Aria

Having just finished the third season, I have to say that this is the best anime I have ever seen. The setting is wonderful, the music is absolutely gorgeous, the characters are all lovable, the art is beautiful, and the pacing was perfect, but more than that, by the end of the anime, I can't help but be filled with pure, unadulterated love toward Neo-Venezia and the dear Undines. The anime does very well at bringing you into its world to share in the happiness of the people of Aqua.

To be honest, after learning so much about the holidays and festivals, the occurrences, the sights, I almost wish to learn more about the Gnomes', Sylphs', and Salamanders' respective works, after learning so much about the Undines', even if only to immerse myself in their beautiful world a little while longer, but the ending to Aria was just so beautiful, I don't know if I want more to take away from the warm feeling of love I was left with.

I was a little disappointed I never found out about the man to be married, or had any reappearance of Cait Sith in the last season, but I realized that the former is pretty much irrelevant and I don't care about who he is so long as the new wife is happy, and the latter...well, concerning him, you can't really get any sort of closure. It'd just be wrong, considering who he is, right? Still, I think he deserved at least one appearance in the last season. I still have no clue why season three was only 13 episodes, compared to the second's 26. Oh, one more thing is that I felt Al's sudden 'growth spurt' odd and out of place. Especially considering what it already established as Gnome characteristics. Well, that, and their showing the elderly Gnome as shorter still than Al makes him growing taller extremely odd. I suppose you could chalk it up to genetics overcoming environment, but...

Never has an anime become so endeared to my heart, nor characters made me feel as deeply for them as these did. By the end of it, I felt myself desiring them all to just be happy, whatever it is they do, and even now I feel for them such unconditional love I never thought possible before.

If you haven't seen Aria, please do so, but more importantly, if you have seen it, watch it again. 

There's no way you could regret spending a few days in Neo-Venezia.

Unlimited Blade Works

I am waiting for the movie to finish downloading so I can finish watching the last 30 minutes of it.

Of what I have seen, though, I think it is safe to say the movie is good. No, the movie isn't good. There is nothing to suggest the movie is good. It would be a mistake to call the movie good.

Don't get me wrong, the route in the VN was really enjoyable, but this movie essentially requires that you've played the VN to understand anything that's going on. Not so bad a strike against the movie, but it's odd, as a matter of definition, to make an adaptation of a visual novel that requires you to have read the visual novel first. The entire first part of the movie is choppy with scene changes every few minutes as the studio tried to cram the beginning of the route in as little space as possible.

That aside, the part of the movie that really makes me hate it is the fact that Studio DEEN cut so many scenes from the VN. Namely, in my case, the 'Holy shit, Lancer is such a cool guy' part.

It's a gif, so click it!

 Cut.

He gets a few seconds, solely so the viewer knows Lancer and Tohsaka/Shirou teamed up, then they just leave Ilya's Castle without talking to each other again until Caster. Ah, it makes me so angry.

I heard a few people saying they hated how Archer was portrayed in the movie, but I have never liked Archer, so I didn't really see any difference. Though, I guess I'll get to his special part in the end of it, since they've animated True End. If they fuck that up, I'll probably feel their hate as well.

One thing I was impressed with was how they did the fight scenes. To my eye, at least, they were well done, which is good, as there are tons of them. I especially liked how they animated Archer shooting swords with his bow.

I loved how they animated Lancer's fights as well. It really rekindled my love for spears and such by seeing him use his so beautifully.

I felt the blood was animated a bit oddly, but it isn't so big a deal. I was too busy wiping my tears away to care during Ilya's scene, which I won't post a picture of. Goddammit, Gilgamesh, you bastard. God damn it.

Anyway, there's still 40 minutes for the last 30 minutes of the movie to finish downloading, so I'll go read a book or something, I guess. I really need to finish reading Justine.