GBS: Two other shows that drew me in through their visual beauty were Air and Clannad (Kanon is wonderful too, but the opening moments of the first episodes of the other two are slightly more compelling). For Air, specifically the scene right after the opening credits (themselves an impressive spectacle), where Yukito is lying on the seawall, covered with shore birds. Misuzu Kamio then descends, as if she had been airborne herself, next to him, alighting on the wall with a flutter of feathers everywhere. As the camera pans around and away from her, her hair flows in the breeze, whipping around and their tendrils grab your attention.
Clannad does it very differently. We start before the credits with Tomoya Okazaki’s slow trudge up the hill towards school. The world there is drained of color, everything is muted, a reflection of his inner drabness. It is a world devoid of life. When he comes across Nagisa Furukawa, who is having her own public soliloquy, there are flashes that seem like lens flares, but what is actually happening is that the world is changed to a brilliant, bright color palette in place of the sepia-toned world of Tomoya. When the two start talking to each other under the cherry trees, the world changes over to the bright colors of Nagisa’s world, away from the drab hues of Tomoya’s. The sudden burst into brightness pulled me in and kept me watching.
BT: Good stuff. Three expressions of beauty from three different executions. And yes, I did not think of that ARIA scene. It really encapsulates the whole show, but not from the position you would expect, knowing what it’s about.
GBS: And then, there is—oh no. Our Shimako cosplayer seems to have had a little accident on the rug. She wasn’t quite used to drinking our variety of “tea.” I think it might be best to end our discussion here, even if it is on a not so beautiful note.
BT: Beautiful waste, though. That stuff wasn’t cheap.
GBS: So, there we have one argument about some aspects beauty in anime…even if we didn’t really argue too much.
BT: Can’t argue with that.
GBS: Well, our glasses seem to be empty again, so we’ll have to wait until Chris gives us the next installment of our booze budget…I mean provides us with a new venue for argument.
I’m sure there are many more beautiful moments and also other studios and individuals whose names and works are being shouted at the screen right now. If you feel strongly about someone or something we’ve overlooked, please join the discussion in the Fandom Post Forums or leave a comment here on the Fandom Post website
