neko’s thinkbox

The climax.

Edit: YES, I am a fool. It’s OBVIOUSLY ARIA The ORIGINATION, and not ANIMATION. Thanks to Ayie for pointing out this horrendous mistake…

Spoilerific content ahead, read at your own risk.

Episode summary:

Even Akira is crying.

This episode, already before the opening, offers a very important revelation. Indeed, during their regular combined practice… Aika, in tears, suddenly announces that she can’t practice with Akari anymore. Why? She’s a Prima now…
Her exam run is shown during the entire opening song, including Akira taking off Aika’s glove.

In the evening, Akari happily tells Alicia about this, and in turn, Alicia tells Akari that her exam will take place on the next day. Excited about this event, Akari can’t find any sleep at night, so she decides to work it off by practicing on her gondola. She encounters Akatsuki, who seems to have lost his purse (or whatever). Akari tells him that she can’t sleep because of the Prima exam, and Akatsuki seems to say that he can relate to that since his exam would be soon too. In the same moment, Woody appears shouting at Akatsuki that he had dropped his purse at the toilet… =.=;;

The next day… You’d expect a beautiful day, gorgeous weather, a radiant sun… Well no. It’s literally pouring buckets out there, and even Alicia wants to postpone the exam to another day. But Akari says that good weather has been announced for the afternoon, and that she wouldn’t like to have the exam postponed because she had always been waiting for exactly that day to come. And so they wait until the afternoon.
The weather has cleared up, and Alicia wakes up Akari who fell asleep on her chair, as well as President Aria. Everything is ok for the exam now!

The weather can’t ALWAYS be nice either.

As they progress through the main waterways of the city, Akari encounters various personalities, from Akatsuki and Woody who have been waiting on the Rialto Bridge to cheer for her, over to Athena, Aika and Akira, as well as Alice, who was guiding customers…
At the end of the trip, Alice tells Akari to take a very narrow path. She masters it brilliantly while thinking back of the time she spent with Aika and Alice in their many combined practice days. Eventually, they arrive at the border of the city, and the windmills and the sunset strangely remind us of Alice’s promotion in episode 09. However, it isn’t over yet. Alicia has one last task left for Akari…
Akari is to choose her own way now, “what kind of Prima she would like to become”. Akari navigates straightly back to the ARIA Company in that beautiful sunset, saying that she wants the become a part of the ARIA Company, a Prima like Grandmother, like Alicia…

After praising Akari for her improvements in rowing and guiding, as well as for Akari’s charisma she spreads around her, Alicia officially takes off Akari’s glove. As of now, Akari is a Prima Undine! Aquamarine! \o/

However, the episode finishes off in a pretty melancholic tone: Alicia tells Akari that they have something very important to discuss about…

Neko’s Thinkbox

Because of Ruki, I might end up in Venice as well. And by God, I will go on the Rialto Bridge too.

I… am speechless. Once again, my predictions and expectations are royally overthrown. When I said last week that both would be promoted at once, I was partially right – the two promotions took place in the same episode indeed. However, it was already a shocking surprise that Aika had already been promoted at the beginning of the episode! I would never have thought of this possibility. Then again, I had in mind that the promotion would be extended until the last ep, so…
I can not say that I am disappointed with that, they still showed Aika’s promotion during the opening sequence. Yet, I’d have liked to hear Akira’s comments on it though, I bet it would have been funny. Akira’s and Aika’s crying image is hilarious yet so heartwarming at the same time, it really is one of the highlights of the episode.

Another highlight was the wonderful atmosphere during Akari’s exam. All of her friends were there, everywhere, cheering for her. This feeling of love and friendship, in combination with a new song in the background, really made it hard to fight against the tears this early in the episode already. It was truly a blessing moment.
Speaking of the song (it’s a song by Makino Yui) I’d like to highlight the abso-fucking-lutely gorgeousness of the artwork in this episode, and the perfect harmony of the animation and the soundtrack. In the last few episodes, an amelioration in the design has been pretty noticeable, especially to ARIA freaks like me (and some others on IRC). It’s really nice to know that they are outdoing themselves for the end of this series, and it’s all the more pleasant to the eyes as well. Also, the music… It truly is a fearful weapon. It immediately strikes the “emotional nerv” right there where it hurts, and especially for ARIA, they always do it perfectly right.

The pinnacle of the ARIA series, in one single image.

They chose exactly the right tune to accompany Akari’s progression in the exam, which makes the viewer recall all of the beautiful moments we spent with our undines, all of the funny, serious, sad emotions of the past. And this eventually leads into the climax of the episode, or should I say, of the entire ARIA series. I am obviously speaking of the scene where Alicia takes off Akari’s glove. All of the memories that reemerged with this episode boiled to this little tiny minute where Alicia takes off Akari’s glove. Akari’s, no, our goal, everyone’s goal has finally been reached: Akari has become a Prima Undine.
Honestly speaking, it entirely broke to shatters every kind of crying restraint I had built up in the past few years, and, to un-dramatize this sentence, I cried buckets of manly tears of joy.

Even today, after having analyzed the many assets of this anime in previous reviews, I keep wondering why especially ARIA has (had) such a strong effect on me. Perhaps, by the end of the next episode, I might have figured out a way to express this sensation in intelligible words.

However. After reflecting upon what will happen in the next episode, I somewhat feel that the trump card has already been played now. The preview shows Akari waving at Alicia, and both holding their hands or so… It looked like a parting sequence. As if… Alicia was to go away. Giving it some thought, they only have one white gondola, and perhaps the ARIA Company does not have the budget to buy a second one for Akari, so Alicia will have to resign… heh, how stupid am I. (I’m going to jinx it, I bet!)

Akari… what have you done… ARIA is going to end T__T And Alicia will be going away!

…Well anyway, let’s just assume she will part ways, which I do not hope will happen. Of course, it will be yet another emotional highlight in this series, obviously marking the ultimate end of ARIA. However, the main goal of the anime, that which we were introduced with at the beginning of ARIA The Animation, Akari’s promotion to Undine, has already been reached. As such, Episode 13 feels more like an epilogue than an actual ending of the story. A double episode would have been the most glorious and perfect ending of this outstanding series… That’s the only criticism I can have.

Oh, also. I now do expect them to use one of the previous openings of ARIA – Euforia, or, preferably, Undine. I will feel insulted and sad if they don’t. If you remember ARIA The Natural, there were two episodes where they used Undine instead of Euforia in the opening, and those episodes were merely about Akari’s switch to a new gondola. The evident nostalgia already struck me hard, and I still get the goosebumps when I think about it. Now, if they were to use Undine in the very last episode, as the opening, or the ending… I swear it will be the most nostalgic experience I will ever have had in my life, and I already am shaking in anticipation…

Oh the nostalgia…

Click to enlarge pictures.

Episode 13 Preview:

Bye-bye! ^__T

It’s the end…