Review of Kokoro Connect

“One of the most beautiful qualities of friendship is to understand and to be understood.” What Kokoro Connect essentially delves into, is exactly that, the notion of what friendship is, and how do we keep it alive when your true desires, love, selfishness, fears, pasts and fragility are all unleashed and out in the open. One day a sudden paranormal occurrence of body-switching haunts a small group of five friends, which in turn alters their relationship and every day lives. Since the plot is pretty much straightforward with a slight twist, Kokoro Connect is more of a character motivated Anime; with it being more ambitiouson the interactions and chemistry front between the characters. I think the characters are not only convincingly believable, but have a real depth and insight to them; (Yui; androphobia, Iori; multiple personality disorder?) we truly see a good portrayal of emotions and human nature.

The supernatural occurrences definitively disrupt the harmony amongst the five friends as it not only, sends their feelings in turmoil, but also makes them closer friends simultaneously. The initial idea of body-switching is, in itself a charming premise but also happens to open a can full of funny situations too, as you can imagine.

What I also liked was the atmosphere that Kokoro Connect gives; the orangey sunset sceneries at the beginning feel reminiscent of high school nostalgia with intentions to keep it light-hearted. Alongside that, there is also an eerie, sinister tone when the entity Heartseed enters the fray (his gormless, creepy, unpredictable look about him also contributed to this xD). That is certainly one factor that kept me interested, the eagerness to find out what is behind the mysteriousness and ambiguity of this Heartseed entity that was causing all the supernatural phenomena, the enigma of his powers, what he actually is and what his real intentions are.

Although those are the defining factors I liked in particular, there are also many evident blemishes I could also point out. Being a slice of life drama set in the high school timeframe following both female and male students there are predetermined hints to your conventional genre clichés, we have seen it all to often with the overplayed depictions of love triangles and pour-your-heart-out, lovey-dovey confessions scenes; all I can say is Kokoro Connect doesn’t differ from this nor does it attempt to, while it tries not to overly focus on these things, the fact remains is that these overdone concepts are embraced, and the way it’s pulled off may be too generic for some.

We also have the character designs and art style that are nothing special to be honest; all plainly bland looking, nothing outstanding, it’s what you would expect from most other Anime. The characters themselves could also be considered cliché, as you might say it features some of your common personalities in Anime shows, although I still think it’s one of the more stronger aspects of the show.

While the general premise of the Anime starts quite well, what with the body-swapping idea, it eventually moves onto other mind-boggling notions. With the original idea still fresh in your mind, I feel the episodes gradually drop its appeal with each supernatural premise, and swings its tone to a less light-hearted, funny atmosphere to a more darker and dampening one at the ending stage of each phenomena; this also inserts more exaggerated, melodramatic and overemotional moments. Although this tonal shift could in my opinion be handled in better fashion, it also effectively brings in, deeper more meaningful themes.

However the most unsatisfying thing was undoubtedly the ending, lets just say there are so many unanswered questions and left with a sense of bewilderment and discontent. (This thing really irked me xD)

So, all in all “Why should I watch this?” you maybe thinking, well if you enjoy a well thought out Anime, which makes you think about the real meaning of friendship and puts you into empathetic scenarios, albeit engaging you into an emotional roller-coaster of a drama with heartwarming conclusions at times, while still keeping it funny and light-hearted, then I say go for it!