Review of Kokoro Connect

None of you might know that I had written a review for this show before since I was a rookie to anime and MAL in general (Don't worry, the old review is at the end of this :P). In fact, Kokoro Connect was my 18th anime and my first review, much like every other person's first review it was embarrassing. I 10/10ed everything and called it the best anime of all time. Clearly I fanboyed at this show. Then, more than a year and a half later, I reminisced the love I had for this show since then and much like Aoki, wanted to findout how much I still love it or if I even do anymore for that matter. Then? I rewatched it. Result? Not a 10/10 but a brilliant show I know I'll treasure forever for it's influence in my early anime days and the psychological theme it gave.

Kokoro Connect, much like it's name is all about the hearts of friends connecting, I'm surprised it isn't called Tomodachi Connect, but egging on trivial matters won't get us anywhere. The reason I loved this show so much before and still do is because it has a psychological theme. It makes you think about your interactions with friends. Would you reveal your darkest secrets to friends? Would you confess to a friend you now love? Kokoro Connect explores such themes, but it's not just the everyday themes it explores, in the case of Kiriyama, it explored her dark past in particular one incident and it's focus on that in an arc left my hair on end. I won't spoil it but it's definitely worth the wait. Kokoro Connect has a lot of drama as well, how fights go out between friends all with just a few secrets revealed and honestly it's quite relatable. We all had fights with our friends for one reason or another (if you don't have friends, this always happens, also, go find friends :P). Now I found the slice of life tag quite confusing especially since Kokoro Connect focuses on a particular plot, Balloon Vine. Things don't repeat and although the daily life isn't exactly like a SoL I can kinda understand why it was kept so. Another important part of the anime was the romance, although not impactful or even deeply explored, it made it's mark. Those expecting romance can find it in plenty in the Kokoro Connect Michi Random special since it's romance oriented.

Speaking of focus, unfortunately the soundtrack isn't something that received it. The OPs and EDs felt bland and I only found the third ED enjoyable. Meanwhile the OST as well felt mediocre, I didn't find it amazing, but I did like a few jingles here and there that played while the VAs did a great job. I found Inaba (Sawashiro Miyuki) quite unbelievable in her acting in various places especially the crying scenes but that shouldn't be surprising as only a handful of recognisable roles were on the main cast's resumes. In spite of that, they did a good job with their representation. On the topic of representation we also have the artstyle, it felt okay. I liked it because the characters looked much cuter than with a generic style. Although the artstyle of the main anime was great, I found some parts (especially the first OP) strange. Not bad, but strange, I guess it was because I was expecting something generic or so. But the artstyle was slightly different and Silver Link got an overall positive for that. Now the issue here is the plot holes that riddled the anime. The biggest of which is Balloon Vine's purpose. His reasons for messing with the kids weren't given at all. And at many times a few of the supernatural elements happened at convenient times, especially that one bit in the last arc.

An interesting bit was the existence of the Special. I haven't seen a special in a long time where it directly tied to the main story in a plot point as Specials and OVAs are usually extra episodes meant to entertain us after the main plot and series is over but that wasn't the case here. Nevertheless it was still enjoyable. It's unique set of characters all made me feel like that. At first I felt Inaba was quite irritating and I questioned my 2016 self for marking her as one of my favorite characters in MAL but the later episodes reminded me why I did so, she went better. Iori, Yui and Aoki all developed amazingly especially because each had a specific arc focusing on them and I didn't find any of them bad. But one character was missing from here. Taichi. To my knowledge, in this 13 episode series he didn't develop at all... The other four got their time to shine in these episodes so I suppose they focused on Taichi in the Michi Random special along with Inaba who also didn't exactly get much focus in this series either.

In the end. After rewatching Kokoro Connect I was reminded of the fun I had watching it and of the impact it left on me. It along with anime like ToraDora, Golden Time and Kaichou wa Maid Sama, influenced me to watch much more romance, which soon developed into a RomCom addiction and so far still exists, although my focus has shifted to pure Comedy I still have the love I had with Romance and watching this reinstilled those feelings within me. Kokoro Connect is not your everyday RomCom because it doesn't focus on either. Romance was only a third focus while Comedy was rare. The true focus of the anime was the bond between friends. Their experiences, their hardships, how they overcome them together and how supernatural elements push them even harder. That's Kokoro Connect.

P.S: In case you're willing to read a cringey fanboyish review here's my old review. Please remember that was my first ever review so I didn't want it to go at a loss XD

Original Review (Oct 15, 2016)
Perfect. In every sense of the word. No anime ever made me so satisfied ever before. Out of all the RomComs I've watched, Kokoro Connect's ending left me satisfied the most. Such a satisfying and perfect anime is indeed rare to find these days. The story, art and character all are perfectly balanced, which is always obviously difficult. I enjoyed the story (though it got me confused once or twice), while the art style is really beautiful in simple words. Especially Taichi, Inaban and Yui. All three were the best looking out of the rest of the group. While for the character, the characters are perfectly relatable as many situations in the anime reflected on common real life problems (I wanna give examples but can't spoil it for those who haven't watched it yet). This anime totally has the potential to stand with RomCom classics such as Clannad,Shigatsu wa kimi no uso, Golden Time and ToraDora!. I really hope there is a second season (Fingers crossed)!