While talking to Terry about this class today, I suddenly remembered another manga/anime series besides Hetalia that refers to Venice — Aria, set in the early 24th century on the planet Aqua. In this highly praised series, 15-year-old Akari Mizunashi comes to the watery planet to learn how to become a gondolier in the tourist-ridden city of Neo-Venezia. It’s interesting, given our recent post on the struggle female gondoliers have been facing to be accepted in Venice, that all of her fellow “undines” (as they’re called in the series) are female, as well.

The city of Neo-Venezia was created in honor of the Earth city of Venice, which was destroyed, according to the series, in the 21st century.

The manga has been given high reviews for its quiet, introspective mood and beautiful artwork, and the equally lovely anime is available in English from Right Stuf (see official website). This illustration from the anime shows our heroines standing in Piazza San Marco next to the doge’s palace… but you recognized the setting already from browsing our photos, didn’t you?

Here’s the trailer, for anyone interested!

Even the Doctor thinks Venice is a pretty amazing city! Of course, much of this episode wasn’t actually filmed in Venice, but, hey, enjoy the footage that was.

In this scene, the Doctor expounds on some of the same reasons Terry and I think it’s worth taking a class of students to La Serenissima. Students, note the history and check out the famous view of San Giorgio! Of course, Terry and I don’t owe Casanova a chicken. Dare we even speculate about under what circumstances the Doctor came to owe Casanova a chicken? If he were Cpt. Jack Harkness, we might hazard a guess, but….

At any rate, our class will try to avoid running into any vampires on our trip. Although Venetian vampires do fit well into the “Venice as dying” and “Venice as immortal” themes of the course….