Review of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day
I started watching the series because it sounded similar to a story idea that I had previous to hearing about the series. Honestly, if it had turned out to be exactly the same as what I had imagined I might've enjoyed it more, but as it seems they were two very different ideas. The concept of a friendly ghost within a series is always pretty intriguing as it can be used as a very good way to flesh out a character who feels "haunted" or perhaps literally is haunted. Anohana was the latter, and the protagonist was being followed around by a childhood friend ofhis who, in case you haven't realized it, died when she was young. The girls name is Meiko and she has returned because she has unfinished business and needs help figuring out what needs to be done in order to grant her wish and let her enter the afterlife. The series must cover some pretty sensitive stuff and touch the audience's heart in a very emotionally connecting way, right? Not really.
Anohana set itself up to fail as a series that makes Meiko out to be "the girl that everyone loves", "every girl wants to be Meiko", "every boy wants to date Meiko", among other ridiculous things. This wouldn't have been so bad if they had at least explained WHY everybody liked her so much or at least toned down a bit. It seems as if they assumed the audience wouldn't have been sad about a child dying unless they stress how popular she was, which isn't really true. A simple "our childhood friend died and it all upset us because she was so young and we all cared about her" would've sufficed instead of the dragged-on parade about how great she was and how jealous everybody was of this literal toddler.
When a character like Meiko gets set up to be the greatest human to have ever lived, it's kind of like a pie in the face when you are actually introduced to her. She isn't that great, she is very annoying, and it is hard to feel bad for her when things go wrong because of these things. However, Meiko isn't exclusive to being the only annoying character in the series. All the other characters except for Tetsudou seem to be malicious for absolutely no reason. Like at worst if you bring up a dead loved one, the surrounding people will either get quiet, maybe get a bit angry or ask you to change the topic. No, these characters go as far as pranking the protagonist into thinking she is still alive by dressing up as her and wandering the woods for a few days JUST BECAUSE they are "so angry" with the protagonist for bringing her up after all those years. In case you happen to be new to this world, that is what we call "over the top" and "not very believable". Honestly the scene was supposed to be sad but I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous it was. But it doesn't end there.
Romance seems to be thrown into the series randomly which, not to be blunt, shouldn't have been a priority in a story that starts with a group of 6 year olds. In fact, the reason Meiko dies has something to do with romance that is once again hard to believe and not that sad. There is a subtle romance between every guy and Meiko, and a jealous fit between every girl and Meiko that I personally didn't care about. At all. The amount of times characters literally say "I wanted to be her" is unsettling and obsessive to a point where I can't really say I liked any of the characters. But referring back to my main point, the romance was wishy washy, pointless and I would've preferred literally anything else in its place.
After an enormous amount of time getting the characters to all sit in one room together without explosive amounts of drama, they get together to accomplish the one wish that Meiko wants. It takes a lot of time, money, effort and quite a bit of screen time but they eventually finish it and find out that it wasn't what Meiko wanted. But luckily, the characters grew closer as friends because of the bond they rebuilt making this big waste of time and are now all friends again....WRONG. They once again go back to bickering. It kind of makes you wonder if they would've stayed friends anyway regardless of if Meiko had lived or not. I won't give spoilers but the series ends with everything all wrapped up and everything is fine again, but a lot of the series gives off the vibe of "was this all worth the effort?" to which the answer was usually "no".
To wrap up a big review I'll just say this series, in my opinion, was much like Meiko. Advertised as the literal greatest thing to have ever walked the earth... but ended up being annoying and played out for too long.