I figured animation quality would be improved over that of the TV series since it's OVA, so I bought it. Consistency is certainly better, but then it's only one episode. If HAL Film Maker couldn't keep the quality consistent for 30 minutes, they wouldn't deserve to be called an animation studio. Unfortunately, animation still feels very digital, and worse yet, I'm not all that fond of the base character design, so it's hard to really enjoy the show. Strangely enough, I actually liked the TV series character design. Only if the quality were better then....
I'll be really evil and compare this directly with another DVD I got at the same time. As far as animation quality goes, Den'nou Coil's animation (MadHouse) KILLS this thing's animation, stomps on it, burns it, and flushes it down the drain. And Den'nou Coil is a TV series, too! Well, maybe that wasn't too fair. Den'nou Coil is one of the current star series, after all.
As for the story, it's okay. It actually reminded me why I like (and hate) KyoAni. No, this series has nothing to do with KyoAni. It's just that KyoAni tends to produce the original works in verbatim. This anime is not like that. Since I like the original ARIA & AQUA manga a lot, I actually wish they'd produce episodes very close to the original manga. In fact, KyoAni might have been a good production house for this series.
I don't feel bad about buying this though, because I can just think of it as a payment for the internet radio I listen to for free. I'm not going for the third TV series, though.
DVD case and two postcards. Postcards are smaller than the ones from ARIA the Animation, but the illustrations are no worse. Amano-sensei is awesome!
Very unfeeling (digital feeling?) bird flight animation. A similar scene by Shinkai Makoto can make my heart skip! Now, that's art!
