I was initially very disappointed with the ending since many critical story elements were left unresolved and I felt there was little closure on the plot. This feeling was exacerbated by bewildering scenes of Genesis and strange utterances/narratives (at beginning of Creation and little boy at beach) which give the impression that the series was trying to be difficult and deliberately cryptic. An open ended finale would have been more acceptable if the audience had enough story material to work with, to formulate their own hypothesis. But alas, AIR had been scant on important information like the dreams of the stars and the winged race's primary role which severely limited our ability to construct a sound interpretation of the ending. However, after simmering the disappointment/near-indignation for about 2 weeks, I realised that 2 things that ease the disappointment. Firstly, the failure may be on my part for not having extracted the details which may be embedded in the series. (Yes, this warrants a 2nd sitting for AIR.) Secondly, there was actually closure of some sort. Not the end-all, grand finale but a milestone achieved in the lives/purposes of the protagonists. Although Misuzu died, we get a sense this is Kanna's first earthly manisfestation that tasted love/happiness in that thousand years. Not only that, of all of Ryuuya's descendants, it may be Yukito to achieve the unravelling of the curse since he assumed the crow avatar (ie power of flight), bringing the search of Kanna to a whole new level (or literally new heights). When I comfort myself with these 2 rationalisations, I become less critical of AIR. Nevertheless, it still stands that the series did not adequately address the Kanna/curse issue which forms the framework of the story. This in turn, nerfed the potency of story arcs (especially Misuzu's) since personally I cannot feel for what I cannot understand.

Despite the not-so-satisfactory end, AIR remains an excellent production. Amazing visuals, superb art direction, fantastic voice-acting (the seiyuu cast should all get anime Oscars) and impeccable game-to-anime character export all make AIR very memorable. Unfortunately the story department does knock a few points of the series. I'm not sure how faithful the series is to its game roots but personally I preferred Kanon's story over AIR even though AIR (anime) is probably 50 times better executed than Toei Animation's Kanon. Sigh, if only Kyoto Animation would reprise Kanon...