Thread: Disturbed by Air TV.

Originally Posted by Spastic Minnow

I've actually had some of those same type of ponderings while watching the current Shufuku no Campanella anime, also originally an adult visual novel which is apparently now getting an all-ages version released. It such a sickeningly innocent and sweet story it constantly makes me wonder where the adult story fit.

It's a game by Windmill, so it's safe to assume they make love in a sickeningly innocent and sweet fashion. (See also Happiness!.)

For reasons of [spoiler]Yukito turning into a crow...[/spoiler] it just, somehow felt out of placed and ruined the TV series a bit for me... Then I saw the movie, which had that taken out, but I recall all the other essentials being in there, and even showing[spoiler] a bit of an intimate scene with Ryuuya and Kanna[/spoiler] which seems to stand out enough to have it be one of the few things I remember from the movie.

If you are unsatisfied with the show, especially because of the part that I dissliked, I ask to check out the movie. Sure it's condensed some, but I actually enjoyed it a bit more than the show Not to mention it's a SUPER cheap buy now!

The Air girls are 16? Seriously?

Maybe it shouldn't, but this really bugs me in anime. The instant a teenage character who looks and acts like a child comes on screen, my suspension of disbelief is pretty much broken.

And wierdly, anime seems to be the only medium where this gets a pass. If you had 16 year olds who look (from the neck up at least) and act like pre-teens in a movie or a book it would probably get criticized as poor writing. And yes, I know that the main girl acting childish is a plot point, but very often it's simply never explained.

On the subject of Air in general..... For a long time I had an opinion of this show based on images and people's descriptions of it, but it struck me that I might not be giving it a fair chance so recently I sat down and watched the first episode.

I am completely baffled by how anyone could sit through this for more than ten minutes. Seriously, it was 10 times worse than I could ever have imagined. I really don't get the appeal at all. Help me out here people :?

Originally Posted by Penguin_Factory

And wierdly, anime seems to be the only medium where this gets a pass. If you had 16 year olds who look (from the neck up at least) and act like pre-teens in a movie or a book it would probably get criticized as poor writing. And yes, I know that the main girl acting childish is a plot point, but very often it's simply never explained.

I remember the mother character from Hirokazu Koreeda's Nobody Knows acting a lot like a child, despite being, horrors upon horrors, the only adult in the household...

But that was actually a very good movie.

As for this, this is probably why I considered Osamu Dezaki's take on the subject-matter more sensible: you get the impression that Misuzu is pretty childish, but it doesn't seem so mind-numbingly stupid given that she exhibits some [non-physical] traits of girls that are around her age (she's actually the one putting moves on Yukito, interestingly enough).

It's not a super-excellent film (though I find it better than Ishihara's TV series, despite the artistry not being nearly as good as Kyoto Animation's effort), but I found it interesting how little changes here and there could pretty much remove it from the realm of complete pander-tastic otaku sensibility.

Anyway, I don't know: there's a lot of animu/manga out there where they have late teens acting like children and I can only assume that this is the case mainly because it's appealing to see people who don't act their age.

(that said, it (the age and otaku audience thing) isn't always bad: I remember the robot-building discussion in the 20th Century Boys manga and it was essentially [and amusingly] a bunch of middle-aged men sitting around a table and acting like a bunch of 10-year-olds... in fact, I'm actually a big fan of Tetsuro Araki's High School of the Dead, despite how trashy it is; Hollywood isn't actually in possession of what I consider to be this summer's hottest big-budget action extravaganza)

That said, despite being completely aware of how dumb the thing is, I still am sort of a fan of Ishihara's work...

You look at that sequence where Haruko gives Misuzu back to her real dad on the beach and it's hard not be at least interested in how well its staged; Ishihara and co are clearly pretty competent filmmakers, despite what it is that they're dabbling in...

Originally Posted by Penguin_Factory

I am completely baffled by how anyone could sit through this for more than ten minutes. Seriously, it was 10 times worse than I could ever have imagined. I really don't get the appeal at all. Help me out here people :?

I guess the lack of fanservice offended you? Or maybe you don't like big eyes? That's about the only thing I can think of. For me, I honestly don't like fanservice, particularly overbearing fanservice, and I've been watching "big eye" anime since Astro Boy, so neither of those two things bother me.

EDIT: As far as Misuzu's... err, let's say childness, it is explained in the series. And if you saw the series and didn't quite figure it out, she's like that way because [spoiler]she has had next to nothing in regard to social interaction. At school she remains quiet and has no friends and at home Haruko just lets her lie in her bed and rarely talks to her. She behaves like a child in a social context because she has no experience with anything else. As the curse strikes her harder as well it takes away some mental capacity as can be seen by the loss of her motor skills (and thus needing a wheelchair).[/spoiler]