"Mai Agare" is the 23rd asadora I've completed. Like a lot of people, the negative comments about this asadora made me hesitate to watch it. I don't think the comments are unwarranted. "Mai Agare" actually really reminds me of "Mare" and "Hanbun, Aoi," which both have similar storylines (and caused me frustration at times). However, both of these asadoras are beloved in this community so I think "Mai Agare" should also be given some slack. Major spoilers follow!

The first two weeks of "Mai Agare" featuring the childhood of our heroine, Mai, are hands down my favorite part. I really loved the child actress who played Mai and I was very happy that they brought her back briefly to play Mai's daughter in the final episode. The first half of the asadora I think is very strong. It shows Mai developing a passion for airplanes and then deciding to go to flight school. It starts to go down for me when Mai decides to help her family's factory instead of becoming a pilot. I personally wasn't particularly fascinated with the 'look how screws are made' thing at first, though I started to like the factory part later on. Thankfully, the plot starts to pick up when Mai and her second love interest, Takashi (Akaso Eiji), get together. From there, I really liked the asadora again. Mai discovers her real passion and even gets to complete her original dream.

I saw some comments about people not liking the actress, Fukuhara Haruka, who played Mai. Of course, that's their opinion. But I personally really liked Fukuhara as Mai. She played a bright, almost too positive character perfectly. Anytime she was slightly annoying was really the plot's fault not hers (lol). I also just really liked Mai's personality, which made me want to continue watching even when I was getting frustrated.

Sadly, the side characters don't really stick out for me besides Mai's family and some of her friends, particularly childhood friend Kurumi (Yamashita Mizuki). I wasn't fan of her brother's, Haruto (Yokoyama Yu), "arc." I did really like Mai's flight school friends, Rinko (Yamazaki Hirona) and Kashiwagi (Meguro Ren). The latter being her first boyfriend as well. However, once flight school is over, you maybe see them a handful of times. I think this is another big problem of "Mai Agare." Only Mai herself, Kurumi, and Takashi (and to a certain extent her family) have satisfying arcs. No one else really does, which is a shame. I will say that my favorite character is definitely Mai's grandmother Shoko (Takahata Atsuko). I love her so much.

In conclusion, "Mai Agare" is not a masterpiece asadora but I still enjoyed it. It had a solid first half. I'm sure everyone who watches it will love the flight school part in particular. And it has a very solid, full-circle ending, which made me cry. Though some parts were frustrating, I realized that "Mai Agare" never got away from its theme of taking flight. I even ended up liking the secondary focuses on small-town factories and Takashi's tanka poems. (Honestly, the poems were so pretty). I'm really happy I completed this asadora after all and it helped me through a difficult loss in my life.