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Kanon - First Impression
Uguu one more time and I'll... 
Studio: Kyoto Animation Format: 24 Episodes Episodes Watched: 6 Written by: Aisakku 
Having not viewed any of the original series, I came into this series completely fresh with no previous background on any of the characters. As the story begins, we see Yuuichi Aizawa sitting on a bench, waiting for someone to pick him up on a cold snowy day. A lone girl rushes up to meet him, and after a most incredibly cliche conversation we learn her name: Nayuki.
Yuuichi Aizawa had often visited his aunt Akiko Minase and his cousin Nayuki until seven years ago, when he left their town and nearly forgot everything about it. After seven years however, Yuuichi makes his return to stay with his aunt and cousin and transfer to the area high school. As Yuuichi experiences the town once again, he bumps into many different girls, and slowly begins to remember what happened years ago. After hearing much gossip concerning how good the original series was, I decided that I might as well give Kanon a try, to see what people were talking about. At this point into the series I have one simple thought: there's nothing special here. Perhaps it's the fact that the episode count has practically doubled from the original series, but Kanon has yet to really catch my attention in any form, and seems to have gone... well, pretty much nowhere. While I do understand that some stories need to start slowly, the very slow paced slice of life style mixed with the numerous amounts of cliches fails to do anything at all for me. There are hints of mysterious, and even some more super-natural elements hidden within the story, yet the entire focus of the show seems to revolve around a stereotypical slice of life, shoujo faux-drama. I can appreciate a good shoujo drama (Honey and Clover), but Kanon really needs to start laying off the cliche, predictable scenes, and start looking into the mysterious elements it keeps hinting at if it wants to progress anywhere. On a more positive note, Sugita Tomokazu (Takumi Mayama - Honey and Clover, Kyon - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), the voice actor for Yuuichi adds a rather nice element voicing a calm, Mayama-like character with a slightly mischievous twist. Sadly, he seems to be the only voice actor in the series that I can stand. The girls are far too generic to feel any attachment towards, and every single time I hear an "UGUU," or "AUUU" cry from one of them I feel the urge to punch someone. Perhaps Kanon will pull a Mai-HiME and suddenly transform into an engaging story despite the cliche aspects. However, from what I've seen at this point, it seems rather unlikely for that to happen. One can only continue watching to find out, but I don't plan on expecting too much from this series. So far: (Average) Posted: Saturday, December 2, 2006
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