Anime Review: Anohana - The Flower That We Saw That Day

As I stated in my Waiting In The Summer review, every once in a while I like to take a break and watch a nice, heartwarming/heartbreaking anime instead of a fast-paced action show. Anohana is a rather famous anime within the “emotional” genre of anime, so I knew that I would have to check it out eventually; also, considering how much I liked Waiting In The Summer (both anime were directed by Tatsuyuki Nagai), I went into Anohana with some relatively high expectations. Okay, I wasn’t expecting it to be a masterpiece, but I did expect it to somehow move me emotionally. So, in the end, did Anohana do its job? Sit back, relax, and read on as I review Anohana - The Flower We Saw That Day.

The Setup:

There was once a group of friends called the “Super Peace Busters!”, consisting of all of our main characters (their nicknames are within parenthesis): Jinta (Jintan), Meiko (Menma), Naruko (Anaru), Astumu (Yukiatsu), Chiriko (Tsuruko), and Tetsudo (Poppo). This group of friends seemed inseparable until one friend, Menma, died tragically by falling into a river, hitting her head, and drowning. This event caused the group to drift apart, with each person dealing with their grief in different fashions. The main character focused on is Jinta, who became a withdrawn hikikomori (a reclusive person who seeks isolation from others, sometimes going to the extremes of never leaving their rooms) following the death of Menma. One day, an older ghost of Menma visits him and asks him to grant her wish, and that the Super Peace Busters had to get back together in order to do so. The only problem is the fact that Menma doesn’t remember her wish; so the characters spend the anime trying to figure out what it is.

In Anohana, the ghost of Menma comes back from the dead, asking Jinta to grant her wish

The Characters:

The characters are hands-down the best part of the entire show, which is fantastic because the character section is what this show really needed to nail; if the show hadn’t, then Anohana would’ve been awful. Firstly, Jinta is a great main character. He was one of the only characters that I liked straight away, because he seemed the most tragic and the easiest to sympathize with. I mean, he was so distraught by Menma’s death that he became withdrawn and isolated himself from the rest of the world. I’m sure that there are some people out there who would criticize him for being weak in this case, but this trait just made him all the more likable to me because it showed how much he truly cares about those close to him, which is an admirable trait. Next, we have the ghost girl herself, Menma. She was a little irritating at first, but by the end of the first episode I grew to like her for her innocent nature and naïve attitude. I did feel like she was a little too moe for my tastes, but considering that she died as a child, there’s actually a pretty good reason for this cute and childlike persona (which is more than I can say than for most moe characters). Next, there’s Naruko, the trademark tsundere of the group. I didn’t like her very much at first; but she grew on me and I came to care for her by the end of the second episode. Next, there’s Yukiatsu, my least favorite character of the bunch. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say that he’s…disturbed…but honestly, his reasoning is understandable and while I didn’t particularly care for him, I didn’t hate him. Next, there’s Tsuruko, a quiet intellect whose attitude I didn’t like at first, but again, she grew on me. Finally, there’s Poppo, who is the other character that I liked straight away. I just really liked his passion for practically everything, and seemed to be the only upbeat character that was actually alive, and got quite a few laughs out of me. Something I would like to point out about this entire cast is the fact that they all felt human to me, and the way that most were initially presented as unlikable further solidifies this statement. The show makes it clear that these characters are flawed human beings, with selfish desires that sometimes get in the way of their actions, and the different ways that they dealt with the death of Menma. This further ties into how the characters have each grown up since their “Super Peace Busters!” days, but in reality they haven’t truly changed; the only aspect that truly changed about each of them were the ways that Menma’s death affected them, and those changes lead them to grow apart and find different ways to cope. The side characters are also fantastic, from Menma’s mother to Jinta’s father to Naruko’s friends (who I wanted to punch in the face every time they came on screen).

From left to right to left again: Tsuruko (girl with glasses), Jinta (red shirt), Naruko (pigtails), Menma (gray hair), Yukiatsu (shirt and tie), Poppo (hawaiian shirt)

The Story:

Normally in slice of life shows like this, there is no prevalent story that ties everything together to create a flowing narrative. This applies to Clannad, Waiting In The Summer, Kanon 2006, Nisekoi (though to a much lesser extent in this particular show), and most others. Anohana, on the other hand, does have a story: finding and granting Menma’s wish. This made room for a lot of emotional development on the character front, as it allowed each character to interact with each other and learn more about the various ways that they reacted to Menma’s death. The pacing was also pretty top notch, but the show did seem to favor some characters over others. While that’s not technically a flaw it did leave me slightly disappointed. Speaking of disappointing, the ending. I unfortunately can’t go into detail about the ending in this review, so in order to express my true thoughts on it, I created a separate blog post that you can read if you’ve already seen the show or just don’t care about spoilers. To read that post, click here.

The story allows us to look into each character's past and how they dealt with the death of Menma

The Animation/Sound:

The presentation of Anohana is overall above average. The animation is pretty standard A-1 Pictures fare, with great coloring, beautiful backgrounds, fluid animation, and nice character designs. There were some moments where you could see that the animators cut some corners, like some weird shots of characters and the fact that the characters aren’t very detailed. Also, and this can be considered nitpicking, but sometimes the character’s hair looked rather unnatural to me. For example, whenever Naruko’s pigtails moved, it looked kind of like chunks of color rather than actual hair, and it bugged me. This is something that I would normally overlook except for the fact that Waiting In The Summer had this exact same animation quirk, and it didn’t bother me nearly as much as it did in Anohana. Maybe it’s just because, despite all their other faults, J.C. Staff really knows how to animate. I don’t know, sometimes I’m a little picky, and it probably won’t bother people as much as it did me. As for the soundtrack, the pieces were nice to listen to during the show, with the standout songs being the ending theme “Secret Base”, and a song called “Last Train Home”, which both played when the feels hit the hardest. Finally, there is no English dub, but fear not, young grasshoppers; Sensei approves of the Japanese dub, as all the performances are spot-on with the best being Menma’s voice actress.

Last Train Home: