It’s depressing to think the series is over. This last episode was fitting as an ending and also for its air-date. We get an episode about New Years Eve on Aqua, which was nicely planned considering it’s only a few days until New Years. Almost every character we’ve seen the series makes an appearance in this episode to celebrate the new year. It was nice to see Ai make an appearance again. I thought it was pretty funny to see her point out the different characters she had read about in her conversations with Akari. The ending was what you would expect from this series. It felt just like every other episode and finished on a good note. They leave it so it’s a nice ending for the series, but also leaves room for more “ARIA”.

This is one of the few series where I don’t really have anything I disliked about it. I just wish there was more than 13 episodes. It’s one of those series that could go on and on. If only it had been at least 26 episodes. I think the series did pretty much everything right. The character designs were good and the art was consistent throughout the entire series. All the characters were likeable and the discontinuous stories were really fun to watch. The series had great music as well, from Yui Makino’s “Undine” opening to ROUNDTABLE’s “Rainbow” ending and everything in between. The series didn’t have an “opening sequence” like all the other shows. The opening song was incorporated right into the beginning of the episode, which I thought was a great idea. I would like to say that I recommend this series to everyone, but this may not be a series for people who have no attention span. Other than that, I think this series is a must-watch.

*Update: It looks like there will be a second season in 2006. I’m definately looking forward to that.