Common Name: Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai
Alternate Names: AnoHana: The Flower We Saw That Day, We Still Don't Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day.
Score: 10/10, 5/5
Length: 11 episodes
Genre: Drama, Slice of Life, Supernatural
Summary: Having regrets something that goes hand in hand with growing up. Getting over those regrets is difficult though when your greatest regret of all has come back to haunt you. Though she isn't doing it out of any kind of malice, Honma Meiko, better known as Menma, has made life for Yadomi Jinta who has never really gotten over Menma's sudden dead when they were children. To put Menma's spirit to rest, Jinta will need to rekindle the friendships that died with the girl that loved him all those years ago.
Review: The death of a loved one is never something that's easy to handle, especially at a young age. You can work past it, but it's never something you forget, and everyone handles it in different ways. Some people shove the negativity of it into the back of their mind until they can't handle holding it back anymore. Some people use it as a platform to improve themselves, either aspiring to or denying the way of life that person led. Others are influenced by it in the smallest of ways as they live their life in spite of the hole that person left behind. Personally, I've experienced that third option and still do. No matter what kind of loss you've experienced though or how you've come to terms with it, if you've come to terms with it at all, AnoHana is an anime that shoots for the heart just to remind you of that loss and the fact that everyone needs help getting past those pains that never really go away.
Even if that help comes from a guy who lives in a shed.
At it's heart though, AnoHana is a story of love and friendship in the face of that great loss. It's a tale about how the impossible can be overcome with enough grit and determination, which of course means that this journey isn't an easy one. The characters of AnoHana have all grown up since the death of Menma, and have thus tried to work past it in their own ways and changed because of it. Rather than making them all stubborn and unreasonably difficult though, the audience is given something of a summation of their lives as they grew up as children into the complicated teens they are. We learn how they changed when growing, the leaps in logic they made to get where they are, and in some ways how they stayed the same. To make it interesting though, these kernels of background aren't doled out at once, but rather over the course of the show as they all grow more and more desperate to help Menma and eventually tell the whole story of the day Menma died from each of their perspectives. Because of this use of multiple perspectives from a small ensemble cast, every one of the characters is given a depth and purpose that makes them easy to love or hate. What's better though is that none of them are simplistic in that way most anime characters are--based off a single ideal or a worn out trope. In some ways, all of them are wonderful and amazing in their own right. In others, they are horrible people and flawed in ways that make them seem all the more human.
Raging hormones and feet that would be better served
keeping their mouths shut included free of charge.
I suppose it's all the more fitting that the plot of the series is rather dramatic. Who better to heap on the drama and melodrama alike than a group of teenagers? I use the word melodrama though because AnoHana is legitimately difficult to get through at times. The difference between drama and melodrama, as I understand it, hinges mainly on rationality. If a character becomes melodramatic, it kills the tone of an otherwise serious or thrilling scene. In the worst case scenario though, melodrama has the ability to kill the pacing entirely because you, as the viewer, don't want to deal with that or deal with enough of it already in your personal life. Strangely though, AnoHana feels like it actually gains something from the use of melodrama. When you have characters who are having their old wounds wrenched open, rationality isn't exactly something you should expect to see since humans are, in most cases, irrational. Because of this character-focused irrationality, the plot then moves forward as the character's work to address the problem and move past it, not for their own sake but for Menma's.
After all, it is her irrational existence and desires that get the ball moving in the first place.
So, rather than shying away from overbearing drama, aka melodrama, and the show heaps it on to keep the plot moving because nothing gets resolved if it never gets addressed, and these characters have a lot of problems to work through. In spite of how frustrating excessive drama usually is though, it's not hard for AnoHana to keep the audience engaged since they learns to love and hate the characters early on. From there they sympathize with the characters as the plot keeps chugging, making the pain, sadness, and suffering endured, all the more effective when the tear jerking conclusion finally arrives.
AnoHana is, in more ways than one, beautiful. Though awful at times, the characters are beautiful in their complexity. Though trying at times, the plot reaches a beautiful and impactful ending that could make a stone weep. Without any difficulties along the way though, the execution of this work is beautiful. The art is solid and easy on the eyes. The animation is fluid and expressive, which is necessary for character-driven stories like these. The music helps make each scene a little more effective, but is never overdone. Though I'm not certain I'd call AnoHana an overall masterpiece, it accomplished what it needed to do and made me cry for about an hour straight. If that's not a sign of a successful drama about coping with loss, I don't know what is.