Review of We Were There

I’ll start up by saying that everyone in this show is a complete idiot. Then I’ll explain why, in spite of that, I gave it an 6. Motoharu. A violent, abusive and controlling asshole. At the same time, a very troubled kid with quite a past, that probably suffers from PTSD that keeps him from having a healthy relationship. Takahashi. An immature, jealous, boring and melancholic kid. Part of that jealously can be understandable, being her first love and all. But is that same jealously that, same as Motoharu, keeps her from having a healthy relationship. Also, her thoughts, that we hear out loud the entire show,are literally insufferable.

“Can’t my love become his strength?”, she thinks. “No”, I say. “When that love is toxic, it cannot.”
“I want him to trust me…”, she thinks. “Trust must be mutual”, I say.

One other insufferable character in the show said, “If it’s just going to be a relationship of hardship and mental agony, you should put an end to it.” — indeed it will.

It’s quite obvious that everybody on this show suffers from depression, and that translates very well on everything. From the animation, to the sound, music and pace.

And that brings me to…
The beauty of incompleteness.

Let me go back. 2012, first time I watched this show, I ate it in a single night. Right after I finished it, I grabbed my car, drove to the river coast, and cried… cried so much I feel asleep right there and there. I felt just, completely empty.

Emptiness. That feeling stayed with me until this day, and it’s a feeling I even try to recreate in my own artistic works.

But why?

Because the melancholic atmosphere it creates is… beautiful. A beauty found in incompleteness. The unfinished and cheap animation, the silent sound design, and monotone, maybe even realistic, voice acting.

Yes, this show is almost insufferably melodramatic, but it’s the atmosphere that makes up for that.

Should you watch it? Well… yes… no… I don’t know. Make up your own mind.