Review of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day
Anohana was incredibly disappointing. About half way through i sat back and went “oh god im going to be a contrarian again” but I can’t for the life of me understand why this show is so beloved. This show was incredibly shallow, having nothing to really say about grief, or loss, or even really something as simple as “friendship.” The characters are sad because their childhood friend died, but their grief or ways of processing it doesn’t really go much deeper than that. Characters might state a way they’ve processed it, but it’s all tell don’t show, the only thing the characters do are thirstafter each other before going “I’m sad also by the way :(“
I enjoy slow burn stories, honestly I got really excited when I realized if menma existed was going to be the main mystery of the show. It’s a really interesting plot device… that they don’t do anything with for three quarters of the series. The eight episode slow burn is instantly resolved with no actual payoff. The honest to god excuse for why it took eight episodes for anyone to even try and prove menma’s existence is “Menma is stupid and Jinta is selfish” which is such a lame payoff and basically means nothing when all of the characters have gone through their arcs already.
Speaking of characters, everyone is unlikable and poorly written. The women only ever obsess over the men in this show for basically no reason, and the men are just terrible people for no reason. Nobody has deeper motivations they leave unsaid. The one exception is Tetsudou, he was decently fun to watch most of the time. But even Tetsudou basically boils down to “the good hearted spiritual guy” which while kinda lame and generic is at least more interesting than “pretentious dick” and “generic shut in.” There’s no attempt to give characters chemistry or show romance, they just all have crushes on each other because it adds more drama I guess. It’s lame and annoying to watch.
The show isn’t sad. I went in thinking this was a tearjerker but because the plot was lame, characters unlikable, themes non existent, and writing uninspired I ended up not feeling enough of a connection to anything to make me cry. It’s sad because she’s dead, but that’s it. The emotional climaxes have such little impact that I couldn’t force myself to cry at a single moment. This is all to say, I like crying at stuff and cry easily but this show couldn’t get a single tear out of me. Disappointing.
3/10. Disappointing after hearing so many good things. There are a lot better shows worth your time.