I'm not really sure how to best encapsulate the VN version of AIR. While it is a buzzword, I really do think that it can best be described with the term, "kino" (or, in this case, would it not be KEYno?).
I believe that when and where you experience something is very much related to your enjoyment of something. I mention this because, during my month-long playthrough, I was in neither a particularly good or bad place emotionally. Despite that, AIR is probably the piece of media in which I have been the most emotionally invested in, so I believe that it has to have been made with some degree of love and quality, at least to the extent that it was capable of evoking such feelings in me.
AIR relies heavily on metaphors, themes, and symbolism to tell its story.
It does so to such a degree that you often have to rely more on what the themes of a scene are supposed to mean, rather than how it would be placed in a traditional story structure, in order to figure out what's going on. If you go in with the wrong mindest, which I believe many others have, you may find it to be nothing more than the most boring SOL story ever written.
AIR is separated into 3 arcs. My review here will mostly be referring to the first arc, since it would take me way more time to think about how all three fit together than I'm willing to spend on a single post. It's similar to Kanon at an overview, but the way it allocates screentime to its characters is completely different. The five girls in Kanon each have their own routes, which can be completed in any order; each of said routes are roughly equal in length, as well. There is a "true ending" involving Ayu, but it's more-or-less equal in terms of content as the other routes. This is not the case in AIR. When starting up the game for the first time, the premise is similar, only with three girls this time instead of five. It remains that way only for the first arc. As time goes on, it becomes increasingly apparent that the focus is on Misuzu, and the other two are just there on the sidelines, which is what I would consider to be the other main fault of AIR's narrative. IIRC, it is literally stated in the script that the entire town is centered around her, and all of the supernatural elements in the story occur simply because she exists; this is only mentioned once or maybe twice, however, so I'm not sure if I'm interperating that correctly.
What this fundamentally boils down to is this:
If you don't like Misuzu (In which case, how dare you
), then you're not going to like AIR.
In regards to Misuzu:
I had pretty much lost interest in it. But my sister who was a big fan of the anime read it, and told me she had to stop because Misuzu comes across as an unironic retard. I mean, she's pretty slow in the show, but apparently down-syndrome tier in the VN.
It can very much seem this way at times, but I think that's what distinguishes her from other, similarly clumsy characters.
It's no exaggeration when I say that she can feel like the stupidest person on the planet on some (many) occasions.
No hyperbole.
Her
moe-autism is so severe that I seriously cannot think of a single character from any piece of fiction ever who can even remotely compete with her.
Extending as far as all the stories which I have read throughout my life, I have not found one with a portrayal which reaches the extremes of a character archetype to such a degree as that of Kamio Misuzu.
None.
She is the worst.
This is not a contest.
None can best her.
this is, however, the aspect of AIR that hit me hardest emotionally; for you see, she ever-so-rarely has moments where she becomes completely aware of her own faults and it's seriously one of the most heartrending things I've witnessed. I don't think I'm unjust when I compare the fascination with her to that which people have had towards Chris Chan, and that's her at her best. By the end of the VN, she's so unstable that she can hardly even form sentences properly. The ending to AIR is like watching an oncoming train which has been going at a snail's pace for 30 hours, to the extent that you become desensitized to it and don't even remember that it's there until the moment that it runs you over.
You cannot save her.
So, instead, you just get to sit back and watch, awaiting to see if she becomes even worse than she already is.
As fate would have it, she does.
You cannot save her.
More importantly, this guy cannot save her.
That's Yukito, the protagonist.
I hated him on my first playthrough.
I think that I almost quit the game halfway through, and thus would have abandoned visual novels as a whole, because I couldn't stand him.
After having read a few other VNs, however, I've realized that he's not at first dissimilar from many other VN protags, such as Yuuichi.
AIR was my first VN, though I think that if I had played a few others beforehand I would have probably grown to appreciate him more than I already do.
His role in the VN, as when compared to that of the anime adaptation, is probably one of the reasons that AIR isn't more well received. I've seen some reviewers of the adaptation describe his personality as a generic, faceless self-insert, when I think that his role in the VN was specifically trying to distance itself from those tropes.
Because he's not generic.
Or faceless.
After all, he has a face.
Although the game starts off from his perspective, by the third arc he has both metaphorically and literally distanced himself from the role of self-insert. He's a twenty-something year old homeless man with bizarre talents and supernatural abilities that literally no one cares about. He spends his time monologuing and waxing poetic about the sky and the colour blue and clouds and stuff. What a nerd. The only way he can look cool is by showing off in front people who are even worse off than he is.
As for the other two routes, I will go over them briefly.
Funnily enough, all of the main characters in the first arc can be described as "airheads" to some degree.
Misuzu is the worst (and best) offender of this, and Yukito's faults become more apparent when you get to see him from a literal birds-eye view during the third arc.
Kano Kirishima is the most "normal" of the three girls. She's upbeat most of the time, though she likes to act stupid as a joke sometimes. She drops the act once you start making fun of her. She also tries to commit suicide a few times; however, I don't think there's ever a bad end where she succeeds. She's usually only briefly mentioned in reviews of the series, and it seems that most of her route was scrapped in the anime adaptation.
(She has her own theme music, and it's a bop btw!)
On MAL, she's even less popular than her own pet dog.
As for the VN, she's not that special, although it would be very hard for her to compete with the often nonsensical writing of the other characters.
Where her route really shines is the atmosphere. It has many of the best moments which combine timing and the tones of the scene with the music. Overall, however, many of her route's best moments are when she's not onscreen, rather than when she is. She also has an older sister, who often outshines her in both her own and other girls' routes.
And now, for
the number one enemy of the human race herself.
Minagi Tohno is first portrayed as a contrast to Misuzu. She's introduced as someone who's both wise and competent, and her grace is rivaled only by her mysteriousness. Even Misuzu is enamored with her beauty and poise. She's always tagged along by her friend, Michiru. I did not like Michiru. If there was one thing in particular that made me dislike Yukito to the point that I contemplated dropping the game, it's his interactions with Michiru. I'm going to refrain from mentioning Michiru for the rest of this review.
Although she seems reasonable at first, If you spend the time to learn more about her it becomes obvious that that isn't exactly true. I don't exactly like throwing these disorders around as hastily as this, but it's the best comparison that I can think of; for if Misuzu is a
moe-autist, then Minagi is a full-blown
moe-schizo.
She even has a tulpa of her dead sister, who also happens to be herself (dammit, I mentioned Michiru again...)
As you get closer to her, the things she talks about begin to make increasingly less and less sense.
It quicky reaches a point where every single conversation with her is like this:
Actual /x/-tier ramblings.
At first I though it was building up towards some sort of Lovecraftian, Azathoth-esque reveal, but it doesn't, really...
There aren't even really any stakes. She's never in any danger, and her emotional struggle is less than relatable, or even decipherable.
I mentioned before that AIR often uses (And perhaps overuses) themes/symbolism/metaphors, and that could not be more true on this route.
If I'm to be honest, not even I could piece together half of what she was saying at times or how it's related in any way to the other routes or even the other arcs.
Maybe it's a cultural thing?
There's this one scene where you meet Minagi's mother (who doesn't have a sprite ingame btw. She's literally faceless, despite appearing on multiple occasions. I thought that that was interesting.) at a store, buying rice. There's a lot of tension built up during this scene that hints at something happening later, but I can't figure out what that something is supposed to be. It perplexes me to no end, and no matter how much I've thought about it, I cannot seem to figure it out.
Overall, I think that the two of them aren't as boring as most people say, but I do agree that the story would probably be better off without them. I believe that the reason which they were included in the first place was to contrast and magnify just how miserable Misuzu is, and perhaps also because it may have been poorly received if there was only one route, as opposed to Kanon's five. In any case, I believe it would have been better to just combine their traits into one, much more fleshed-out character.
The later two arcs are much better, although the third is basically just a retelling of the first arc from a different perspective.
I've seen some people describe the second arc as "the best writing KEY has ever done", and although I haven't read all of their VNs, I have to admit that its conciseness and characterization that it does is very impressive, especially when compared to the first arc, which is much longer.
The experience I had reading the ending to the VN version of AIR is something which I'm not sure I will ever have replicated again.
It's something that could only really have the effect that it did because I sat through hours and hours of Kano's, Misuzu's, and Minagi's shenanigans beforehand.
It certainly lives up to its name, "
AIR".
After all,
atmosphere is its best characteristic.
As far as I am aware, nothing else can really replicate the atmosphere of daily life alongside people who fit into character archetypes to such an extreme degree that they somehow become a whole which is far greater than the parts which they should sum up to.
I was more invested in these three* than I have been for almost every character written to break, change, or subvert these tropes which they fall into.
For that reason, I don't think I can give AIR any summation besides, "
I love it".
*There are a total of eight characters in AIR which I would consider to be endearing in some way. The fourth is Yukito, the fifth is Haruko, whom is Misuzu's mother, and the three main characters of the second arc make up #6, #7, and #8.
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