Review of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day
This is a pretty late review. It's a rewrite of an earlier review (below, after "earlier review"). I first watched this show when I was about 15. Now I'm 21. I did not cry back then, like a lot of people did. But this story stuck with me really well. Tonight I just finished watching a very emotional show, ended with a gay couple getting happily married after overcoming numerous hardships (not sure if this is the correct place to say that show's name it's an adult show.) and somehow I find myself rewriting review for this anime listening to "Mr. Tambourine Man". (I've stoppedwatching anime all together a while ago, or have at least "matured" into watching more "mature" cartoons, as you can perhaps tell from my icon.)
AnoHana is relatable to me on a personal level. I grew up with a girl and told her that I liked her online. Never had the courage to continue that relationship though, partly because that was not to be expected at a young age, from my old environment. I once enjoyed the spotlight as a gifted kid just like jinta. For too many times I cannot tell a girl I like her though I really do. This part of my life is partly secretive, especially when I was young, or when I found myself in secret love with cute guys in class. AnoHana captures this sense of secret past, missed love, and lost innocence really well. That feeling is stuck with me ever since, although I never talk about it in real life. Just like the ending lines of the light novel describing the little flower by the road, greeting everyone that walks by but leaves a unforgettable sting in one's heart when one touches it, after I walk past all the hardships and sorrows of life, all the betrayal, hatred, jealousy, and anger, and returned to my innocent youth as an old man I quietly ask the air around me: "where have all the flowers gone? when will you ever learn?"
Then I remembered someone turned "we shall overcome" into lines like "the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind."
May all the lost souls not buried by this world buried by God. May all the forgotten lives find someone who live them again.
One little flaw of this anime is that it ends too early.
earlier review:
Kept walking, kept crying, kept missing. I don't remember and could not find who said it, but the quote goes: No one is a complete adult, that's the bitter secret of this world. Personally, AnoHana gave me such a deep impression because a lot of close friends I grew up with dashed off in different, sometimes bad directions in the last couple of years. So I was moved by the way the "Busters" became wordless when they gathered again ten years later.
Life, particularly life that has been through a great change or a great disaster, is like walking down an eternal tunnel alone. There is light but you still feel dark, nothing but yourself lasts forever beside you. Well, your knowledge also does. But beside that, there really isn't much accompanies you from the start to the end. So it was really satisfying to see the five friends' disclosure at the end in the temple.
Once there was light, once upon a time. Just like the six friends in AnoHana, the light shines on every part of every children's heart. However, the light went down and the Garden of Eden crashed--not because of the snake, but because of how humans simply are. So there comes the real sadness in AnoHana, the eternal innocent angel Menma. Well, one can argue there are selfish and evil parts in her, but all her behaviors were innocent. Think: if anybody else among the six children died accidentally, would the whole group broke apart badly like that? Menma is the heart of the group not only because boys liked her. Everybody knew at that moment the light went out.
From the point I finished watching, I physically felt the pain every time I look at Menma's picture, especially her smile. There are beautiful moments in our lives that worth remembering forever: Some happens before our adulthood, some happens on the last day of our lives.
Somehow, AnoHana kept reminding me of the movie Rent, especially the two songs in it: Seasons of Love and Without You. (AnoHana's ending Secret Base is just as moving.)