Kanon, by Kyoto Animation

I. am. so. excited.... this is a dream come true! (Special thanks to Matthew and Muhootsaver who brought my attention to such uplifting news!) Ever since AIR, I have raved and hoped for a Kanon-remake by Kyoto Animation. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the 2001 Toei-produced Kanon. But after having learnt more about its very excellent game, I realised the series could have been so much more.

Personally, there's no better studio to remake Kanon than Kyoto Animation. I was made a staunch KA supporter via AIR and FMP TSR. It's not merely gorgeous animation but superb art direction and spellbinding storytelling that set them apart. In fact, I would expect a better job of Kanon since its source material is a great deal more coherent than AIR. Anyhow, here's few improvements I would like to see in KA's Kanon.

Character Artwork

Quite frankly, I was rather unsettled by the girls' HUGE eyes in Toei's Kanon. Yes, anime bishoujos have big eyes but Toei's Kanon girls' humongous ones would shame even the most mutated Martians. A disproportionality that took me 1-2 eps to acclimatise. Fortunately, the promotional postcard seems to suggest KA has addressed that issue. The Kanon girls now have beautiful AIR eyes.... shiawase da.....

Story flow

Toei's Kanon had excellent character-centric stories but the transitions between the very poignant tales were really abrupt. As a result, the series felt very chunky/heavily segmented. This would probably be KA's greatest challenge since it's not 3 (as in AIR) but the yarns of 5 cute girls they need to spin and bind to a series.

Underdeveloped characters/stories - Possible Kanon spoilers

Natsuki was terribly underdeveloped in the previous Kanon. Possibly her story thread was incompatible with the chosen ending but it was still a real shame to see her sidelined for most of the series. Mai's story was also incomplete, knocking some poignacy off her tale since a few important details were omitted. Hopefully Natsuki and Mai's story would receive the proper treatment come Fall 2006.

Having touched on some aspects for improvement, I do hope that KA's Kanon would retain and or bring to greater heights the magical touch and heart that made its predecessor memorable. I personally thought the music was marvelous and the preamble at the start of every ep, genius. Well it appears that KA would be using game Kanon's original score (KEY is listed as music production) with Last regrets as the OP. Yes, its music is in very good hands indeed.

In addition, I am soooooo relieved that Horie Yui would be reprising her role as Tsukimiya Ayu. I cannot imagine anyone else undertaking Ayu's voice (her 'uguu' could never be as moeletricfying.)

Sigh, Fall 2006 is just too far away....

Related posts:

1. Kanon PV
2. Kanon ~ 2nd PV
3. Kanon