Series · 2005
ARIA The ANIMATION
ARIA The ANIMATION
Akari Mizunashi comes from Earth to the water-covered planet Aqua to train as an Undine, a gondolier and guide in Neo-Venezia. Her working days combine boat practice, new friendships and encounters around a city modelled on Venice. Small changes in its weather and routines become occasions to explore.
Akari is not yet allowed to take paying passengers by herself. In the first episode, a girl gets around that rule by declaring that they are friends. The arrangement makes a training restriction part of a meeting, rather than putting Akari straight into the role of an experienced guide.
Neo-Venezia is a place to work as well as a place to admire. The uniforms, boats and waterside buildings bring the gondoliers into the same visual world, with routes passing through the city rather than around it. Learning a profession gives Akari a reason to notice its details and meet the people using them.
The ANIMATION · complete 2005 installment · Approx. 5.4 hours · 13 episodes
ARIA The ANIMATION, the original 2005 television installment, all 13 episodes. Later ARIA television series, OVAs and films are excluded.