Aria

2Filed under 2. The Pairing takes a negotiation, and this entry is answers one.

What it is

Kozue Amano's Aria ran in Mag Garden's Monthly Comic Blade from 2002 to 2008 and was collected in 12 volumes, continuing her earlier two-volume Aqua. In the 24th century Mars has been terraformed and, as its ice melted, covered almost entirely with water, and is now called Aqua. On it stands Neo-Venezia, a careful re-creation of Venice. Akari Mizunashi, a cheerful girl from Earth, arrives to train as an undine, one of the gondoliers who guide tourists through its canals.

How it works

There is almost no conflict. Akari and her friends Aika and Alice practise rowing, work towards becoming full undines, and spend their days noticing the city: a festival, a cat, the changing seasons, a sunset over the lagoon. The company is run by its mascot and nominal president, a large and placid cat called Aria. Each chapter is about a small discovery or a feeling of happiness.

The craft

Amano draws wide, detailed views of water and architecture, and leaves space on the page for the reader to linger. The science-fiction setting is never explained at length; it simply makes Neo-Venezia a place out of time, where tradition is chosen rather than inherited.

Why it matters

It is one of the defining examples of iyashikei, the "healing" genre that sets out to calm and comfort. Its anime adaptation, directed by Junichi Satō from 2005, was equally loved, and many later slow, gentle series follow the model it set.

The title by its numbers

Aria20total20 → 2

volumes12 → 3years serialised7debut year2002 → 4

The arithmetic is unremarkable and worth doing anyway: 20 across 1 word, reducing to 2.

What the 2 brings is cooperation. The reference files it as a negotiation. Whatever else this entry is doing, it is doing it with the 2's search for balance between competing sides.

Heart's Desire 11, Personality 9: vision underneath, reckoning on the surface. The gap between them is where the subject is most interesting.

The letters give 2; the subject's own figures do not agree. Volumes is 12, a 3, years serialised is 7 and debut year is 2002, a 4. Where the two part company the reference trusts the figures, because a title is a decision somebody made about the thing, and these are the thing.

The 2 asks you to find the second party, because there always is one. The 2 will keep a bad arrangement alive out of politeness. A number of these texts are about partnerships nobody ended in time. The other entries that reduce to 2 are collected on The Pairing.