"So what's the point?"
There are many positive things to say about Anohana. Its opening is well designed, featuring the characters in their past and present forms as well as hinting at their emotional problems. The theme ("Aoi Shiori") is not only a great song by itself but also well-fitting with the show's melancholic tone. Its ending is similarly well made, and it is sung by some of the voice actors of the cast.
The animation/art is amazing. It is fluid and never drops in quality.
The show also does a pretty good at demonstrating character interaction (for the most part). It's meant to be awkward and unpleasant, given the long period of time the characters went without talking to each other after the death of Menma. And, I do think the characters feel realistic (with some exceptions). They are all deeply flawed and selfish people, which is OK. In fact, it is very refreshing to see this in anime.
The issue is they don't ever develop from their mistakes, or really, develop at all. In fact, it's very debatable whether or not most of them see what they did wrong in the first place. The show doesn't go into them actually becoming better human beings. They end up basically the same as they started, barely able to accept that Menma is indeed dead. There's no catharsis, no growth. The only thing you get at the end of the series is screaming and crying for the sake of it. So what the hell was the entire point of the confessions, the crying, Menma coming back as a ghost- everything? Was the entire point of the show "Haha these people are really bad human beings"?
And this is only made worse with the copious amount of melodrama.
I'll be the first one to say people overuse the term "melodrama". Under stress, or when angered, humans will act in very irrational ways. This is natural. But Jesus Christ, the characters can just put a damn blanket on Menma and 9/10 of the drama could be solved. Jinta genuinely can't figure out a way to prove the ghost's existence. Please, Jinta, make her hold something. Anything. The object will appear to be floating. She's pretty much an invisible person. Hell, just put some paint on her and none of the characters will ever have a difficult time figuring out where the hell she is. It is insane how severely lacking the characters' mental faculties are, and it's genuinely distracting. This wouldn't be that bad by itself, except for the fact that many plot points revolve around Jinta being unable to prove the ghost's existence. The characters argue vehemently about whether or not she exists, even accusing Jinta of being a liar rather than assume he's hallucinating. This goes on for almost half the show and it is extremely stupid. Eventually, the show devolves into the characters crying hysterically together and yelling about nothing for most of the screen time. It's almost as if the show is holding audience cue cards, where the show tells you you're supposed to feel emotion when the characters bawl their eyes out.
In addition, some of the characters' emotional hurdles are very unbelievable. Although I did say the characters are realistic, I say that with a grain of salt. Yukiatsu, for one, is god damn insane for little reason. He dresses up as Menma and obsesses over her, hopelessly in love with what is a walking loli moeblob. It was a childhood crush- they were 5 years old when Menma died, it's been literally over a decade. There's just no way he could still have that amount of feelings for her. It's hard to take his character seriously, which is detrimental to a drama like Anohana. His character is there just to add more drama, and he never contributes anything.
Speaking of not being able to take things seriously, it was difficult for me to empathize with the characters, mostly because the "tragic" event of Menma's death is pretty much just alluded to. It takes very little screen time actually developing this extremely important event. The show's structure is so strange. I genuinely wonder why this show didn't start with their childhood, featuring their reactions to Menma's death, with the rest of the series as a time skip showing with their hatred for one another, their eventual acknowledgment, and finally their realization/redemption. It would make a lot more sense, and the events would have more of an impact on the viewer.
Overall, Anohana is a melodrama that has way too many things wrong with it for me to give it a positive score. Certainly, I am in the minority when I say this, as at the time of writing the show has an 8.52 on MAL, but for reasons mentioned in the review, I don't recommend Anohana to anyone. If you are looking for a coming-of-age story, I suggest you to watch Ping Pong the Animation or Nagi no Asukara, and for manga, read Onanie Master Kurosawa or if you love action, Vinland Saga.
Story: 3 (dreadful presentation of the story events, combined with the massive plothole of being unable to prove menmas existence makes it the lowest category, good concept for a coming-of-age tale though)
Art: 8 (what you would expect from A-1 Pictures)
Sound: 9 (exceptional op/ed, bgs were fine too, unique char designs)
Character: 3 (tons of potential for these characters, but 0 development and little reason to empathize with them)
Enjoyment: 4 (the excessive crying and yelling in the second half was quite annoying, but the first few episodes were pretty entertaining)
Overall: 3 (I believe art and sound are not enough to save this show)
Please leave a comment letting me know if you have a criticism of my review. Feedback would be great.
