I could have sworn there was already a thread for this series... but apparently I'm wrong because I can't find it anywhere! Anyways... onto the meat of the matter!

Aqua and Aria are two related series by Kozue Amano: as a manga Aqua has two volumes and is continued in Aria with twelve more volumes. The anime is split up into three seasons and one OVA in the following order: Aria the Animation, Aria the Natural, Aria OVA: the Arietta, and Aria the Origination.

Aria is a very peaceful slice of life series that takes place 200 years after Mars has been terraformed and the name of the planet changed to Aqua, the water planet. The story itself takes place in Neo Venezia, a replica of the now sunk Venice on Earth and is focused on Akari, a girl who moved from Earth to Mars to become a gondolier, known as Undines. The story is slow paced, most of about finding joy in every day occurances and is generally happy and upbeat with beautiful art to illustrate every gorgeous page. The anime still has the beautiful art and bright colors found in the manga and has the addition of enchanting music and wonderful voice acting to round out the experience.

So, I really love the series if it's not obvious and I'd love to talk with others about it as well.

I read the first few volumes and found it really nice, a peaceful series to read instead of the usual "Raaawr! Kill! Friendship! Love! World Peace!" kind of manga. I found the fat cat really ugly though...but my friends all seem to love him. >_>;

i like them both
and my fav. chapter is the final chapter, it makes me cry TToTT

I'll admit that I got tired of waiting to read the books because Tokyopop is being unbearbly slow but I could only find a raw of the last chapter. But it's so similar to the anime that I cried all over again when I read it anyways. TT__TT Tokyopop better step up putting them out so I can buy them!