“What defines humans... Defines us? Nobody will notice a change on the inside if you look the same on the outside.”
What happens your desires and thoughts are no longer simply your own, but are also shared with your closest friends? How will it affect your friendship when you uncontrollably make a move on the guy your friend likes, or even if you find out a dark secret that your friends kept from you?
These are all questions (among many others) which KokoroCo tries to bring to light. In a way, you could say this is as much a SOL-series, as it is a psychological test.
Story: (8 / 10)
The basic plot is very simple, to be honest. A group of friends encounter, and have to deal with, a multitude of different phenomena which in different ways reveal their deepest desires and secrets to the other people in the group. However, it’s the rather interesting way these phenomena are presented, executed, and dealt with which makes this show very interesting.
Even though most of it can be pretty sad or depressing in ways, they’ve done a good job in throwing in some comedic scenes, without making it feel like they’re going out of their way just to be funny, so it all flows really well, which I thought was nice.
I find it hard to actually talk more about the story, without really going into specific events and more detail, and unfortunately that would spoil the experience for you a bit.
Length-wise, I think 17 (counting the specials) episodes were just perfect, and the sort of open ending both offers adequate closure and sets up for a good chance to read the remaining 7 books, I’d assume (unless there’s a lot of difference between the anime and the first 4 novels).
Art: (9 / 10)
The art was certainly very well done. (Like others, it seems) I was actually reminded of KyoAni’s sort of “special” art style, but to my surprise, they weren’t involved at all. Even so, all the characters were very well drawn (even the side-characters), and animation was nice and smooth. There are a lot of emotional scenes present, and whether a character was expressing happiness, sadness or anger, it was always done in such a way that it didn’t feel “overdone”, or “off” in any way, which of course is a big plus.
Another thing I would like to point out is fanservice. Now, I’ve gotten pretty used to seeing a fair share of fanservice in anime, even (or especially) in the ones revolving around a bunch of highschool friends. But to my surprise, there really isn’t much of that to find anywhere here.
There are maybe 3 or 4 very short scenes like these, and I found it very nice that they didn’t try to break up the emotions with random boob-shots.
Sound: (8 / 10)
Of course, in a show so focused on the emotional changes of our characters, good voice acting will be needed to really be able to bring the (very well done) writing to life, in a smooth and relatable way. To be honest, I really believe the voice actors all managed to do this.
They all fit their respective characters very well, and to be able to display so many emotions throughout a rather short time, really takes a bit of effort.
The one who stood out to me the most, however, was easily Nagase Iori. How she was able to both represent this happy, childish girl, as well as the cold, darker side of Iori we get to see was truly well done.
As for the music; The background music did a good job at accompanying the writing, but it never really tried to overtake any other aspect, which was nice, and even if I personally didn’t really care for the opening theme all too much, I think it shows the happy, hoping side of the group in a nice way.
Characters: (9 / 10)
Now this is where things get really good. In short, the characters are all very well written and synergizes rather well with each other. At a first glance, most of the characters appear quite innocent and “playful” (for lack of better words), except for maybe Inaba, who acts as the stern leader of the group. However, as the story goes on, darker sides are revealed, and as we find out more about each characters backstories, you learn that they’re not quite as innocent and/or happy as they’d like you to think, and this is all what makes you care and feel for the characters.
Obviously, a show about being forced to reveal your darkest secrets wouldn’t be very interesting if said secrets were all kinda “meh”, would it? Thankfully, all of the characters (save for one, I guess) have rather good backstories, and this also contributes a lot to character development. As they struggle to overcome their past problems/traumas, they actually develop as characters, and synergise with the other characters in new ways, which again brings up a lot of new scenarios.
Enjoyment: (9 / 10)
To be honest, I’m usually not able to marathon shows if I’m watching them by myself (as I easily get distracted in between episodes), and in that case, it usually takes me a while to finish a series, because I don’t necessarily always feel like watching anime at that moment. However, there are exceptions to this, and KokoroCo is definitely one of those. Even if I didn’t marathon all the 17 episodes in one go, I certainly got through this a lot faster than many other series, because I kept feeling like I wanted more of the characters, and wanted to see what would happen next etc.
All in all, it’s rather bittersweet, but I think this was very close to being one of my favorites.
