Bit of background before I begin, not entirely related to the anime. Feel free to skip this paragraph and head to the review. I was looking forward to this anime for a while because of this recent shojo addiction. I was going to New York City in June and I watched about an hour and twenty minutes of the live action movie on the flight. It was actually very good and I recommend that you watch that movie instead of the anime. Not that this anime is bad.
So. Orange. What we have here is what seems to be a shojo with a time travelling twist. What it actually is, is a very generic shojo with a time travelling twist that seems to disguise the usual shojo story. When I say "generic" shojo I'm talking about almost every single shojo trope being checked off.
* Pretty lead who can't do wrong, check.
* Athletic love interest, check.
* Cute friends, check.
* Mean girl enemy, check.
* Catches the eye of the hottest guy in school, check.
The list goes on. The strange thing about this is that it isn't really a bad anime, especially if you like shojo.
STORY - 5
I give this story a 5 because I think it tries. It tries to go beyond (plus ultra!) the usual shojo story. Our lead, Naho, receives a letter from a version of herself in the future that states her deepest regret; being unable to save the life of a friend. It contains instructions on how to prevent this from happening. During the course of the show, she tries to save him and falls in love with him. I mean it's shojo so of course love is going to play a part. A huge issue I have with this is that it never, in thirteen episodes, shows any indication that Kakeru (the friend who has died in the future) is special. It portrays him as a pretty normal and average person who is depressed. I didn't dislike him, but there was no real reason that Naho would like him either. He has nothing to offer and her interactions with him seem forced and awkward. I enjoyed that they took time out to discuss parallel worlds, and that does excuse time travel issues. It is an easy and foolish mistake to leave this out so props on Telecom for keeping this in because time travel shows fall apart without the time travel being understood by the audience. There are a few other issues I had with the plot, hence the rating, but they would be spoiler territory so not for this review.
ART - 7
I have to confess bias; I love anime art. The bright colours, the funky hair, the details that are put into still frames (and it's anime so there are tons). Nothing special about this art. Nothing bad about it either. The colour of the high school blazers was a forest green and that was the colour of one of my rival schools when I was in high school, eh. Take this part of the rating with a grain of salt due to my love for anime art.
SOUND - 8
I loved the opening and ending tracks. I don't think I skipped either more than once or twice when I was binge watching eight or nine episodes in a row. During the show itself, the sound isn't memorable.
CHARACTERS - 4
This is where the show failed dismally. None of the characters are memorable besides Suwa. Let me list the others, bear in mind that these characters have absolutely no character development.
* Naho - Mary Sue protagonist who is cute and awkward
* Kakeru - Depressed teenage boy
* Hagita - Nerdy friend
* Azusa - She's the cute friend, parents run a bakery
* Takako - Tomboy. That's literally her entire character.
Not really a bad group, but not interesting either. They exist to basically push Naho and Kakeru together. But it's ultimately Suwa who does everything until literally the last scene in the last episode. He's the soccer star with a heart of gold. He cares about everyone and it's obvious that he's into Naho, but when he sees she likes someone else he steps aside to support her happiness. He's kind and compassionate and invites a lonely new kid to hang out with them. It blows my mind that Naho didn't like Suwa before this, although it's hinted that she does due to the scenes set in the future world. But that just makes it stranger that she somehow became enamoured with Kakeru even though there was a latent attraction to Suwa. Nine times out of ten, Suwa is the hero in a shojo love story. This was one of the nine times, he was the hero. Just not the love interest. But this is a story about dealing with mistakes from your past, not about romance.
ENJOYMENT - 8
This had some very sad moments, and if you've ever been depressed it's going to hit you hard in the tear ducts. I like that sort of thing, and this section of the reviews are always the most subjective. "Enjoyment". Sometimes anime that is very boring to some will be very appealing to others. This is not a clone of anything the way God Eater was with Shingeki no Kyojin, definitely not. But with the success of Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, I knew we'd get some time travelling anime in the next few seasons and this is one of them.
OVERALL - 7
It was 8 but I changed it to 7. I recommend this because I enjoyed it, but I recommend the live action movie first.
