DistantStar

Well, here it is at last. Remake of Kanon by Kyoto Animation. We all waited for it for different reasons. Some waited because they love Kanon, some waited because they love Kyoto Animation, some – because they love kawaii girls… Personally I waited because I liked Tomokazu Sugita’s voice in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yūutsu as Kyon & in Shuffle! as Rin. I was sure he will retain Kyon’s sarcastic intonations, and just wanted to hear it once more. I was not disappointed – he still speaks like me when I am in a bad mood :). That’s just like looking on yourself from the outside… Heh…

Opening. ”Last Regrets” by Ayana. I like it. Really. The song seems sad, soft & fluffy, just like snow, so I can conclude that it’s almost perfect opening for this series. I am going to find this song and listen to it in cold snowy evenings.

Ending. ”Kaze no Tadori Tsuku Bashes” by Ayana. Good song with a good demonstration of Kyoto’s professionalism with light. Nothing more and nothing less.

Aizawa Yuuichi arrives to a town and is sitting on a bench waiting for someone and complaining that “she is late”. When “she” at last comes, we see a girl with a long blue hair (I prefer girls with a short blue hair BTW :) ) who greets Yuuichi telling him that snow is piled up in him. Well, that’s because she was 2 hour late… She apologizes and asks Yuuichi if he still remembers her name after 7 years (Wow, 7 years and no “hello” at all…). Yuuichi plays dumb, but at last “remembers” her name - Nayuki (I want to kill him for such a bad manners…) and they walk away.

As soon as the opening sequence ends, we see some “dream”, were a girl is speaking about red snow and world stained in red. About a crying child covering the view and how she can’t move to wipe his tears. She says that it’s all right, and reminds him (?) about a “promise”. She wonders whose words those were. When “dream” ends, we see Yuuichi who was waken up by Nayuki’s voice and is trying to remember were he is. When he walks out of the room, he meets Nayuki who is looking for her uniform. She greets him and as he does not respond, “teaches” him how to greet people in the morning (Did I already say this guy has no manners? Seems like I did…). After a short conversation during which we get to know that Nayuki is a captain of a track team, she leaves to school. An interesting moment here is how her mother, Akiko melts snow on a gate lock – I thought that is used only in Russia :). Anyway, after Nayuki leaves, Yuuichi helps Akiko (Who is his mother’s younger sister BTW) to clean road from snow. By his look we can guess that this snow is heavier than Uranium…

After finishing his work, Yuuichi is relaxing on a sofa drinking a tea and remembering that in the childhood he used to visit this city very often, but last time was 7 years ago. His thoughts are interrupt by Nayuki, who has returned from school and is going to guide him around the city. They walk around the city, visit school, were them both are going to study starting from next day, and in some time meet Nayuki’s classmates - Misaka Kaori and Kitagawa Jun. Kitagawa is inclined to believe that he is on a date with Kaori, but she is using him only to carry her bags, which is noticed by Yuuichi who calls poor Kitagawa a porter. When they both leave, Yuuichi has a strange vision of a boy standing near the tree, just like one in the beginning of the episode, but snaps out of the vision after hearing Nayuki’s voice. Standing at the hill overlooking the town, Yuuichi & Nayuki speak about how Yuuichi has forgotten many thing about is childhood spent in this town and how Nayuki would like him to love this city. Suddenly they notice a fox and Nayuki tries to approach it, but of course, fox runs away. Nayuki is surprised, because foxes on this hill are “special”, and there is even a legend about this, but unfortunately she has forgotten what this legend says.

They walk to the supermarket to buy a food for dinner. Yuuichi stays at the entrance assuring Nayuki that he will not go anywhere. But in some time, a girl with a winged backpack bumps into him and drags him to the nearby café, where she “explains” that she was about to bye taiyaki, but discovered that she forgot her wallet, so when owner yelled at the cat, she was scared and ran away. Yuuichi takes her to apologize to the owner and on the way back makes dun of her habit of saying “Uguu~” (KAWAII!!!). When she asks her about wings on her backpack, she seems surprised but is happy to see this “cute wings”. On parting girl tells Yuuichi her name - Tsukimiya Ayu , and is notably surprised when hears Yuuichi’s name. She promises to meet him again, and hearing this Yuuichi have one more flashback of a some girl’s face. After Ayu runs away, Yuuichi remembers about Nayuki who must be waiting for him and runs towards the supermarket. She is angry, but after returning home them reconcile. When Yuuichi wants to unpack his luggage to find an alarm clock, Nayuki offers him to take one of hers, and I must say she has quite a collection of them :). Before falling to sleep, a figure of a girl comes to Yuuichi’s mind, but he can’t remember who she is.

In his dream he sees an episode of his childhood in this city, an episode almost the same as happened today - about how he went to the shop with Nayuki, and how a crying girl saying “Uguu~” bumped into him, and how he asked her name and it was Ayu…

Impression: Prefect! That’s exactly what I was expecting. Perfect drawing, perfect animation, perfect sound, perfect… What else? Oh, yes, perfect lighting – the main point why I love Kyoto Animation is their soft lighting in all scenes. Even the white light reflected by snow seems very soft!
The plot seems to be good. I do not know it will unfold, but because there are many people who love Kanon, I am sure it will stay interesting till the very end.

P.S. Uff… More than 3 hours per post, and I even do not have time to check grammar… So, if you read it & find some terrible mistake, pleas let me know, I will correct it & never do the same mistake again. Thanks.