As I've mentioned before, I don't have that much time this semester to myself. I don't know exactly how much anime I can watch this season, and at first, I frankly didn't want to (I at least TRY to be diligent... sometimes). ARIA, however, might make that a little difficult.

I do believe I've found something wonderful.

I think I initially checked out this anime a month ago or so, when I visited a bunch of sites for anime of the new season. I knew very little about ARIA beforehand, and to be honest, the show didn't look very interesting to me.

Then, about a day ago, I was going through 2chan's 18 board, and saw a number of people commenting on how good this show's BGM apparently was, so I got the raw just to check it out.

I was hooked by the opening theme.

This was one of those anime that's hard to watch, because rather than pay attention to what the characters are saying (very important when I watch anime in raw Japanese), I simply want to just listen to the music. There were times when a new song would begin to play, and I'd think "Oh this one sounds good, too.." and then after a few seconds, that thought would turn to, "wait, no. This isn't good. This is great. Thank you, God."

Around 5 minutes in, I couldn't stand it anymore -- I had to know who was behind this soundtrack... and I almost already knew -- the same people behind the Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou ~Quiet Country Cafe~ OST (which is one of my favorites). Needless to say, I'll be wetting myself daily until this OST comes out.

Wait, that's right. I'm reviewing an anime, aren't I?
Well, as I said, this anime really surprised me. Although so far, the characters seem rather cliche, it's not to the point of tedium. For instance, the main character, Akari, is cute and optimistic, but not to the point where it's annoying. Also, ARIA is very calm, and mellow, and there's a certain something about the art -- I noticed a lot of use of simple shapes, and of course, the muted colors (aside from Akari's hair). In a season seemingly full of action and occult, I think I'm going to enjoy this anime quite a bit.

Labels: ARIA

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