Hello everyone,
I write this post while listening to the full soundtrack of this fantastic slice of life manga/anime we're going to talk about now.
It's name is Aria and is written by Kozue Amano and is one of the best series I've ever watched in my life and I know I'm setting the level bar very high with this statement. (got three anime seasons and some OVA)
Let's start with a synopsis :
On the planet Aqua (formerly Mars), Akari Mizunashi has made her home in the charming town of Neo-Venezia, a reproduction of the ancient Earth city. Determined to become an undine, Akari spends her days training in the labyrinths of canals throughout the city. She enjoys the primitive lifestyle of her ancestors and has no qualms about doing her own laundry or cooking meals from scratch. Pursuing this career and becoming independent are her dreams and, with the help of some curious Martians, underground dwellers and even wild creatures, Akari will one day captain her own gondola through the city of Neo-Venezia.
As you can read from the synopsis, this anime is highly episodic and does not have a linked plot to be followed episode after episode and even as I generally hate episodic anime, I found myself loving this series to no end.
Each story, while pretty simple, gives up that warmt feeling that I can't easily explain with words.
Each character has a nice defined personality that reflect well in their actions, there is a general paradise feeling in the ambientation of Neo Venezia (I'm italian and I can assure it's reproduced in a spectacular way).
In the whole series I've never found a single bad act or evil person, and this is a quite nice point to make a person forget about the real world problems.
The graphical department is quite good and I liked a lot how they reproduced in a very detailed way the old city in this new futuristic environment.
The opening and ending animation are quite good even as the opening is actually mostly footage of the real episode.
The soundtrack is fantastic, I loved each of the many songs they proposed in the series and listened to them to no end.
Some of the best that I can quote are "Rainbow" and "Natsumachi", both from "Round table feat Nino" and "Spirale" from "Yui Makino".
My favourite character is Alice Carroll. Other than her cute personality and nice appearance, she is voiced by the seiyuu I most love (Ryou Hirohashi) with her wonderful voice!
There isn't much else I can add to this review other than a "go watch it!" if you still haven't.
This is a series I can suggest to basically anyone, it is one of the masterpieces that are very rare in the current anime world dominated by low quality fanservice anime.
See you soon,
feal87