Review of Kokoro Connect

For the entry on this series, the first two tags under genre are ‘comedy’ and ‘drama’, and I’m pretty much inclined to agree. How much someone enjoys this series will vary by person, but for the most part, I think that the series successfully accomplishes what it sets out to do. So the anime follows three girls and two guys - a typical five man band - who are thrown into various fantastical situations, and the story goes from there. What I really liked about this series was the character development. Throughout these 13 episodes (I really want to see those last four now) the viewer getsto see relationships tested and strained, broken and rebuilt. Personalities are examined, boundaries challenged, and characters changed. These five people interact with each other, argue with each other, and over the course of all the crap that happens to them, begin to really understand each other. A lot of issues get brought up. Self-worth, trauma, identity, family, friendship, love, and a whole lot of relationships in general. And in the whole mess of life that each person experiences, they learn more about what it means to be human, and what it means to be themselves.

This is all kind of a lot to take in though, so here are a couple points I think that the anime could have improved on. First, I don’t typically watch dramas, and this one is pretty heavy handed, as there are at least one or two (lengthy) scenes of people talking with raised voices (yelling), crying, or both in each episode. If you can’t handle lots of drama, you won’t like this. Another point of concern is that stuffing this much content into 13 episodes means portions of the plot may end up largely unoriginal; I have to say that I was never really surprised at any of the plot twists (not sure if I’d even call it that).

Despite this, I think the characters make up for it. From laughing to crying, sleeping to waking, eating to dumping, you get to see every character from a myriad of perspectives (actually, not entirely sure about that last one, but there were certainly a number of toilet scenes).

Beyond the drama in the plot, the comedy was actually funny, the animation itself was clean, and I didn’t have any complaints about the music or soundtrack, and on the contrary actually found myself looking for a couple tracks after I’d finished the series.

Overall, a well crafted and satisfying story.