Aria

It's here! It's finally here! The long awaited Aria post has come to us at last! Praise the Gods!!!!

Note: I went a little picture happy on this one, so... Please bear with me. Orz

EDIT: I was a stupid face and didn't remember that they use the romanized version of the nicknames in the anime. So any harping I have about the names comes from the fact that I wiki'd stuff. I'm sorry. Orz

Aria is very much a slice-of-life, makes-you-feel-happy series. Consisting of three series, Aria the Animation, Aria the Natural, and Aria the Origination, and an additional OVA, this is very much like my beloved Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha, which I have yet to blog about for size and time reasons. No, seriously. That post would be full of Nanoha and Fate pictures and how much I love them and... Yeah. Well, this post is about Aria, so I suppose I should go ahead and start talking about it, huh?



Story
Sometime in the distant future, the planet Mars has been made fit for human survival, with the hidden aquifers being released. However, the scientists accidentally let out a little too much water. As a result, the original colony has become overflooded so that it is pretty much Venice, Italy. They call this place Neo-Venezia, because they are AMAZING at names (Seriously, who else calls the planet they live on Earth and then changes it to 'Manhome'???). They also rename Mars Aqua because of all the water. Anyway, one girl, Mizunashi Akari, comes from Manhome to Aqua, because she wants to become a Prima, the best of the best of the best of the gondoliers in Neo-Venezia. Never mind the fact that all original gondoliers were men. Or that she doesn't really have any good reason that she tells us for wanting to become a gondolier in the first place. Ah, well. Such is anime. At any rate, let's start with character introductions!



Characters
The Seniors



These are the teachers of the three main girls. I would have put them after the main girls, but then I'd spend too little time on them because I'd be waxing poetic about Akira and Alicia... Anyway.




Alicia Florence
The current head of Aria Company, she is one of the so called Three (Great) Water Fairies. Her nickname from this group is Shiroki Yousei; this somehow translates into 'Snow White' even though the literal translation is 'White Fairy.' (I'm pretty sure the Japanese version of Snow White is called 'Shirayuki Hime' which is why I'm skeptical of this English translation. Feel free to prove me wrong though.) Her main talent is how graceful she is at gondolier-ing. Oh, and her beauty, which is nothing to sneeze at (though I prefer types like Akira >_>). Her main trait is her kindness. Gah, I could write pages and pages... Well, at least one page. But I want to hurry up and get to Akira. Um, her catch phrase is 'Ara ara' or 'Ufufufu.' These basically mean something like 'Oh my' or a lady's laugh, if I am to believe subbers.







Akira E. Ferrari
Reference to fast cars aside, Akira is my favorite character. Not only is she awesomely cool, she's also really amazing. But I should start with some factual stuff first, huh? She's the best gondolier in the Himeya Company, and she is another of the Three (Great) Water Fairies. Her nickname is the Shinku no Bara or 'Crimson Rose' (which has a much more palatable translation, by the way). Her talent is the way she gets along so well with her customers. There was even this scene they showed in one of the Origination episodes that had this annoying guy stand up and rock the boat (Don't rock the boat, baby, don't ro-*shot*). Actually, I found it!

IT'S SO CRAZY AWESOME. I was so sad that they saved this scene for the last season. Imagine what would happen if all three seasons were like that? IT WOULD BE SO AMAZING. But, um, anyway. Her catchphrase is 'Suwa!' which means 'Hey you!' ...I'm pretty sure. But yeah, she's the I-teach-you-with-tough-love type character, which makes me like her even more (not that I like being on the receiving end of that... >_>) AND SHE'S HOT *cough* which makes her the best in my book.




Athena Glory
Pronounced 'A-te-na,' she is the third of the Three (Great) Water Fairies with the nickname Tenjou no Utagoe, literally 'Heavenly Voice' and translated 'Siren.' Not as bad as Alicia's, but still a weird translation. As her name suggests, her talent is singing. In fact, since I'm feeling so nice, I'm going to include a link of her singing! Just go here and you can listen and read at the same time! :D Anyway, despite her beautiful singing, she is an extremely clumsy person, always accidentally overspicing/filling things. And despite that, she can be incredibly sharp when it comes to Alice, which I'll touch on later.



The Juniors


These are the main characters and the students of the three above. There will be spoilers, so read with caution~




Akari Mizunashi
The main character of the three, the series is basically narrated by her and her correspondence with her friend Ai on Manhome. She's in the Aria Company, so her teacher is Alicia. It was pretty funny because she actually learned to row backwards by mistake (standing in front of the customer rather than behind). Anyway, her main trait is how well she gets along with people, as well as her kindness. She's probably most famous among viewers for the embarrasing things she says. Akari is the last of the three to become a Prima (i.e., SUPER AWESOME), and her nickname becomes Aquamarine (Harukanaru Ao, 'Distant Blue'). Her trademark phrase is 'Hahi' which she uses as a catch-all... I think. Please forgive me bad, roundabout translations.




Aika S. Granzchesta
"Hazukashi serifu ha kinshi!"
Aika is the heir to the Himeya Company, so it's only fitting that her teacher be the best of the bunch: Akira. She's very much a tsundere. Well, at least a tsun. Like Akira, she has a kind of rough teaching style that comes into play whenever she and Akari go out to practice. Besides declaring that 'Embarrassing remarks are prohibited!', she is known for the hard work she puts into becoming a gondol- er, sorry, a Prima. She idolizes Alicia. Her nickname when she becomes Prima is Rozen Queen (Bara no Jouou, 'Queen of Roses').






Alice Carroll
The youngest and most skilled of the three, Alice is the first gondolier to jump from being a Pair to a Prima. In Earth terms, this would be like a Page going straight into a Knight, or an Apprentice becoming a Master (skipping the squire and journeyman stages). Drafted by Orange Planet in middle school, she comes under the instruction of Athena... But because of her personality, she ends up scolding Athena more than Athena does Alice. Although there is no indication of it throughout the series, Alice also has a good singing voice, so it's a good thing that Athena is her teacher. In fact...

Yup, that's Alice. Her trademark is saying 'Dekkai' (lit. 'Huge' but she mostly uses it with a connotation of totally/really, if I'm to believe fansubbers). When she becomes a Prima, her nickname is Orange Princess (Tasogare no Himegimi, 'Twilight Princess'). Yes, yes, I know. That was a pretty good game, wasn't it?


Cats
Cats are a kind of good luck charm for the gondoliers, so every company has a cat 'president'. It's actually pretty funny to watch them. Since I don't have a lot of info or pictures for them, I'm just going to lump them together here. Aria Company's cat is President Aria Pokoteng, Himeya Company's cat is President Hime M. Granzchesta, and Orange Planet's cat is President Maa. I prefer the 'shachou' title that is given to them, but in the interest of translation read: Aria Pokoteng-shachou sounds weird, I'm keeping it as 'president'. Note: You can see President Hime in one of Aika's pictures.



Yes, Aria-shachou, you can has third season.

President Maa has this really cute sound. You can hear it at the end of Alice's song.


Pairings
And now for the long awaited pairings section! Despite the fact that you can pair up all of the seniors and juniors like this:
I prefer to have Aika x Akari, Alice x Athena, and Alicia x Akira. So on we go!




Aika x Akari
Even though Aika adores Alicia and likes Al, she and Akari interact so much that sometimes you can't help but think that they're together (unless you don't have your Yuri Goggles on). In other words, it's fan delusion. >_>




Alice x Athena
These two are so funny together. It's great. And it's more fan delusion. Orz




Alicia x AkiraThis is my favorite pairing. Although they get pitifully little screen time together, they have a kind of... I don't know what to call it. They've been friends since they were little (Aria the Natural episode 15), and Alicia even followed Akira into the gondolier business! While there's no indication of Alicia being so, Akira at least has a lot of yuri vibes already. In fact, in one of the episodes, there's a festival where you give a rose to the woman you admire/love, and it's canonically stated that Akira gets them from women (Aria the Natural episode 8)! But yeah. At the end of the series, Alicia retires and supposedly gets married. We never see the guy, though, so I'm hoping it turned out like this:


d:

And of course there are the requisite het pairings which I'm not going into because they're uninteresting. 8D




Some bonus images that didn't really fit anywhere else




I love the chibified faces they have.

And that's it! Gawd, that was long. Now back to Spring Break for me~ See ya next time!