Mar 21, 2013
I started watching this anime fully expecting it to be just another silly light-headed boyish comedy full of gratuitous skin flicks and fanservice. I admit, my hormones made me do it. If you just want a short summary, though, hear me out on only two more statements: This is a story about a kindhearted teenager who cares for, and slowly falls in love with, a savant. And I'm still surprised to say it's the only anime that has managed to pull any tears out of my eyes.
Yes, the show does start out with the immature titillation that we all came for. Yes, the comedic timing
...
is superb. And this content, while it gets toned down somewhat, never entirely goes away. As the season progressed, though, I began to feel a little ashamed with myself for assuming from the start that this show's creators were nothing more than money-grubbing opportunists who only wanted to sell bawdy humor smattered with breasts and derriere to finance their next financial venture. Because, as it turns out, Sakurasou turned out to be a lot more.
The characters are deep and rounded. The hero very slowly falls in love with the heroine, but to get there he makes legitimate sacrifices. Even more intriguing is how everyone attempts to reconcile their own opinions of the savant heroine: is she mentally handicapped or an unbelievably gifted genius? How would less gifted individuals deal with her, and how would average people deal with her?
In almost every episode, there's an unobtrusive scene of a white cat lying silently with her black companion (they'd been adopted by the hero). By explicitly linking the white cat to the heroine, the show subtly tells us that the success she represents can only exist with its implied black partner, failure. One can't exist without the other, no yin without her yang. As it turns out, this symbolism becomes very important.
At its heart, the show is a love story. But it's also a story about life, a story about coming to terms with imperfections and a story about the transition into young adulthood. Some find immense success in their dreams while the rest aren't quite that lucky. The overarching question that the show asks the viewer is this: Regardless of your successes or failures, how are you going to step forward?
Maybe that's a question we all should consider.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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