Aria the Natural: Episode 1 Commentary

That Encounter At Carnevale

In short, this episode pleases me. On top of that, I saw world-building and character-building in the most subtle way. I like the use of Carnaval, as well.

I’m sure it’s easy to go in the wrong direction when switching in a new opening song, but I can’t think of a series yet where the new song didn’t fit in right next to the original. The opening theme song for Aria the Natural, “Euphoria”, is just as wonderful and mood-setting as the theme song for Aria the Animation. I’ll admit that the original outshines it for me right now, but I’m sure that will slowly change over the next ten or so episodes, especially after I’ve heard it a number of times.

In the episode 13 commentary for Aria the Animation, I pondered what language might actually be spoken on Neo Venezia. I hadn’t really paid any attention to signs. Seeing the “Welcome to Aria Company” suggests to me that English is the spoken language (with the dialogue being in Japanese due to the target viewing audience being Japanese).

It looks like Aria is out of winter, so perhaps it’s spring? Aqua’s seasons are twice as long as Manhome’s, but there’s never been any indication of the length of a day in comparison. Do two Manhome years hold the same number of days as one Aqua year? This came to mind with mention of Ai being on school break. It’s likely a short one, but there’s enough time for her to travel to another planet and back.

Ai makes for a good member of Aria company while helping out, but she looks older somehow. Her “Puinyu” reply to Aria shows her nature to continue to have a playful side to it.

This episode had a good feel. I don’t even mind that it was plainly obvious that Casanova is Cait Sith (by the line about the same person playing as him the last 100 years) with all the (missing) cats playing the little troupe following around him. On the contrary, it feels nice to know what Akari and Ai are thinking about, when Aika and Alice don’t even give any actual thought to who Casanova may be played by at the time.

Were it President Aria the girls followed, it makes sense for him to run until Akari is separated from the others. After all, it’s Akari who he means to let see things. Maybe he did the same for Alicia in the past? Due to Ai helping out at Aria Company, there’s no reason to try and exclude her. Maybe, those legs and feet might have been too thin to be President Aria’s, but there’s no denying those white feet that hopped away after handing over the bells and castanet.

Considering the size of Cait Sith, I’m convinced he’s the big eyes looking down at Akari on the bridge in episode 12 of Aria the Animation.

The new ending theme, “Natsumachi”, I think will take me a little longer to get used to than the opening theme (and it’s easier to skip over the ending theme than the opening theme in this series), but it does have a good feel to it. I wonder if there’s a CD compilation of songs for all the series of Aria.

Is it just me, or is the new episode preview a bit suffer this series? Maybe they figured it was an easy cut to save expenses? Or that it was unnecessary? I’ve enjoyed the prologue and preview segments very much in Aria the Animation, so I’ll miss the latter.

Looking at the trailers, this is the second time I’ve seen the Emma: A Victorian Romance trailer. I might just have to pick up season one (even though I still have a lot of DVDs in my to-watch cabinet…) Seeing the trailer for Maria Watches Over Us a second time as well, it still doesn’t grab my attention.