Before I start, I would like to mention that this is another review of Kimi no Iru Machi from a manga reader. Actually, I wonder if anyone DIDN'T read the manga before the anime. It feels like a lot of people read the manga, heard about the anime and told their friends not to watch it afterwards.
It is by far my lowest rated anime on MAL, and there is a reason for that. This anime feels lackluster. It fails in all categories to deliver a minimum of what is expected from an anime to make in enjoyable.
Let's start with the story, for which I gave it a 5. The only redeeming thing about the story is that it stays the same as the source material. What is wrong about it? First, we skip all of Hiroshima to skip straight to Tokyo. You heard right, we skip a third of the manga and 90% of character development and go straight to the second part of the manga. Some of the chapters from Hiroshima were shown as flashback, but not nearly enough to understand why the events in this series are unfolding. There's also the fact that this anime wanted to cover the most chapters possible, so makes for a very rushed story with essential scenes left behind. The ending also felt incomplete, as there are a lot of things that are left unresolved in the manga at this point.
The art is a 6. It was actually an 8 until Episode 12. The characters looks from the manga are well adapted, but the animation is weird. The opening is one of the parts where it looks the weirdest, and it's the only part you have to watch 12 times. The center part of the animation is usually nice, but anything that's a bit peripheral to it or in the background looks horribly rushed. The still frames are beautiful, and the ending does a nice job of blending in the author's drawings with some photography in the background. One of the finer points that bothered me were when the characters' mouths stopped moving for some unexplained reason during random scenes, and black and white still frames that started showing up during the last few episodes, a lot of them in episode 12.
The sound deserves a measly 3. The music felt really out of place in this. The OP and ED are terrible and fail to set the right mood, if any, for the anime. The voice acting for Haruto was nice, with a thick accent and an unpolished vocabulary, it gave a vibe similar to an "redneck" only a bit softer. The other VA had nothing special, and were lacking a lot of emotion during key scenes. It felt like watching two animated dolls talk to each other.
As for the characters, I won't drag on it. It gets a 4 mostly because of the shortcomings of the story. The fact that they skip straight to Tokyo does not allow for any development that would have been necessary to understand the characters' decision and motivations. Some of the characters, like Asukara, are briefly introduced then swept aside. Same goes for Akari and Kanzaki, that were more present during Hiroshima. Also, a certain key character that has a key role in the anime has not appeared, and it's a shame because it explains a lot of things between Haruto and Asuka. Introducing it would probably not have given it enough time to make it to a conclusion within 12 episodes, so I can understand its absence.
The last criteria is enjoyment, which got a 3. I feel like this is really brought down by the fact that I expected an anime that would be as enjoyable as its source material, which it was not. It is not the first time that I watched an anime based on a manga I already read, but it's the first time I am so disappointed with it. I usually like romantic stuff, both comedy and drama, but what I got here was useless drama and akward scenes.
Overall it deserves a 4. It is an anime adaptation, but it's most certainly not a good one. It does have some novelty elements but it is far outhweighed by the overall lack of quality. If you read the manga, you don't need to watch this, and you'll be happier if you don't. If you haven't but like seinen, romance and drama, pick up the manga instead.
