a cohesive or complete story by themselves and probably confused viewers who hadn't seen the original series.  Also, the arcs involving Minagi and Kana could have been drawn out a bit more to establish a better pace to Yukito's encounters with them.  While enjoyable, they seem almost obligatory in their telling, i.e. the stories were in the game, so they needed to be in the series.  The Flashback Arc just showed up out of nowhere, and it wasn't until its end that you understand its relevance to the rest of the story.  Certainly Air could have been stretched out to 26-ish episodes, but I imagine that the quality of animation would have had to be compromised in exchange.  More than likely, that wouldn't have been good.

   While it may not ever be considered a landmark title, Air is exemplary enough in all the areas that matter that any anime fan would be well-advised to check this show out in one of its incarnations.  The movie doesn't quite have the space to breathe that the series does, but the series adds in some story arcs that don't get the attention they deserved and kind of get in the way of what's really going on.  However, the positives completely demolish the negatives.  While I've done my best here, I just don't think I can praise this show enough.

Rating: Beautiful out of 10