badger11’s take on anime

Finally got a chance to sit down and actually watch the whole episode in one sitting. More of normal, day-to-day type episode, but it starts putting things in place. The show opens with the normal dream-scape voice over. We then get treated to a flashback scene where Yuuichi and Ayu first meet, seven years ago. She’s crying and he’s trying to cheer her up. This is also where he gets her hooked on taiyaki. And just like the older Yuuichi, he realizes that he was supposed to meet Nayuki. When he catches up with her, she calls him a liar as she does when they’re both older. The scene cuts to the older Yuuichi, who is awake in bed. He hears his door open and someone sneaking in. It’s Makoto. Yuuichi pretends to be asleep as Makoto stands over him, getting ready to drop some konnyaku onto his face. As she she’s about to drop it, he surprises her and she falls to the floor. He asks what she was going to do with the konnyaku. He tricks her into saying that it was her midnight snack. Akiko comes in and sees that Makoto is so hungry that she’ll eat konnyaku.

In the morning, Makoto is complaining about heartburn because she ate so late last night. Yuuichi almost gets her to admit that she was going to drop the konnyaku on his face. After she runs up to her room, Yuuichi takes Nayuki her lunch. She went to the school on the weekend because her track team is practicing. After watch her train for a while, he leaves and runs into Kaori who’s also at school because of her club. She hints that things aren’t gong well at home so she’d rather come to school. Yuuichi believes that she had a fight with her parents. She tells Yuuichi not to cause any trouble for Nayuki and to watch out for Nayuki as she has a tendency to overexert herself. Yuucihi jokes with Kaori about this being the cause of her being sleepy all of the time.

After leaving Kaori, he heads downtown to help Akiko shop. Ayu makes runs up to them and trips. Yuuichi introduces Akiko to Ayu as his landlord. After explaining what a landlord is, he introduces Ayu to Akiko who seems to recognize Ayu’s name, but isn’t sure. Ayu joins them in order to help Yuuichi unpack his boxes. She says she wants to thank him for helping her look for the item that she lost the other day. When they get home, Yuuichi notices Makoto watching them from the top of the stares. She hides behind a corner until Yuuichi calls her down to meet Ayu. Yuuichi and the two girls start to carry up his boxes. As Yuuichi carries the rest of the boxes up, Ayu breaks the ice with the unexpectedly shy Makoto by offering her a taiyaki she bought earlier. As Ayu leaves the house, she notices Makoto watching from a window. She waves to Makoto who shyly waves back. Later that night, Nayuki, back from training, asks Yuuichi for her notebook. He forgot it at school and decides to go and get it, even though the school is closed. He’s walking down the hall when he notices a figure. As he gets closer, we see that it’s so Mai carrying a sword. And the show closes there.

So far, this is the only episode where the music got my attention. The music playing during the flashback scene was nice and enjoyable. I really enjoyed the music that played during the Mai scene and hoped for more of the same in the next episode. Another thing that I noticed, and I’ll have to find the previous episodes, but it seems like every time we see Ayu leave, it seems that she’s heading off into light. In this episode, as she left Yuuichi’s home, Ayu ran into the sunset. During the flashback, when she left Yuuichi, she ran down a sun-lit street. I’ve mentioned before that, as I understand it, the show is supposed to have a supernatural aspect to it and having Ayu continuingly running into the light is very suggestive of a plot development along those lines. And then there is Mai and her imitation of Buffy the Slayer. That should be a very intetersting plot development. Even though the show had a “normal, every day” feel to it (for most of the show that is), this was another enjoyable show.

There’s been a lot of humor in the previous episodes of Kanon and episode three is no different. Yuucihi brings home the girl who attacked him the last episode. Since she’s passed out, he has to carry her. When he gets in, both Nayuki and Akiko make the same joke (at different times) about the girl being a big ingredient for the oden. They manage to awake her by shouting that dinner’s ready. When they’re eating dinner, the girl is obviously hungry since she’s eating fast. Yuuichi asks who she is but the girl claims amnesia which Yuuichi doesn’t believe since she remembers him. The girl explains that the only thing she knows is that she holds a grudge against him. After dinner Yuuichi, Nayuki and the girl are going through her purse for clues. Yuuichi points that everything she has seems to have just been picked up from the ground. Its clear that the girl is trying to build a history for herself since she doesn’t remember who she is. They also find some pictures taken from a photo booth of the girl by herself. She explains that she saw other girls her age using the photo booth to take pictures. Yuuichi wants to call the police and turn the girl over to them so that they can take care of her. The girl is frightened by this and thinks the police are scary. Nayuki suggests letting Akiko decide. Yuuichi protests because he know that Akiko will let the girl stay.

Sure enough, Akiko lets the girl stay, claiming that being around Yuuichi might help her remember. She later tells Yuuichi that she will talk to the police if there are any reports of missing girls.Since the girl can’t remember her name, Yuuichi comes up with an insulting name. The girl smacks Yuuichi in the face, knocking him over. After everyone has gone to sleep, Yuuichi hears the girl sneaking downstairs. He follows her and finds her looking through the refrigerator, looking for more to eat. He sneaks up behind her and drops some sort of gelatinous looking thing (konnyaku?) down the back of her shirt. The girl shouts and thrashes around the kitchen, waking up Akiko and Nayuki. She tells them that she was still hungry.

I don’t remember a smack like this since Aka double-palmed Matsumaru in REC

At school the next morning, Kitagawa suggests that Yuuichi had some sort of love affair with the girl. Yuuichi points out that he was 10 at the time. Kitagawa mentions that a girl is outside in the yard next to the school. Yuuichi recognizes her as the girl that he and Ayu knocked over the day before. Telling Nayuki that he’ll be back, he goes outside to talk to her. He finds out that she’s a student at the school, but has been home sick. But she’s feeling stronger despite being sick for so long. He asks her why she’s at school and she mentions that she us waiting to meet someone, but she doens’t know a name or what grade this person is, even though we presume that its Yuuichi. As she leaves, Yuuichi tells her his name, but she only tells him her first name, Shiori. In spending time with Shiori during lunch, Yuuichi forgot about his promise to Nayuki to have lunch with her. He offers to buy her sushi as an apology.

After school Yuuichi is walking through downtown when Ayu runs up and jumps on his back. In another humorous scene, Yuuichi makes Ayu angry by mocking her with her catchphrase “Uguu”. To apologize to her, he buys her taiyaki. In all three episodes, Ayu has rarely been seen without a taiyaki bag. In the first episode, Yuuichi had a memory from when was 10. A girl around the same age bumped into him, crying because she was lost. To calm her down, he bought her some taiyaki. In the second episode, we find out that the little girl was Ayu. So it seems that Ayu has a strong unconscious bond with Yuuichi through taiyaki. In a poignant scene, Ayu explains that she was out looking for something that she lost. When Yuuichi asks her what it was, Ayu can’t remember and becomes distressed by not remembering what it was. After searching around places that Ayu could’ve lost it (and they all deal with food), They walk to a bakery that Ayu remembers visiting, but turns out that a bookstore is now located there. Standing front of the bookstore, Yuuichi asks if she has a cell phone. Ayu doesn’t know what a cell phone is until Yuuichi explains that its a mobile phone.

As he heads home, Yuuichi wonders if the city casts an amnesia spell over people. Ayu can’t remember what she lost or where, he can’t remember his life in the city 7 years earlier and the girl at home can’t remember who she is. When he gets home, the girl comes running at him, slips and lands on top of him. Nayuki and Akiko come into the hallway and tell Yuuichi that the girl remembers her name. The girl calls herself “Makoto”. Yuuichi thinks her name sounds like a guy’s name. She defends herself by sayingf her name is cute and his is weird. Yuuichi calls her a freeloader. Makoto points out that Yuuichi is one too, despite being family.

So this episode solves half of a mystery and introduces Makoto whom I liked from the original Kanon. I haven’t seen all of the original series so I don’t know her her story other than what’s been shown here. So know we have to wait to find out who she is and what happened to her memories and her connection to Yuuichi. Then there’s the mystery of Shiori. Why is she sneaking out to meet Yuuichi when she’s sick? Who is she? And if she’s recovering, why is she wearing a shawl instead of a coat in the snow? I thought the camera work during their meeting was great. It followed Shiori as she walked around Yuuichi when they were talking.

I know that Kanon is supposed to have a hint or two of the supernatural to it. That lead me to believe that Ayu is a ghost or spirit of some sort, but  we see her reflection in the window of the bookstore. I don’t think that we would have seen her reflection if she was a ghost. As I mentioned earlier, I found the scene when Ayu couldn’t remember what she had lost to be very poignant (and the fact that I was able to spell that word correctly the first time…even though I am using it incorrectly here). The unknown urgent need that she had to find it as soon as possible and her reaction to not being able to remember it came acrossas very painful.

This weeks airing starts with a view of snow falling (wouldn’t be Kanon if there wasn’t snow falling now would it?) outside of a window. A girl’s voice claims that she’s in a dream. In fact, she’s in the same dream with the same scenery again and again. She makes a wish that the next time she opens her eyes, the scenery will be different. After the show’s opening scenes of the Girls of Kanon with slowly moving hair in the wind, we see Yuuichi sleeping in bed. He hears Nayuki’s voice saying “Good Morning. Let’s eat breakfast and go to school”. He soon realizes that her voice is coming from the alarm clock that he borrowed. He then hears loud noise coming from Nayuki’s room. He bangs on her door and then enters. The noise is all of Nayuki’s alarm clocks going off at the same time. Quickly shutting them off, he has to shake Nayuki awake.

At breakfast, Nayuki asks why Yuuichi is eating toast dry, without any jam/jelly on it. He explains that he doesn’t like sweet things like jam. Akiko, Nayuki’s mother, hears this and says that she makes jam that it sweet. Hearing this, Nayuki bolts from the table, saying she has full and has to finish getting ready for school. Bringing out a jar of glowing yellow jam, Akiko spreads some on a piece of toast for Yuuichi. He starts to eat it and has a reaction to it. Asking what kind of jam it is, Akiko says its a secret. Being polite, he says the jam has an original taste to it. Nayuki returns saying its time to go. Akiko asks Yuuichi if he can stop at the store on the way home to buy some ingredients for oden that she wants to make for dinner. As they walk to school, Yuuichi asks Nayuki what kind of did of jam Akiko make. She doesn’t know and warns him to be prepared for the unexpected.

On the way the stop in walking and Nayuki asks if Yuuichi remembers the area of houses that they’re in. He doesn’t and isn’t concerned by not remembering. She encourages him to remember and says that if there is someone out there who wants him to remember, then he should make the effort. Realizing that they’re going to be late on his first day at school, they run, barely making it in time. In the hallway he’s panting for breath and asks her why she isn’t. Nayuki reminds him that she’s the Captain of the track team. After making his introduction to the class, the teacher lets Yuuichi sit next to Nayuki, Kaori and Kitagawa. Nayuki is claearly happy that Yuuichi is in the same class and at the seat next to hers. Kaori tells Yuuichi that his introduction was very normal. Yuuichi responds that if there were any introductions that weren’t normal he’d like to see them.

With school over, Kaori asks Nayuki if she’s got a club meeting. Kitagawa asks Kaori if she wants to go somewhere with him, but she ignores him telling Nayuki that she has a club meeting too. As she leaves, Kitagawa runs after Kaori, telling her that he’ll wait for her. Yuuichi asks Nayuki not to tell anyone that he’s living at her house as it might cause some nasty rumors. She tells him that she’s already told people. She jokingly runs away from him. As she’s running down the stairs, she slips and crashes into Mai and Sayuri, two seniors. Yuuichi tells Nayuki that he’s going to explore the school before going home. Nayuki points out the school is big and cautions him not to get lost. He gets lost. After getting lost and finding the computer lab, library and an art room with a naked male model, Yuuichi runs into Kaori. We here him say that as he turns around, Kaori is standing in front of him. Kaori asks why he’s narrating the scene and it becomes clear that this isn’t his normal internal narration. As they walk through the school, Kaori tells him that she thinks that he’s a spy. Yuuichi tells her that he’s an ordinary transfer student. She points out that he could’ve asked for directions from someone. Yuuichi claims that he’d still get lost because of all of the corners and non descript hallways. Kaori laughs telling him that he’s exactly how Nayuki described. She also tells him that Nayuki looked the happiest that Kaori’s ever seen her when Yuuichi joined the class. As they get to the school gates, Kaori calls him melodramatic and realizes that Kitagawa was waiting for her. She shrugs off that thought and tells Yuuichi good-bye and heads home. Yuuichi tells himself that she’s a very cool girl.

Downtown, Yuuichi is thinking about shopping for the oden ingredients when he hears Ayu’s voice shouting to get out of the way. Turning around, he sees Ayu running right at him. Telling her to move to the side that she hold uses chopsticks with and he’ll jump to the side that uses chopsticks, they’ll both avoid colliding with each other. They both jump to the same side and collide with each other, only Ayu is the one getting knocked to the ground this time. She tells him that she’s left-handed. Getting up, she grabs him and the start running again. Yuuichi realizes that she stole more taiyaki again. They wind up running into a park that niether recognize. Yuucihi complains that all he’s been doing since he came back to the city was running. He asks Ayu why she stole more taiyaki. She tells him that she forgot her purse again and was frightened by the taiyaki seller again. Because she was scared, she ran away with the taiyaki again. As they walk through the park, both are eating the taiyaki. Yuuichi explains that they’ll have to go back to the taiyaki seller and apologize. Again.

They both realize that they’re lost since they were just walking with each other. Yuuichi tells here that since she’s a local and doesn’t know the area, how can she expect him to know the area since he’s just moved back. Ayu recognizes him as the boy that she used to play with when they were little. She tells him that and claims that he moved back, just like he promised. Hearing this, Yuuichi also recognizes Ayu as the little girl he used to play with. Ayu closes her eyes and runs toward Yuuichi who jumps out of the way. Ayu runs smack into a tree. Yuuichi apologizes for jumping out of the way. As Ayu is crying, they hear a shout. Turning around, they see that a younger girl had been knocked down to the ground from the snow that fell from the tree that Ayu ran into. They go over to her and see to if she’s alright. Yuuichi blames the accident on Ayu running into the tree. Ayu blames Yuuichi for jumping out of the way. It was supposed to be a dramatic reunion moment and that she’s not the bad guy that he’s making her out to be. Yuuichi claims that Ayu has scared the girl speechless. He helps her up and starts to help pick up her groceries. He implies that trustworthy. Ayu who reacts to this jab and claims that she’s trustworthy too. Yuichi then says she shouldn’t have stolen the taiyaki.

As the three walk in the park, Ayu notices that the girl bought a lot of groceries. The girl explains that she doesn’t get out much so she buys in bulk. Yuuichi uses this moment as another excuse to tease Ayu about the taiyaki. Ayu thinks that Yuichi is intentionally trying to make her look like a bad guy. Ayu claims that she’s a good girl but Yuuichi stills says that a good girl wouldn’t steal taiyaki. Ayu remembers that Yuuichi was this sarcastic when they were younger. She claims that its destiny that brought them back together and he says its bad luck that chained them together. Ayu asks the girl whayt grade she’s in . She tells them that shes a freshman. Ayu mention that the girl is a year younger than she is. Yuuichi is surprised to hear that Ayu the same age that he is. The group reaches a fork in the path and the girl tells them that her house in down the other path. As she’s leaving, Yuuichi stops her and begs her to tell them how to get out of the park.

After Ayu and Yuichi are out of the park, the pay and apologize to the taiyaki seller, again. After they leave the taiyaki stand, Ayu wants to meet again. Yuuichi agrees. Ayu pinky swear like they used to as a kid. She starts to pull the glove off of her left hand, but stops and pulls off the glove on her right hand instead. After they pinky swear, she runs off. Yuuichi shouts at her, wanting to know how to contact her, but doens’t get an answer. He then walks into the grocery store to go shopping for Akikio’s dinner. As he walks out of the store, a figure in a blanket jumps in front of him. The figure declares that it finally found him and that it’ll never forgive him. It then pulls the blanket off, revealing that its a young girl under the blanket. Yuuichi is surprised by this and says that he doesn’t remember angering causing anyone to have a grudge against him. The girl says she has a grudge against him and takes a swing at him with her fist. She starts hitting Yuuichi, but since her punches are so weak and feeble, they don’t hurt him. Yuuichi sarcastically asks if she can try harder, but she says she’s so hungry that she’s weak. She starts to walk towards him, but trips and collapses to the ground.

I enjoyed this episode, but that’s not really a surprise. There was a lot of humor in this episode starting with Nayuki’s alarms clocks, her reaction to her mother’s jam, Kaori and Yuuichi comments about his class introduction, Kaori nonchalantly blowing off a waiting Kitagawa, and the scenes with Ayu of course. This episode’s given us a questions already. A fe blogs have mentioned that neither Ayu nor the girl they knocked over in the park have were seen at the school. And obviously, the girl who attacked Yuuichi and her grudge are mystireies. But I also noticed that while Ayu said she was left-handed, she used her right hand to pinky swear with Yuuichi. We see her start to pull off the glove on her left hand, but stops and then pulls off her right hand glove. I think that’s the bigger issue and should come into play later in the series.

Now that its been a few days since the show that hype built landed on us and I’ve gone back and watched it half dozen or so more times. And I still like it. I have to suspend any opinion because KyoAni is taking their time in introducing the characters and what’s will undoubtedly be several involved plot-lines. We’ve been introduced to the main character, Yuuichi, his cousin Nayuki, and his aunt Akiko. We’ve also been introduced to two characters who are, if I remember right secondary characters (I’ve only seen a few episodes of the first one). So we need to be introduced to three more remaining character within the next few episodes before the show really gets going and picks up in pace.

I’m predisposed to liking this show because of KyoAni’s work on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Also, the artwork alone would be a great reason for me to watch it. As I seaid before, I’ve watched it a half doze times already. The show doesn’t necessarily get any better with each viewing, but excluding the artwork, there’s a quality about it that I like. Granted there isn’t the potential for a deep, intense story line like Death Note seems to have. Its pretty much a show that just are along for the ride. So enjoy the artwork, be amused by the story (and probably get depressed here and there). Oh, and decide which girl will you become a fan of. On a few blogs I’ve read, the Ayu vs. Nayuki camps have already started to rally.

Well, I’d suspect that wearing a uniform like this one in wintertime, the girls’ track team would be popular since they undoubtly have to run as fast as they can to stay warm.

Yes, I’ve been wanting to say that and no, I couldn’t think of anything funnier to say. Hey, I didn’t say that these were deep thoughts.

Based on some of the anime blogs I visit, Kanon is one of the more anticipated shows out there. I know I was anticipating it also. The first episode is long and drawn out, introducing the main character of Yuuichi who used to live in the city where the show takes place, but doesn’t remember much about it. We are also introduced to his cousin Nayuki, who has a huge collection of alarm clocks, Nayuki’s mother Akiko, and Ayu, a girl who literally runs into Yuuichi. There really isn’t much to tell about this episode as it just introduces the characters. Considering that Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) has about 24 episodes to work with (as opposed to the 14 for their previous show, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya). Having a slow open for the series isn’t too bad (jpmeyer describes the opening of this episode as “90 seconds of stuff blowing in the wind porn“).

This episode shows Yuuichi moving in with his aunt and cousin, whom he hasn’t seen in seven years. He and Nayuki tour the city and run into a couple of classmates, Kaoria and Kitagawa. These two have a pretty good interaction with each other as Kaori has Kitagawa carrying all of hers bags and he keeps saying that they’re out on a date.

After watching Kitagawa run after Kaori with her shopping bags, Yuuichi wants for Nayuki outside of a grocery store. He claimed that he’d get lost inside. At this point he hears someone shouting to get out of the way and sees Ayu running towards him. Before he can get out of the way, she bowls him over. She then drags him along, running away from someone chasing her. As they hide in a cafe, Yuuichi sees that its a shopkeeper she’s hiding from. Ayu explains that she got scared by him chasing a off a cat and ran away with some pastries. Yuuichi drags her to the shop (well, its actually a van) and they pay and apologize Ayu’s theft. as they start to part from each other, they finally introduce themselves. Ayu has a reaction when she hears Yuuichi’s name, as if she knew him when he lived there before.

Based on a video game, Kanon was already made into a series a few years ago by and outfit whose name I can’t remember (and am too lazy to find out). I’ve caught a few episodes on Youtube so I have a basic idea of the story. This version is done by Kyoto Animation (KyoAni). From what I understand, excluding the male lead, all of the original voice actors are back for this version. The male lead is done by the actor who voiced Kyon in KyoAni’s recent show, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. That was a show that I liked also.

This is so from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

I thought the artwork in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was pretty good. I sort of suspect that show was just a training session for Kanon because the artwork here easily out does the artwork in Suzumiya. And that’s one of the few things that I think most viewers will take away from this show. Visually, this is very well done. The story itself, I don’t think will be complex, but it should be enjoyable nonetheless.

As I mentioned, one of the strengths about this show will be its visuals. Lush, beautiful landscapes. All of the females characters are almost guaranteed to make you fall in love with them in a moe sort of way (at least as I understand it). I even found myself saying “kawaii ” a few times. Especially whenever Ayu said “Uguu”. This show is probably going to be the fall cotton candy show for me.