I really debated whether or not to blog this show since it’s already gotten a lot of attention from the anime community. Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~ Natsu no Sora is actually the third entry in the franchise, receiving preferential treatment over its predecessor, Taiyo to Kaze no Sakamichi, with both an anime and a live-action movie. For ease of convenience, I’ll simply call this series Summer Skies rather than go by the romanized Japanese name. For episode 1, I’ll also include a manga comparison to the first chapter.

Summary:
Sora Suzuki seems like your average country girl from Hokkaido, not at all like a person who possesses the rare ability to use magic. The first episode highlights her last day of her normal, slow-paced country life at home before she travels to Tokyo for her mage training.

She hangs out with her best friend Michiru, who is feeling down since Toyama, the guy she likes, is going to move away. Michiru mentions that the guy wanted to see Hokkaido’s winter snow with her but it won’t happen now. Sora takes it upon herself to help Michiru with her problem and sets up a meeting between Michiru and Toyama for later in the evening.

Sora’s mother gives her a banquet of her favorite foods for dinner and the two enjoy a lively meal. After dinner, Sora gives Michiru some final encouragement before she confesses. Michiru and Toyama meet as planned, and Sora uses her magic to make it snow for the two as Michiru makes her feelings known. Afterwards, Michiru e-mails Sora thanking her for the small miracle.

Sora has an emotional parting with her mother before going to the airport. Michiru e-mails Sora again and wishes her the best of luck in Tokyo.

OP: Thyme – “Fly Away”

ED: Micc – “Hawai ta Hana”

Manga comparison:
Sora has more friends in the manga compared to just having Michiru in the anime. Her goofiness and father complex are downplayed in the anime. She’s also much more liberal in her magic use in Hokkaido. In the manga, she sets up the guy that likes her (whom she obviously likes back) with another girl by making the snow fall with her magic. Sora originally takes a train to Sapporo and then gets transferred to Tokyo. She subsequently meets and saves Gouta from some thugs on the train.

Thoughts:
The anime is already drastically different from the manga. It’s much like the first Someday’s Dreamers anime which didn’t faithfully follow the manga version, opting instead to use the original material as a guideline.

Summer Skies features relatively new seiyuu talent as the two lead characters, Sora and Gouta, with a veteran cast backing them up as support. Sora’s voice has been all right so far; At any rate it’s much better than Yume’s anime voice from the original Someday’s Dreamers. I’ll judge Gouta once he shows up, which is probably the next episode.

Summer Skies was different from what I expected, but not really in a bad way. The art direction is interesting with the composite/rotoscoped/whatever photos as scenery. There were a couple time that I forgot I was watching a TV show and thought it looked like a high budget anime movie. However when watching this episode, I couldn’t help but feel that the focus was on the scenery instead of the characters. While the scenery is admittedly gorgeous, the animation feels a bit choppy at times and the character details are underdeveloped. The choppiness stems from the fact that it really seems that the characters have to work around the background; There is the occasional hiccup between their integration. I’ll give Hal Film Maker points for being daring though.

I also have a complaint with how much the characters barely resemble Kumichi Yoshizuki’s original art. See the manga comparisons above. Sora was a lot more gorgeous in the original manga, but the anime Sora is kind of cute in her own way. The little quirk in Sora’s magic also didn’t show up in this episode. Well you’ll probably see that next time. Summer Skies is technically a shoujo anime but doesn’t feel that way at all. I’m a guy that typically doesn’t like the genre, but I really enjoy this franchise.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Anime, Someday's Dreamers: Summer Skies.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.