The story starts out fine. The concept is not anything original but the two main protagonists reencountering again being so different to how they were in the past, and unknowing all that has happened to each other during that time had some potential for a ride of feelings. And it was close during the first three episodes, especially because the female protagonist's personality is so lively and straight forward that her actions easily differed from the well-known indecision and passivity that are characteristic in the heroines of numerous romance series. But very early on the episodes fill up with the typical school and friendship events and problems, and the story soon loses its focus.
The following most important character after the female protagonist Futaba is Kou, the boy she had not seen for years and now attends her same high school as it turns out. The new Kou is, like the serious Murao states in several of her very scarce dialogues, a "brat". We do get to know the experiences that affected him enough to change his personality but these do not make him any more likeable. And I do not mean being dislikeable has to be a negative characteristic: when developed well, rebellious, mysterious or dark characters can be the most interesting and original, but Kou is none of that and he's simply ill-mannered. His actions do not provide much new to the plot, his beginning in the story is good enough to allow him to make a difference but he doesn't develop and just sulks in resentment all along. Which brings me back to Futaba, the personality of hers I found distinctive at first for a shoujo series, turns foolish and clichéd as soon as she falls in love.
Still the worst developed characters are the other three friends of the group: they have the importance of a flower pot to the story. Makita gets part of the focus for a couple of episodes but Murao and Kominato could have easily been invisible. Given they little participation these two seem to be present in the series only to fill up the archetypes of quiet, cold girl and noisy, blatant boy.
Animation is average concerning the fluidity and art of the backgrounds (excluding the slightly rarest watercolour style used during flashbacks; too fuzzy) but character design is very inconsistent. The manga art looks good, so do the anime covers and even the key visuals released before the series started airing are good enough, but once animated the proportions and expressions are too unstable and in many scenes their faces become either unrecognizable or unattractive. Fortunately this does not happen constantly.
There isn't much to say about sound: the opening and ending themes are average or fine depending on tastes, soundtrack is to be somewhat noticeable whilst watching and then forgotten right afterwards (like it happens with most anime OSTs) and seiyuus are good at accomplishing the expected voices that fit the stereotyped personalities.
Ao Haru Ride wasn't especially boring but it's a series that doesn't offer anything new, and one of those series where little relevant happens when you look back on it: something that stays in mind is how right before the conclusion the show throws in a (predictable) final hook to keep the audience following the upcoming events. This season of 12 episodes covers only 14 of the +40 chapters the manga currently has so sequels are to be expected.
Due to my discrepancies with the characters I barely found any scenes touching or disclosing as they themselves apparently did, but I still do not regret having watched the anime. It gives me a good idea of how generic content keeps on being labelled as special when it gets popular and how success certainly isn’t correlated to uniqueness.
Overall Blue Spring Ride has average sound, average animation, decent enjoyment and development below average. So don’t watch it if you’re looking for an overall good series, unless like me, you want to get an idea of the manga without reading it.
