Episode 1 definitely kicks off Double A to a good start. Colours are quite vibrant, Aria's early hairstyle change is more than welcomed as it suits her quite well, and the music is overall pleasant to hear; in fact I've found this episode alone to have been more enjoyable than most of the original series, but perhaps it's just me.
It was a good note to see how Akari does get affected by failures even if she does bounces back afterwards and since I haven't read the manga, I can't wait to see how her mysterious side comes to play in the story, especially because we can obviously see during the test that she's not as weak as she looks at first even if she just executed a counter-attack… Well, that and her inhuman resistance to injuries.
Her circumstances appear to be quite different from just Kinji's Hysteria Mode.
On the other hand, Aria is also a lot more enjoyable without her recurring Kinji-induced tsundere traits, so I'm also looking forward to see how she'll encourage and train Akari and whether her own personal issues will be a part of the spin-off.