AIR 9
Quick thoughts for now... Dang.. that was good stuff, tying together the summer arc with what's going on in the present. Watching Kanna as she went up into the sky, arrows flying at her, the monks' spell binding her, and then finally crying and disappearing... that was hard to watch...
...So she's our winged girl who's dreaming those awful dreams in the sky all alone.. and Uraha and Ryuuya turned out to be who I expected them to be, as Uraha learned how to do those puppet tricks and Ryuuya helped out, all so their children might find a way to save Kanna sometime down the road...
...And 1000 years later we ended with Misuzu befriending a crow that seems to be... Yukito, I guess? Seems Potato has an interest in him, judging from the next ep preview ;) Anyways, see how this all plays out next time in ひかり -- light. If I have any more thoughts I'll add them later, along with the summary :)
Yes, the crow is Yukito. It took awhile for the game to reveal it but the anime went right into it.
In brief, his wish to go back to when he first meet Misuzu has been granted by the powers of his ancestors that was sealed in the doll, but in a very strange way. Note that in the preview, Misuzu says that "tomorrow is the summer holiday", which means crow Yukito has been thrown back in time before Misuzu even met human Yukito!
I ask of you now in this moment in time....
Do you have the urge to play the game and experience the full drama ?
Do you have the urge to collect the R2-JP DVD release seeing at the slim and narrow chance of this title being licensed ?
In the game, the crow is the player himself in part 'Air'. So the player come to wonder about the point of view... and he may get to know the crow is really 'him' after hours of playing, and get shocked.
That's too sorry that the trick is revealed from the start of the part in this anime
I can kind of understand why they revealed Yukito being the crow already, the way the game did it doesn't sound like it'd work too well in animation form. Of course I've not played it so I could be wrong. :)
I'd like to play it but I can't since I can't read Japanese. :(
I thought it was really neat in retrospect that a crow had Yukito's doll there in the first episode. I guess those of you who had played the game saw that as an in-joke? :)
Actually I would agree, not everything from the game would translate into the anime well. As much as some game purists likes to whinge about the changes and the pacing, a lot of the scenes from the game really are not necessary to be animated faithfully because they would drag the pace of the anime down remarkably. Also I actually liked how they dropped it on the viewer at the end of ep9, since it leaves the ep9 on yet another cliffhanger, plus this revelation should build up to another famous scene which would most probably take place in ep10.
And with the crow thing, players of the game would already see it as a story reference with the first viewing, but non-players would know now that it was delibrately put in. Kind of an incentive to go back and rewatch the series again I think. :)
I'm not happy about this episode. It's way to cramped and hurried!
I'm just curious on the relationship between Ryuuya and Uraha. I'm assuming that he loved Kanna, and had a child with Uraha to save her. What kind of threw me off was in the end of his life, he said that he had no regrets...meaning that he fell in love with Uraha?
Does it always has to be love between a man and a woman ?
Remember that Ryuuya is a Samurai and Kanna was his mistress.And evidence in the game/anime pointed out that Ryuuya treat Kanna as a daughter.But whether Kanna loves Ryuuya is up for debate.For Ryuuya, as a Samurai, he has duties to be done for Kanna especially when she, as both his Mistress and a "daughter",is in trouble.
Same case for Uraha,Kanna is both her servant and "daughter".So both of them have a common goal to save their mistress and of course, people way back then shows more selflessness then people today....Though in the game,Uraha shows that she kinda have a crush on Ryuuya.
you're right, it doesn't always have to be about love...can be more of a paternalistic feeling; however, it throws the viewers off when she kisses him...