The breeze of a Summer Afternoon, an Air Review

I haven't done my research yet but Air is probably the first anime that Kyoto Animation adapted from Key's brilliant list of visual novels.

Air takes place in a town during the peaceful days of summer. We are introduced to a young traveler, Yukito Kunisaki, who is a puppeteer by profession. He travels in hopes of finding "the girl with wings" which was always mentioned by his mother.
When he arrives at a certain town, he meets a weird and clumsy girl named Misuzu Kamio. Having no money and nowhere to go, he was invited by Misuzu to stay at her home, which was initially rejected by her mother but eventually agrees to it.
It was during summer in that certain town where mysteries began to unravel.

Air, unlike Key's succeeding works, only has 3 main heroines (though i'm not quite sure about the visual novel) each with their own underlying mysteries, of course a little dab of fantasy is involved.
The anime only has a few characters, and even fewer involved in each arc.
The fact that the universe inside Air is mostly dominated by women doesn't really give a balanced tone. Most of the supporting characters are more annoying rather than "support".

The first two arcs offers little to no contribution at all to the main arc. If taken independently, though, it has the strength of a simple drama. The fact that fantasy is involved doesn't really help the effectiveness of the story at all. What's more, once a character finishes her arc, the story moves on and doesn't really bother with them anymore.

Air is filled with moe, typical for Kyoto Animation, but Air isn't one that can boast about contributing a large part of Kyoto Animation's legendary status. The progression of the
story is imbalanced. There's a lot of unwanted and pointless scenarios, and for most of the series, it is unorganized. Also, the "touching across time" theme present in the latter half of the series didn't do the story justice so much as to elevate it into an interesting one.

In the anime's technical parts, the music and visuals are definitely an eye candy. The character designs are pretty good for an early 2000's anime and the attention to detail in overviews and landscapes are sure to give its viewers an eyegasm.
If the audience already watched Clannad, they should notice the similarity of the opening style of this anime. The closing theme was also something to note. Voice acting was, of course, the primary reason for the effective moe parts of the anime but it's not exactly one of the best.

Air saved itself from its downfall in the latter part of the anime, particularly episode 11 and 12. For once, the absence of the main male protagonist (physically) is effective. If the anime was similar to this in dramatic content from the beginning, then it's safe to say that this is one of KyoAni's landmark productions. But the late "one-up" greatness of the anime didn't wholly made the series something remarkable to note.

Art: 8/10
Characters: 7/10
Music: 8/10
Story: 8/10