Moé Moé Rabu

OP: “Spirale” by Makino Yui

I’m so glad that Makino Yui has returned to perform the OP theme for this third season of ARIA. Just like the last two seasons, the OP plays through as the anime continues on. The OP theme itself feels different to Undine and Euforia, but it brings about that feeling that this is a new season.

Impressions

Finally, THE most anticipated show of this season for me as well as the Winter 2008 season poll is ARIA The Origination. Every single second of this series was pure love from the laughter, to tears of joy, and to those heartwarming moments of friendship that you can only get in ARIA. It was such a joy seeing all the main characters making an appearance in this first episode, but it was even a greater joy seeing all the little quirks that make these characters who they are. Everything from Alicia’s “ara ara” to Akari’s “ehhhh”, even the small little antics of Aria-shachou was a pleasing moment of it’s own.

As seen from the promotion clips, the animation quality has definitely exceeded that of The Animation and The Natural, but the best thing of all, WIDESCREEN! And even 720p!! Widescreen really does ARIA justice, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten such beautiful scenes such as this. Colour wise it also feels much more vibrant than it predecessors, and the animation itself is much more fluid, so HAL Film Maker has taken what they learnt from ARIA The OVA ~Arietta~ as well as things from Sketchbook and they have brought us something as wonderful as this.

It’s also a pleasure hearing the seiyuu’s in their respective roles, but Hirohashi Ryou as Alice, she also does the seiyuu for Tamaki from Bamboo Blade. In the first episode of Bamboo Blade, I noted that it’s like watching Alice-chan, but kicking ass, but here I still feel that aura of Alice than Tamaki in ARIA. Though could you imagine Tamaki rowing a gondola? Well maybe, but it’d be for laughs.

There is something so magical about ARIA that really can’t be explained. But after an arduous day in the office, coming home and watching an episode of ARIA just melts away anything that is on my mind and in return I get a heartwarming feeling. Most people say that the Winter 2008 season has nothing to offer, or even that the start of the year is off to a rather dull start, but that’s not true at all. If anything I was excited about the start of the year as it was this exact show that I was looking forward to. Although this is only the first episode, it has clearly become my number 1 anime for 2008. So a definite watch and a definite one I’m going to blog. I can only hope that I can keep up with the show as well as blogging it.

Ending Sequence:

ED: “Kin no Nami Sen no Nami” by Arai Akino

A shame that ROUND TABLE didn’t make a return for the third season, but I must say, the ED was superb. The ED sequence they have definite put more effort into to remind us that this is the quality of ARIA. The ending theme itself isn’t all too bad, but it goes well with the ED sequence.

Preview: