So with my break in full swing, tons of work to do, and crappy weather all around, I decided to finally start Aria.  I thought I would include my thoughts on it here, at least until I have enough thoughts for a proper post on the subject (re: I’m writing a paper and full-length SF.c posts are kinda rough right now).

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As we come now to the end of our twelve-day journey, my final moment feels sort of lame. I don’t have any strange metaphors for love, attempts at optimism, or in-depth analyses for you today. I don’t really have a good reason for my enthusiasm — I just have my enthusiasm, so I guess I can explain that much.

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I’m late, it seems. But I’ve been busy; I had to drive home from college, and, since I’m graduating (or, I have graduated…I’m not sure on the time frame), I had to pack all my worldly possessions and haul them all back with me. Rest assured that, as soon as this (brief) post is finished, I will head right back into the admin interface and start Moment the Seventh.

The moment in question here is the first time I heard (or, maybe, comprehended via subtitles) those fateful lyrics from Aria the Animation’s opening: “I close my eyes, and can see” (目を閉じて見えてくる/me wo tojite mietekuru). I know I’ve written at length about that line before, about how it makes me think of James Joyce and, via him, Thomas Aquinas, but I didn’t settle on it as a moment because it excited my English majorish tendencies (though I suppose that helped). Its significance to me goes deeper than that: it signaled a change in my preferences, in the way I assign personal value to stories.

Rather, while the change had been creeping up on me all along, Aria’s OP first made it clear. I realized, upon hearing those lyrics, that Aria would be like nothing I’d experienced thus far — not because it was truly different on some fundamental level, but because I’d actually be able to enjoy it for what it was worth. It occurred to me that, probably thanks in large part to my involving myself in blog-based discourse, the range of stories in which I could find value was steadily increasing, and that’s never a bad thing. So, really, though hearing Aria’s OP hammered the change home, I owe this moment to all of you. Thanks.

Now that I think about it, this doesn’t have much to do with the actual content of the lyrics in question. But I suppose that’s how these things go.

Ever the community man, lelangir is keeping stock of as many Twelve Moments blogathons as he can somewhere in the recesses of his Unlimited Blog Works, so check that out. Speaking as a member of the community whose progress it chronicles, that Anitations thing is interesting in general. We need people like lelangir to offset people like me, who can’t even comment reliably on the blogs they read.

This may be the first of my Twelve Moments™ to hail from Aria the Animation, but it isn’t the last. Oh, no indeed. Unlike majordomo CCY, I allowed myself to choose as many moments from each show or manga as suited my fancy. Gluttonous? Perhaps, but before I take us too far off track (and you may know I’m very good at that), let’s talk about Athena Glory.

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