Review of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

Oh my god... Ano Hi Mata Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai... Quite a long name isn't it? But that's beside the point. In my opinion, this show is one of the best animes in the entire existence of all anime. This show is one of the few shows that can really move one from extreme sadness to extreme happiness to extreme anger to extreme sympathy all within the course of twenty minutes. If you haven't seen this show you need to immediately... Right now, go; I’ll wait... stop reading this unless you don't believe me and go watch it..............Still here? FINE! I'lljust have to prove to you that this show is absolutely amazing. HERE WE GO!
Story-9/10
The story of this anime is absolutely spectacular and if you have even part of a heart you will cry like a baby by the end of it. The story begins with Yadomi Jinta, a teenage boy who has built up reclusive tendencies over his teenage life. One day, an old friend from his childhood, Honma Meiko, appears before his eyes and acts as if they had never left each other. There one problem with this however, Honma Meiko died in an accident years ago. Jinta is the only one who can see the “ghost” of Meiko so he can’t help but think he is hallucinating or that Meiko has come to haunt him. Over the course of 11 episodes Jinta and his other friends from his childhood bond back together to face the tragedy that had happened years ago and to figure out why Honma Meiko has appeared before Jinta after so many years. The story, although not super original is still very interesting and nearly perfect in its presentation. Everything about the presentation of this story is fantastic; the comedy, the feeling, the plot twists, the people, the pacing, everything. Even for such a small season size of 11 episodes it somehow creates a magical story that makes you laugh, cry, smile, grit your teeth, and throw pillows at walls(or maybe the pillow thing was just me). The dialogue is absolutely stellar and I can’t think of any animes off the top of my head that have better and more meaningful dialogue. The story even adds some imagery/metaphors with some of the items presented in story. One example of this is Honma’s bare feet and the sandals shown in scenes referring to her death. Try and look for this if you choose to watch it as I’m sure you will appreciate it. The story is very connectable to as well because it really shows off the realistic trauma and guilt one might feel after a tragedy. The gradual estrangement of Jinta and his other childhood friends is also perfectly realistic and I felt for them every step of the way. It really makes you think of the friends or family you may have become distant with and any anime that can connect to your own situations in such a way really has something good about its story. If there was anything that I had an issue with in the story it was something small like a lack of realism in a situation between characters (one being minor and another being kind of big) or a question about a detail of the story that wasn’t very important whatsoever. These were extremely minor setbacks and didn’t hinder my judgment of the story until after I had finished watching; overall fantastic story.
Art- 10/10
Holy mother of god the art; there really isn’t anything to critique about the animation and images here. The drawings and style are just spectacular with plenty of colors that really please the eyes, just like how soothing, warm, hot chocolate during winter time pleases the body. The animations themselves are spectacularly done and so fluid that it’s exactly like real body movements. There are also plenty of chances for animations and they take all those chances and play with them and just make them awesome. The only extremely minor thing that I can critique is that since this isn’t an action anime or anything, there is no intense fighting scene that requires extreme amounts of experience and time to make look good. Of course this isn’t really a problem because an anime like this doesn’t need a scene like that but I’m simply saying that they never had to do something so difficult so it’s not as impressive as it could be (although still impressive). If this is a stupid critique whatever, sue me; you may be right anyway. Since this is such a silly critique it will not affect the score, just know that there isn’t anything in the animation that is ridiculously intense and difficult. Who knows, maybe the fights scenes aren’t even as hard as I think they are and I’m just stupid.
Sound- 9.5/10
Like in my Beck Review I will split the sound section into 2 parts: Voice Acting and Music
Voice Acting -10/10
Oh my god. Please if anyone can find better voice actors I want you to link me because it must be quite a performance. All of the Japanese voice actors perfectly fit all of the characters and it just works so perfectly. If a character is feeling upset then the voice actor is able to perfectly portray this and the same goes for all the emotions. It’s just so good I have nothing more to say about it other than it being perfect.
Music -9/10
The music of this show is great as well. The OP of the show is pretty good and although not my favorite song or anything fits the series perfectly. The ED also fits the show perfectly but I just personally wouldn’t listen to it outside of watching the series. The soundtrack during the show itself is spectacularly written and really helps some of the emotions in the scenes. It’s a very calming and emotional soundtrack overall. There are also plenty of times where music is playing so there is never a long string of just dialogue. My only complaints are that I don’t really like the ending song that much and that the music used in the show itself is typically the two or three songs used over and over. There is more than two or three songs used of course but they do use two or three of them a lot. Even then, the two or three songs used a lot are good with very nice piano and string work but other than that there isn’t a lot of instrumentation. Either way all of the music in the show is very good and works perfectly fine for what the show calls for. No big complaints from me.
Characters- 9.5/10
I kind of fear I will get a lot of flak for giving the characters such a high score because I can see why people might hate the characters in this anime. There are many times in the anime where I believe some of the characters are perfectly dislikable. However, it is my belief that the reason for this is not because they are bad characters but rather that they are meant to be hated. One of the characters that this is particularly apparent in is the smart but pompous friend Matsuyuki. There will be a point in the series where you could arguably hate almost every main character but that is not because they are bad characters per se. The reasons for hating the characters are simply because of the actions that these characters take. All of the main characters not including Meiko herself are plagued with the guilt of Meiko’s death as well as the events that took place leading up to her death. These feelings of guilt and confliction are the real reasons why the characters of the story sometimes make some stupid or intense decisions that might make someone watching just go “OH SHIT!” If you ever hate a character in the course of watching this anime, it’s not because they are a bad character, it is simply because their mental state is so messed up that they are a dislikable character; in essence they are meant to be hated according to their situation and the story progression(kind of like how I thought the characters in School Days were meant to be hated..... but I probably shouldn’t mention School Days because...... you know......ya....) This is rather realistic from my view because people with this guilt when such a tragedy happens are bound to make some stupid decisions and for this reason, I sympathized with all the characters (While also throwing pillows at my wall and shouting the F word at the top of my lungs). The fact that these characters have all of this guilt and shame is also a great outlet for character development which works very nicely even for an 11 episode series. On the bright side, by the end the characters are all redeemed to be positive, however this is one of my issues with the characters because the way they are redeemed feels a little sudden and I’m not sure they would suddenly act all chivalrous if they were really all so rotten if this were a real life situation (excluding the whole supernatural part, the situation is totally realistic). The whole “suddenly unhateable characters” thing applies to the unrealistic situations between characters section that I mentioned in the story section. Other than this and one more unrealistic situation of characters including Jinta’s friend Anjou and some rumors that get spread around about her(you’ll know it when you see it) the characters are perfectly realistic and awesome. You can really feel and connect with all of the main and side characters and they really are just awesome.
Enjoyment -10/10
Clearly I enjoyed this series a lot. This series took me on a huge roller coaster ride of feelings that just never seemed to end. All within the course of 11 episodes I learned to connect with all the characters in many ways and just enjoyed all the humor and all of the drama that took place throughout the series. This just has to be one of my personal favorites of all time.
Overall -9.5/10
This show is absolutely amazing. I probably seem like a broken record by now with my praise but it really is and everyone with even a speck of an interest for these types of anime should watch this ASAP. From the beautiful dialogue to the beautiful art to the beautiful music to the beautiful everything about this series, you will go on quite an emotional rollercoaster if you watch this. I give Anohana an amazing 9.5 out of 10. Now that I’m done freaking out about how awesome it is, GO WATCH IT!