Review of Waiting in the Summer
Non-specific spoilers for the ending below. Ano Natsu de Matteru is a wonderful romance dramedy about a high school boy and the alien girl that comes to live with him. It suffers from just a few unfortunate flaws that keep it at the level of "great" instead of one of the best ever, but it is nonetheless well worth checking out if you like this kind of story. The characters are what make this show as good as it is. The main character, Kaito, is endearingly nerdy about film and his relationship with Ichika, initially based on a series of misunderstandings, blossoms into a very sweetromance. Kanna is also a memorably great tsundere character and the goofy and mysterious Remon steals most of the scenes she ends up in. There are no weak characters in this show, and the only real flaw is that the show overuses love triangles and unrequited love as a basis for the characters' relationships with each other. Even the show itself seems to be aware of this, as Remon at one point memorably draws a diagram of who has a crush on whom and it's nearly a complete circle of unrequited feelings. That being said, it does make for some quite compelling drama, especially between Kanna, Kaito and Tetsuro. There is a particularly powerful scene of Tetsuro comforting a crying Kanna (I realize this sounds vague, but it's an iconic scene and you'll know it when you get there) that is a perfect portrayal of their complicated feelings for each other and really can't be done justice in text.
The only other problem I had with this show is with the ending, and bear with me here as I will attempt to describe my issues with it without spoiling what happens too much, but some amount of spoiling is going to be inevitable here.
My particular issue is that the show delivers an unexpectedly tragic ending, only to pull back from it at quite literally the last possible moment to make sure everything works out in the end, almost as though they were afraid of making it too much of a downer. To me, this is an easy 10/10 show if they keep the extremely good but tragic ending but don't undercut it with forced positivity, as it's a far more powerful and thematically appropriate way to conclude the series. As it is, it feels like a cheap, cop-out way to end, and it's a very frustrating "give me my tears back" moment for the viewer.
Bottom line, this is a terrific romance story with excellent characters and a few flaws that make it fall just short of true greatness. If you have a significant other that you watch anime with, add this one to the list for Valentine's Day and thank me later.
P.S. don't skip the fantastic ED.