Kanon 1
I was planning on blogging Kanon every week, while watching the show, but since I didn’t have the time, and we’re already up to episode 17 now, I won’t be blogging all of those separate episodes. I did already write this review of the first episode, so I’ll still post it. When the series is over, I’ll give my opinion on the show in general.
Unlike many other people, I DID see the first Kanon series. In fact it was the second series I’ve seen in Japanese, and it’s the series that got me hooked up on anime. Therefore I was very happy to hear about this remake, as not everything got worked out in the first series. Now, when watching this series, I do know the plot of the story, but it’s still nice to see the characters again, with a much better design. And since they do add a lot of new items, it’s still interesting to watch the show.
The story starts with a guy, Aizawa Yuuichi, arriving in a town. He used to visit this town a lot when he was a child, but hasn’t been here over 7 years now. He doesn’t remember all that much about the place, which he thinks odd himself. A girl comes to pick Yuuichi up, but she’s two hours late ^_^; she’s his cousin, at who’s place Yuuichi will be staying while his parents are working abroad. She asks him if he still knows her name, but he plays dumb by guessing her name and calling her Hanako (a common girls’ name) and Jiro (a common boys’ name). The girl gets sad, but when they are leaving Yuuichi does call her by her name: Nayuki.
The next moment, we see a girl, who’s having a dream. She tells us she’s seeing the same dream every day, red snow, and a red world. She’s seeing a child crying, and she wants to wipe his tears, but she can’t move. Suddenly the dream starts to change into another colour.
Yuuichi wakes up, from Nayuki’s voice. He gets out of bed and goes into the hallway, where Nayuki is looking for her uniform. Yuuichi tells her that her mother, Akiko, was washing it. Even though it’s still winter break, Nayuki has to go to school because she’s the captain of the track team, and she has club activities. Before Nayuki leaves the house, Yuuichi asks her to show him around town later, and Nayuki is more than happy to do so. Yuuichi is busy the rest of the morning helping Akiko shovel, and by the time they have finished, Nayuki is back and takes Yuuichi to town, showing him a lot of things. When they arrive at the school, we see two girls. One, Mai, is petting a dog, and her friend Sayuri comes to pick her up. Later, Nayuki shows Yuuichi the hospital. There a girl, Shiori, passes by with her mother. Yuuichi doesn’t seem to like hospitals too much, saying he hopes not to have to go there. When they continue their way, Nayuki and Yuuichi meet two classmates of Nayuki: Misaka Kaori and Kitagawa Jun. Kaori is Nayuki’s best friend, and it’s more then clear that Jun has a crush on Kaori, but she just seems to use him as her bag carrier. Yuuichi thinks Jun is an interesting guy. The next place Nayuki stops is on a hill. When they are watching at the town, Yuuichi tells Nayuki that he can’t remember too much of when he came here as a kid. Nayuki tells him she’s sure he’ll start remembering more while staying in the town. Then she notices a little fox that’s watching them, but when she’s wants to get closer to it, it runs away. Nayuki tells Yuuichi about a legend about foxes that’s very famous in their town, but when she wants to tell him the legend, she can’t remember how it went.
Afterwards, the two go shopping, Nayuki has to buy food for her mother to cook that evening. Yuuichi prefers waiting outside, and Nayuki urges him not to go anywhere while she’s inside. Yuuichi gets the feeling something similar happened seven years ago, when a girl comes running towards him, telling him to move away. He can’t react that fast though and she bumps into him, knocking him over. Then she takes his arm and pulls him along into a café. There she explains she was being chased. When Yuuichi looks outside, he sees a guy wearing an apron looking around, and he guesses this is the guy she is talking about. The girl then tells him what happened: she wanted to buy some taiyaki, but then she noticed she had lost her wallet. When she was looking for it, a cat had come and the taiyaki seller had yelled out to scare it away. The girl however got scared too and ran away with the taiyaki without paying. Yuuichi tells her that she’s the bad guy. He makes her go apologize and pays for the taiyaki. Afterwards, he asks her about the wings on her backpack. The girl doesn’t know what he’s talking about and start turning round and round to see them. Then she introduces herself as Tsukimiya Ayu. When Yuuichi tells her his name, she seems surprised. Before leaving, Ayu makes Yuuichi promise to meet again. Then she runs off to leave into the light. Suddenly Yuuichi remembers Nayuki must be waiting for him, and indeed, when he gets back at the shop, Nayuki isn’t too happy that he left. She’s still angry when they get home, but decides to forgive him when Akiko tells them not to fight. Nayuki says they’re even now, since she made Yuuichi wait at the station the day before too. That evening, Yuuichi notices he doesn’t have an alarm clock, and when he asks Nayuki if she can lend him one, she says it’s no problem: she’s got a whole lot of alarm clocks in her room. Yuuichi asks if she collects them, but Nayuki tells him that’s not why she’s got so many.
That night, Yuuichi is having a dream of his past. He had promised Nayuki to go shopping with her, but didn’t want to go in the end because it was cold. He ended up going with her anyway, and back then, she also asked him to wait for her. Then a crying girl came to him. When he asked her what her name was, she tells him it’s Ayu.
Well, that’s it for the beginning of the story. I’ve seen up to episode 17 now, and all I can say is that once again Kanon has become my favourite anime. This version is much better that the 2002 version though, and I already liked that one so much. If you’re not watching this show, go watch it! Now! 
