Air Movie

Centuries ago, Kanna, a princess and the last of a winged race, was held prisoner in a castle as she was feared by the rest of the world. However, when she met a soldier named Ryuuya, she fell in love with him and told him of her wishes to see the outside world and to find her mother. Ryuuya attempted to fulfill these wishes. However, his efforts were in vain as Kanna was sealed in the sky through magic and cursed to be in pain for all eternity.

Hundreds of years later, Yukito, a decendant of Ryuuya, comes to a quiet town one week before their annual festival with hopes that he can make some money. However, when he meets an unusual girl called Misuzu, he is reminded of what his mother once told him—"When you go out on your journey, if you find the winged girl's re-incarnation, you must use your power to set her free."

Yukito and Misuzu's fates soon become intertwined with each other, with each developing feelings for the other. However when Yukito realizes Misuzu's connection to the past, he must decide on whether to leave, or to attempt to break the curse that has bound Kanna in centuries of pain.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kamio, Misuzu Main

Kawakami, Tomoko Japanese

Kunisaki, Yukito Main

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Kanna Main

Nishimura, Chinami Japanese

Potato Supporting

Konno, Hiromi Japanese

Kamio, Haruko Supporting

Hisakawa, Aya Japanese

Ryuuya Supporting

Canna, Nobutoshi Japanese

Michiru Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Kirishima, Kano Supporting

Okamoto, Asami Japanese

Sora Supporting

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Uraha Supporting

Inoue, Kikuko Japanese

Yokota, Mamoru Producer

Dezaki, Osamu Director, Storyboard

Hata, Shouji Sound Director

Kimura, Nobukage Episode Director

Reviews

Jun 17, 2024

EmmyMoomin

Recommended

I hate Air, I always will, but this movie ain’t half bad. Obviously it has Osamu Dezaki directing it, so it already has that over the series. But also it handles the romance better, the AIR arc is not total dogshit, and that the Summer arc is used better.

All in all, it handles THAT part at the end with a little more tact and nuance than the series did. Haruko is still a bad parent, but she tries a lot harder here, and that’s all I can really ask for. This is my ideal version of Air.

It’s still not perfect, I feel like it could ... have been a little longer 10 or 20 minutes more, perhaps. The final act is very speedy. But hey, at least it doesn’t have that crappy epilogue from the anime.

I highly suggest watching this over watching the series. I’ve never read the Visual Novel, but if the series is considered more faithful to it then that can only mean the visual novel is also complete garbage.

I can’t believe people don’t consider this the definitive version.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 11, 2009

dafuzzbudd

Mixed Feelings

This movie was bad. I got interested in Air by a random AMV I saw at Otakon and decided to seek out this anime. My thought process was that the movie would have a higher production value than the TV series; this was my mistake. I now know that they have different directors and that the TV series is regarded as being better.

Sorry about the rant, let's get to the movie review.

Animation: The first thing you notice is the slightly experimental visuals. Lots of sun glare and strange but effective uses of the background becoming the foreground. It ... gives a slightly surreal but totally fantasy setting. It works. This is the only saving grace of the movie. Unfortunately it's not blended well with the regular animation and is more visual eye candy than an emotional additive to the experience.

Story / Characters: Is god-awfully average and uneventful. A traveler stumbles upon beautiful, typically average girl with mysterious, deadly illness. Through a serious of cliche events she shows him that even he is capable of love. The parallel between the old-story and the current was interesting but didn't move me either way. If it wasn't for interesting animation I would have stopped watching this.

Sound: The theme is memorable and blended well throughout the movie. Besides this, the music is cheap, average and is just simple noise filler.

When I watch an anime I there's two things I NEED in order to be entertained, art and story. The art was there but it was shallow. The story was something a 5 yr old wrote, a hodgepodge of other stories. I bought this dvd and I know I'm never going to watch it again. I DO however want to check out the tv series. From what I hear the storytelling/ animation is done more effectively.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 1, 2012

Wynter_Star

Not Recommended

Since the AIR movie existed to condense the series into something a little less drawn out, and focused on Misuzu and Yukito’s relationship dominantly, I expected something to have superior quality to the original series. How wrong I was. Besides the tighter screenplay, this movie fails where it should have been strong: its technical aspects.

Animation :
This was my major problem with this film. Because Toei Animation decided to take on the project (the guys who made Digimon) instead of Kyoto Animation, the animation style has changed greatly, and for the worse. I’m not saying Toei Animation is a bad studio. They are capable of beautifully ... animating their work (see any of the Digimon Movies to see what I mean). However, it’s as though they didn’t really care for this production, or just made it to make money, with little passion for what they were actually doing.
The change in character designs was not the problem- in fact the smaller eyes may sit better with audiences unfamiliar or who dislike Kyoto Animations work. The character designs were still cute, but the lighting and colouring was all wrong. In most shots there is so much light around the characters that you can’t even tell what is going on, and the lighting is so bright the colours and character designs become obscure and ugly.
The animators also threw in some split screens, which I wouldn’t a problem with normally, if they had kept the high quality animation Kyoto Animation did. But they used a lot of stills (stills in a movie, right??) – including hand drawn images as stills. The hand drawn bits (in colour pencil) looked higher quality than the actual animation itself .
The backgrounds look quite uninspired and the characters didn’t move around too much. This is unacceptable standards for a film, or anime itself for that matter. Kyoto Animation should have animated this project.

Sound:
Background music was also surprisingly mediocre- mirroring, if not worse than the original series. For a film, something along the lines of Tenmon or just orechestrated music would have been much more appropriate and up to standard.
I didn’t like that they re-used the same opening song for the opening. Rather, I’m annoyed they didn’t remix it or changed it slightly to show the movie was special compared to the series.

Story;
The story is almost as good as the original, the filler bits of the series (Episodes 2-6) have been cut. My only gripe with the script is I didn’t like how the Kanna flashbacks were for the majority, narrated rather than shown (rule of writing- show don’t tell!). Otherwise the script is a lot tighter. I didn’t like the change in the ending though. I preferred the soul switching twists in the original series. It didn’t seem that dramatic of an ending this time around because Mizusu wasn’t completely alone.
I did like the additional bits of romance between Mizusu and Yukito though. It gave a bit of what the fans wanted :P

Character:
The characters are just as strong as the original as they encounter all the same issues and their backgrounds are pretty much the same. No complaints here.

Value:
Overall AIR MOVIE fails. I was hoping to give it all 10/10’s (or close to it), like the Rebuilds of Evangelion. It has worse animation, worse sound – and they changed the ending for the worse.
AIR fans should watch the series instead, and Kyoto Animation should re-do the movie and make the show shine for what it is: a beautiful love story of living life to the fullest and not giving up.
I would not recommend this to any anime fan; it is a demonstration of pure laziness and something I don’t want to show off to anyone. It is an insult to call this a movie, or anime for that matter.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Before or After? Cetais - Jun 9, 2010	10 replies	by patkarunungan »» Aug 9, 9:13 AM
	Poll: Air (movie) Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Joseph_ - Aug 31, 2007	57 replies	by patkarunungan »» Aug 9, 9:07 AM
	can I skip the movie? removed-user - Sep 25, 2017	3 replies	by Nebelhart »» Dec 4, 2020 3:08 PM
	:'< Lilly1x - Feb 14, 2009	7 replies	by versuz »» Dec 31, 2012 3:54 AM