Review of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

A.k.a = Anohana I'm going to get straight to the point here. This anime is absolute amazing, when I watched it back a couple months back, I had no idea what I was in for, all I knew was that it was about a group of friends, which I wrongly assumed revolved around stereotypical 'high school' romance sort of genre. The story is much deeper than it may seem and it is definitely not your typical 'high school' romance. Story: 10/10 I cannot go into details without simply spoiling the main plot so, I will make it brief. The story is simply about a group of teenagerstrying to forget and move on from a mysteriously, tragic event of their childhood summer vacation which has torn their friendship apart. The characters are quite ambiguous and only through watching the series will you find out the reason for it. The story has good pacing and will keep you wanting more. The events slowly catches up to the characters and they are force to make many hard decisions, the story does incredibly well in piecing everything together at the end.
Art: 9/10
The art is great, all the characters are beautifully drawn. The characters are uniquely drawn, everything in the anime is very detailed and well drawn from their different hairstyles to their very facial expressions.The art is also very vibrant and colourful making the series especially enjoyable to watch.
Sound: 10/10
Voice actors: All the voices were amazingly expressed, I can't imagine the talent and effort it would take to make the characters sound so sincere and realistic, from the crying to laughing, everything sounded so real, it made me feel like I was there in the anime. I especially loved the voice of Menma who sounded really kind and extremely cute.
Soundtrack: Anohana does not have a huge variety of soundtracks like many other shows of its genre, however the few that it has, it does well in accompanying the scenario, overall the music is lovely.
Characters: 10/10
The characters of this show is so incredibly made. Each and everyone stay true to their character until the end, their personalities are very unique. Even though they stay true to their character, you will find that they open up more as the series go on. The characters themselves are quite ambiguous at the start of the series but as the story progresses, the character's past is slowly revealed making them more relate-able and you will understand why they're the way they are. The character's dialogue is very well written as well, many of them have their own unique dialogue that they use throughout the series to express their feelings making them quite unique; One example would be Menma who frequently expresses her loves for everyone.
Enjoyment: 10/10
I absolutely loved this series, Anohana has to be among some of the top 'feels' anime which is probably true given the sheer amount of reviews stating how it will make you cry as their first sentence. There is nothing not to love about this series, the characters are great, voice acting is incredible and very unique, setting is beautifully set out, plot is well put together and it is definitely one of the most tear-jerking shows out there. This was one of the closest shows to making me cry, I had watery eyes....don't judge me...This may not sound like much for someone like me but I will say that I did not cry once or felt feel as emotional as I did in Clannad: Afterstory, Angel Beats, Kanon etc (I can go on foreverrr). I still get sad thinking about certain scenes in this anime. Personally the main thing that I find most tragic is the idea of 'never can be', things that can happen again no matter how much you try to change things. Better to have loved someone than to have never loved at all. Agree?
Overall: 10/10
You're probably getting tired of me saying how much I love this show so I'll say it again, I loved this show so much!! Must watch even if you're not particularly interested in 'romance/tragedy'. I would've loved to have gone in the details of different scenes which I found to be absolutely 'menmarable', I will refrain from doing so for the sake of no spoilers. I think it's safe to say that 'yes', I do highly recommend this anime. Go watch it! ^