1 I just finished the first disk. 

The art is fabulous; the characters are charming, the stories heartfelt.

The voice acting is very pleasing, and I typically don't notice that.

Aria is so good, even the caricature art doesn't bother me; the weird facial expressions are actually amusing.

I do not buy anime, as a rule, because it has very low rewatch value for me. (Haibane is a notable exception.) However, I am already considering purchasing Aria, because from the very first, it just made me feel good to watch it.  I kept laughing, not because it was funny, but because I had to let the happiness out.

The remaining Aria disks go to the top of the Netflix queue, highest priority.

And Aria goes on the very short list of anime I'd recommend to anybody wondering about anime, with the caveat that, like Haibane, it is not at all typical, and other anime may be disappointing in its shadow.

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Discrete technology: I was amused by the cable car to the sky island, with its cables suspended from anti-gravity pods.

2

That was an example of deliberate retro technology. To reach the cloud city they didn't have to use a cable car; they could have used a vehicle lifted the same way as the sky cycle or the space ships, but they felt it was more charming to use a cable car, albeit one designed using more modern capabilities. (In fact, the cable car may have been moved using the same reactionless thruster the sky cycles use.)

In one of the later episodes the three girls travel by electric train to visit an old lady in the mountains. Yet another deliberately retro transportation technology: why bother going to the effort to lay track? Well, because it's retro-cool, just as the gondolas are.

Why I like all this is that it makes sense in story terms.

3 Yes, exactly why I called it "discrete" and counted myself amused, not offended.

"Charming".  I can't think of a better single-word review of the series so far, and that includes the technology use.

4 So at some point in the future when you've seen all the three Arias, your top five will be "Haibane Renmei, Aria, Aria, Aria, and . . ." what?

5 Naah. Even if it came to that, the Aria series would get one line. But if I had to decide one of the others to keep, it would probably be Petite Princess Yucie.