Review of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

Anohana presents an immediately interesting premise: a group of children lose a friend in a freak accident, then drift apart until high school where circumstances draw them back together and they have to deal with their buried grief and how they've changed since those halcyon days. This concept is by far the strongest, most interesting, and most emotionally resonant part of the show, and the wonderful OP absolutely sells this idea. The focus of the show is on Jinta, the leader of the group when they were children turned NEET, who begins one day to see the ghost of Menma, the girl who died whenthey were younger. Overall I found most of the cast boring, both in writing and design, but Menma is by far the standout of the group. Her character design is both cute and appropriately wistful for someone who has died, and a lot of her animations and expressions were both endearing and expressive. The rest of the characters are pretty average, just unique enough in design and concept to not be entirely generic. They work for the story, but its a shame that they weren't less one note, especially since we have the opportunity to see how they grow and change from children into teenagers. This is also true for the art in general, it is pretty and it works but I can't remember anything particularly standing out as unique or interesting in its style or presentation. Some scenes, like a climatic firework launch, are beautiful, but most of the shots and animation feel well done, but uninspired.

However, the most interesting thing about the premise is the narrative element, which ends up a bit of a mixed bag. Immediately the show makes a smart decision to firmly commit to Menma being an honest to god ghost, instead of playing up the tired trope of wondering if it's all a figment of the protagonists imagination or not. The show generally commits to this, with Jinta's childhood friends generally quickly accepting, on some level, that he hasn't just gone crazy. Although, given that Menma is basically presented as being 100% the same as she would be alive (except being invisible and inaudible to everyone except Jinta), it begs the questions as to why everyone acts like she isn't around most of the time. Part of this seems to be due to their guilt over her death, but as long as ghost Menma carried around pen and paper and a flag or something to give her position away it'd basically just be like she'd gone mute or something.

Ghost semantics aside the strongest aspect of the narrative is definitely presenting the unique trauma and guilt each of the individual characters went through as a result of Menma's death. All the main cast as children held some responsibility, however indirect, in causing Menma's death, as she ends up slipping and drowning in a river while chasing after Jinta, who was running away in embarrassment after being asked if he liked Menma. Her death demonstratively caused them to drift apart, as well as causing deeper wounds in her family and friends. Seeing them gather back together as teenagers due to Menma's reappearance communicates well how much they've changed and become distant over the years, but can't escape the relationships they formed as kids.

However, where the show drops the ball is in how these traumas are (or aren't) ultimately addressed. By the end of the show, none of the characters really seem to care about Menma's death, as the emotional drama of the show becomes centered on the triple? love triangles they had as kids, and how they feel guilty about their jealousy. It honestly comes off as really weird and insensitive that everyone is so worked up about the romantic feelings they were 5 or whatever, considering that one of them literally died at the same time. The scene where they all break down and take turns admitting their true feelings and bawling together came off as almost humorous, especially when a single character out of the five is totally left out of all of the interconnected childhood love triangles and is actually just upset over the death. One of the male characters is shown to be so traumatize by the childhood events that he ends up secretly dressing up like Menma and running around the woods. But instead of expanding on and having to address this trauma, it ends up being turned into a joke and the ultimate reasoning ends up being less trauma over Menma dying and more envy over the fact that 5 year old Menma liked Jinta and not him. None of the other characters end up getting to work through their trauma in a satisfying or realistic way either. Menma's mother's grief is horrific and believable, not being able to move on to the point that she emotionally neglects her other child. But instead of seeing how she deals with this trauma, we just get a shot of her looking like maybe she's better after Jinta and his friends get together and launch a firework and she hugs her family and that's it. The later episodes focusing heavily on Jinta's mother's death and her relationship with Menma further distance the show from the much more interesting and emotional plot line of a group of teenagers collectively dealing with a childhood death none of them fully got over or processed.

Overall, I'd say the show is just good enough to be considered interesting and competently presented, but ultimately ends up being disappointing in how its characters and subjects are explored; perhaps it was just the creative staff biting off more than they could chew, as I fully acknowledge how hard it would be to address all of the emotional baggage set up by the shows premise, especially in just 11 episodes. I would definitely recommend at least watching the first episode of the show, and if aspects besides just the premise appeal to you than it'll probably be a good ride all the way through, otherwise just make sure to give the OP a go - I genuinely found it captured the emotion of the show better and in a more artistically interesting fashion than the show itself, and is paired with a pretty great song.