True Tears

Shinichirou Nakagami was living the life other boys from his grade could only dream of—staying under the same roof as prodigal student Hiromi Yuasa. However, the bright and cheerful Hiromi has been depressed and cold at home ever since her mother passed away. While he is the subject of the ignorant jealousy of his peers, rumors begin to spread when Shinichirou meets Noe Isurugi—a girl known for cursing classmates, curses which always end up becoming reality.

Noe curses Shinichirou as well, but two pits are created when you curse someone, and her curse on Shinichirou comes back to bite her in the form of a raccoon to her beloved chicken, Raigomaru. Despite this, she does not shed a single tear; Noe had had her tears stolen. For Noe to be able to cry again, she would need the tears of another, and Shinichirou knows a person whose tears he wants to take away.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

While technically based on a visual novel with the same name, True Tears has an almost entirely anime-original story. The anime is set in Jouhana, Toyama (where P.A. Works Studio is located) and locations from throughout Toyama Prefecture are used as models for the anime.

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Spin-off:	True Tears: Mini Chara 4-koma Gekijou
Sequel:	True Tears Epilogue
Other:	True Tears: Raigomaru to Jibeta no Monogatari
Character:	Utopia
Summary:	True Tears Recap

Takahashi, Rieko
Japanese

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Staff

Horikawa, Kenji

Producer

Saitou, Shigeru

Producer

Nagatani, Takayuki

Producer

Tsuji, Mitsuhito

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Reflectia (リフレクティア)" by eufonius (eps 1-12)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Sekai no Namida (セカイノナミダ)" by Aira Yuki (eps 1-12)
	2: "Reflectia (リフレクティア)" by eufonius (eps 13)

Reviews

Mar 15, 2009

KaminaKai

Recommended

“Because I gave my tears away.”

That was the line that first introduced me to True Tears. Now I would like to use this same line to introduce you all to this realistic romance series. The True Tears legacy began with very disappointing visual novel sales that ranked it as 41 among the 50 newly released visual novels at the time. Shortly after the visual novel came a live action film of True Tears that resembles closely to the game. So now you must thinking the anime is naturally just another adaptation to the visual novel as well right? Wrong!

The anime version of True Tears shares ... nothing in common with the visual novel or the film (beside the name). It has its own independent plot, its own independent setting, and its own independent set of characters. Thus why use the name True Tears and give credit to the original visual novel creator when there is virtually nothing in common is beyond my understanding. However, what I do understand is that True Tears is an attempt by Lantis to produce a similar anime type to Air/Kanon/Clannad by Kyoto Animation. The purpose of this review is not to compare and criticize True Tears with the above anime, but I personally feel True Tears is worthy of such comparison if there is one.

Many viewers may find the story of True Tears resembling Kanon or Clannad in lots of ways, such as the usual touching scenes that make us cry a river. However due to the nature of the story, instead of dealing with half a dozen heroines we only have three. Thus allowing more time to better develop their characters. One may be tempted to call True Tears a harem anime due to all the females “ganging” up on our protagonist, but I see this as an essential part to developing a love-triangle (and NO, there’s nothing ecchi in the anime). The anime takes a rather different approach to the regular love story and one can say it truly brings out the realism to this matter through the careful use of wordings. However it should be noted that, like most other story with a certain degree of depth, True Tears incorporates a great deal of metaphoric comparison. While it is not difficult to understand what those metaphors imply, some viewers may be discouraged by them.

The relationships between all the characters are expertly developed. In addition to the multi layer relations that are common in most romance genre, we also see a great deal of interactions between the younger and older generation of characters and how they affect one another. The protagonist’s parents certainly played a more central role compare with most animation from this genre. However, what I like best is the perfect illustration of a young boy’s heart when confronted with two (or three) possible lovers. I, for one, instantly saw a reflection of myself from Shinichirou (not that I am two-timing or anything, but I find his actions highly logical for a boy his age). I think I would most likely be as confused (if not more confused) than he is if I were in his situation especially after all those shocking events.

Animation-wise it certainly lives up to fans expectations. This is especially true for the key scenes of the show. As evident from the title of the anime, tears do truly seem different in here. Tears in True Tears are very beautiful, the glittering salty water look exceptionally real when running down the cheeks of various characters. In addition to tears, the fluidity of the character movements, the detailed shadows on the face of the characters as they speak, the camera angles used to illustrate certain key aspects such as the 3D walking scene etc.; everything adds up little by little and before you know it you will find yourself having a hard time reverting back to watching lower quality animations. I still have a difficult time trying to find a show with superior animation quality compare to True Tears.

Like the awesome animation production, True Tears’ music is also not to belittled with. The music was effectively used both in terms of BGM and OP/ED as they all served their purposes well. BGM creates the mood just needed to make some scenes touching enough to make people go teary-eyed. The OP is by eufonius whom Clannad fans should be familiar with. I personally find True Tears’ OP much better than Clannad’s though. Unlike most anime, True Tears’ seiyu did not interest me much (nor did they play any role in my decision to watching it). The biggest name out of the main casts is probably Kaori Nazuka (Nunnally in Code Geass, Eureka in Eureka Seven, Lynette in Strike Witches). With that note, I would like to truly thank the Lantis production crew for bringing us (the anime fans) a wonderful romance series that will forever have a place in my anime romance list.

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Jun 29, 2013

CVArk

Mixed Feelings

Well wasn't this a doozy!

True Tears is the story of a young man with a talent for drawing who wants to publish a book, but the main plotline is his burning desire for his de facto "sister," Yuasa Hiromi. I'm exhausted and disappointed so this won't be much more than a brief overview.

I came to this from Whisper of the Heart, as I'd heard this series also involved an artistically-inclined character who's inspired to create something that truly comes from the heart. And yes, I can say Shinichiro does exactly that, but it didn't quite strike a chord with me as WotH did. Anyway, True ... Tears had a really promising start, with what appeared to be a rather clichéd slice-of-life school romance story a la Toradora! or Clannad, but it seemed subversive in a way (at first). That is, the series seemed to be aware of this stereotypical treatment and took occasional jabs at itself, sort of a way to turn the clichés on their head.

From there (I would say from the second half of the eighth episode), it devolved into an ACTUALLY clichéd and heavy-handed school life story. Drama isn't a bad thing, but damn if it didn't drag the entire series down with it.

I think there are a few principle factors that led to this sharp decline: first was that the female lead/romantic interest was completely uninteresting. I can debate the personal qualities of Yuasa Hiromi's character from sundown to sunset, and it may in the end just be a matter of opinion anyway, but ultimately I never felt like I was "with" her, I never felt like I could realistically root for Shinichiro to win her over. I just didn't care.

Shin himself did quite a heel face turn as well. At least in that first half, although he was oddly fixated on Hiromi, he did seem to have some sense of self-awareness and conscience. Deep down, he seemed to at least mean well to his friends and acquaintances, even the more unusual among them. Over the second half of the series, he devolves into a generic school life jerk - that is, the one all the girls want, and God knows why.

I don't think True Tears is really a terrible series overall, and the last half may not even actually be bad. It just seems like episodes eight through thirteen could have been so much more than they were, and they ended up being a spectacular letdown. It had such a strong start and what makes it so disappointing as a series is how quickly it appeared to lose steam.

I don't know; maybe True Tears really is a completely subversive game-changer, toying with our automatic assumption that the main character of a slice-of-life romance may make mistakes and do stupid things but at least means well. Perhaps most of the cast save two was made deliberately unlikeable for that very reason. The weird thing is that looking back, I almost feel like after around episode eight or nine, the characters are turned into people they don't seem to have been just a couple episodes prior. It's like they're jostled permanently out of their own character. Maybe I'm the only one who felt that, but feel free to come to your own conclusions. And it's a shame too, because the OP is wonderful and the art at time is breathtaking.

Anyway, I think that's enough non-sequitur and passionate nonsense for one review. In a nutshell, my take on True Tears is as follows: watch it if you want, but it's neither must-see nor must-avoid. If you do decide to watch it, perhaps you'll come to a different conclusion than I did, but I frankly would've been much happier (and may even have rated the series a lot higher) if it had ended a few episodes earlier.

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Gift

Sep 6, 2010

Benatron

Not Recommended

The first line of the show is your very typical drama-like statement, "The you inside me is always crying". Little did you know is that the Shinichiro was talking about the viewer and how much you wanted to cry after watching this show. You're not crying because your sad, and definitely not because you're happy, but because your body is so full with rage that tears have to be removed to make room for more rage.

Spoilers galore in here.

Let's go over the plot, oh goody, I wonder what kind of plot they have in store. Nakagami Shinichiro lives with his mother, his father, and his ...

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