Aria: First impressions

When Alkanphel told me that it was a peaceful anime, I immediately jumped on it. I am always a lover of such subtle anime, in which the character development and the interactions between the characters were held more important than breaking some limbs. I definitely did not regret picking up this anime that was vintage October/November 2005. In fact, I am so impressed by the first episode that I decided to do a proper first impression for this animation. Of course, I will also try to get close to the second season too, Aria the Natural. Then, i will at least do an episode by episode review of this series.

This story started with the view of a pink haired girl in a sailor-like uniform. She was Akari, an apprentice undine to boat the Gondola or what was called “water ship”. She was there with Alicia, a full-fledged professional Gondola undine. The story started slowly, with a little dog-like furry creature that was called President Aria (incidentally, the name of the company was Aria).

Akari had came from Man-home (what we know as Earth) to this town that was Neo-Venezia. It was a water town, where boats were used to transport from point to point. The simple story started here, with Akari picking up a call from a certain rude person who called in just to listen to Alicia’s voice message. He then hung up the phone, not before calling Akari pigtails quite a few times (I would never call someone so beautiful that).

She then picked up another call from another customer. The head of the customer was not shown, probably due to the fact that she’s too small to be seen on the monitor. The customer requested for Alicia to boat her but due to the fact that Alicia was busy with her own assignments, Arisa had to say no. The customer then said that anyone would do, even Akari. Akari was an apprentice and could not accept the job, as it might not satisfy the customer. With a slight tone of disappointment, the customer dropped the phone.

Dropping the phone, Akari went out to do some training with her boat but found a small girl in her boat. The girl asked her to boat right away. Akari, being such a sweet gal, told the little girl that she was just an apprentice and she was not able to pick up any customers. The girl threatened to shout ermm certain stuff and said that she’s a friend. Reluctantly, Akari picked the girl up and brought her around to travel.

While travelling, they met up with Aika, one of the other boat ladies in the river. Aika commented that Akari was picking up a freeloader and the little girl suddenly poped out the question on who was the better rower. Akari immediately said she was and the girl replied almost instantly with a “you row”. Gosh, lolis always have unreasonable requests, dont they? From some conversations, Akari realised that the girl was called Ai.

Riding along, they went past a buttered potato store and bought Ai-chan one. She found it very different from the ones in Man-home and told the owner that it was delicious. While eating, President Aria found itself dropping into the water while trying to imitate a bird. Ai-chan found out that Aria was missing and they noticed that it was stranded in the middle of the river.

With speed, Akari used a technique that she had learnt in Man-home, paddling backwards as they tried to retreieve President Aria. She went much faster than she did before, with Aika as the eye guide for directions. However, with the sudden appearance of an air-ship (? i think), their attempt to save President Aria was thwarted due to the sudden huge waves caused by the turbluence. Luckily, Alicia was there to save the day and that was where Ai met up with Alicia for the first time in her travels.

Akari started to mention that Ai was the girl that had called for Alicia. She revealed that she hated this place due to the fact that she had an older sister that she loved a lot. However, her sister was always boasting to her about how nice the place was and how good Alicia was as a rower on the gondola. Akari told her that her older sister was not boasting, but instead was sharing the things that she had seen. It’s simple because you wanted to share the good times that you had spent with the people you love. She then learnt that changing from hate to love was probably a miracle and it was happening.

>p>Ai-chan understood it and said that she would definitely share the joy of today’s ride with her older sister, both Akari’s fast rowing and the delicious buttered potato. With that, the journey ended as they went back to the Aria company. Ai’s parents came over, being extremely apologetic about the whole issue. However, Akari assured them that it was all right and she would be glad to give Ai a ride. Ai also said that if ever she was to come back here, she would love to ride on Ai’s boat once again. She then hoped that Akari would soon be a professional.The day ended quietly, with Ai giving Alicia a letter. The letter was a picture of Ai’s older sister and her husband and Alicia remembered that the couple actually quarrelled in their trip here and she had a tough time to settle the issue. Still, they made up after that and it was really proof that the town was a place of miracles.

Moral of the story: With the heart to accept, hate can change to love.

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