[algo448]

So finished AIR, a tearjerking and heartbreaking story that will change your life... but only on theory, on practice is a completely different subject.

Adapting Visual Novels is always a tricky subject, even moreso when you only have 12 episodes to work with and basically 5 different stories. In this case they tried to show all of them, resulting in a not very cohesive and broken story.

The concepts and story of AIR are prefectly fine, and in it's original form must be quite heartbreaking, this is a case of good story that is badly told, not only are the situations are very compressed, but at points it feels like you are missing chunks of the story, the time you are given to get attached to the characters is mimimum and outside of the feathers the 3 main storylines are incredibly disconnected.

AIR has a tendency to jump straight to the dramatic moments, without proper time to develop it's storylines, there are very slow scenes with incredibly long general shots, while other points move incredibly fast without properly explaining the situations or the symbolism behind the show, you understand on time, but it feels like a lot of exposition and stablishing scenes were lost.

Still, the merits of the original story do show through, and the incredible setting and magic realism of this world are quite fascinating, and as such I can understand the reasons why people like this show, it's a good story, and honestly I quite enjoyed the Kanna and Minagi arcs, even in it's compressed form, but undeniably the adaptation work feels sloppy and unrefined.

So did I like AIR? The anime... nope, it's honeslty a subpar work, and a bad handling of the original material.
But the experience? Quite so, Key shows promise with it's interesting storylines and the next two shows have more episodes and more experience behind them, so they may turn out to be great.

Overall, a fun ride, through a subpar anime (imo) and a fascinating world which deserved more.