Reviews

Apr 9, 2018
“What I couldn’t believe, is that someone I had loved, actually loved me back”

Growing older we all look back at our past relationships and especially growing up in the west it just isn’t as romantic as we imagined it to be. Sure some of us stay with childhood sweethearts however the term chivalry is dead seems to apply more often than not, in this respect Tsuki ga kirei would be the romance that most of us wish we had. A truly beautiful love story coated with a very re-playable lullaby type soundtrack that almost seems too incredible to be real, and yet realism is ingrained from beginning to end.

Though this won’t be for everyone and I for one appreciate and respect how our tastes all vary, however if you’re willing to sit through the awkward silences and artistic visual breaks in the main story my belief is that most viewers will come to appreciate this touching story of adolescent love. When I say realism is ingrained within the story I don’t use the phrase lightly, remembering that these are 2 very young adolescent teens (Kotarō Azumi and Akane Mizuno) both in the midst of junior high school and converging onto their main high schools; the awkward silences between them, the words stuck in their throats, blushing from holding hands or with a small kiss, as well as the jealousy from seeing each other with members of the opposite sex are all very real situations used to brilliant effect.

If your familiar with the romantic genre than don’t expect to not see all the usual cliché moments such as fireworks at a festival, an open bath/spa spring day out, an amusement park, a graduation and a lot of booze (although with the adults not the kids in question of course). However keep in mind these are the social situations which Japanese children find themselves during their school days (useless anime reference unintended,) and therefore it’s not about blaming the writers for unoriginality, rather we can analyse the method and relative success to which these situations unfold/conclude and Tsuki ga kirei tackles them all with aplomb. Setting aside the random transitions into people being some sort of weird cylindrical beings during initial crowd shots, the excitement seen in the face of Akane as she watches Kotaro perform or even the embarrassment our main characters display after a young girl teases them for kissing, are all important character developmentary scenes which enable us to emotionally connect to the characters on a deeper level. In my view an important aspect for any anime from this genre, especially when our characters undergo various hardships as without this emotional attachment to the characters, we viewers really won’t care what happens to them in the end.

Now Tsuki ga kirei is not a rom-com and therefore comedy Is kept to a minimum, instead substituted for subtle touches of modernity such as googling (or guugling if you will) how to act in a junior high relationship, a young female complaining about weight gain on scales (so true eh!), or even the male athletes making indecent references to the female runners behinds, all situations which we could see occurring at this very moment in time and therefore enhance our ability to relate and connect more with the characters.

Finally in my own humble opinion, the most important part of any anime (in particular romantic animes) is the ending; when an ending is written well the viewers are provided with a sense of closure, and whether that be happiness (such as with Nisekoi) or sadness (Sakurasou) what we all want is for the characters trials and tribulations to be rewarded with something befitting. Now I’m not saying that both of those referenced animes ended well, in fact Sakurasou in my opinion has one of the worst endings of any anime and is in fact a perfect example of what viewers don’t want to see, a character being written off or just sent into the background completely undeservedly for no foreseeable reason other than ending the story (you all know who I mean). Tsuki ga kirei provides us with that closure, with this only being a 12 episode anime the whole prologue from when our main characters finish junior high is shown only as a manga for a few short scenes, however the build up to this is written so well that we can believe and even imagine ourselves as viewers how all these events unfolded and therefore once that “fin” sign appears, we can sit back and reflect on that beautiful journey which dreams are made of.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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