With that out of the way, we can move on to the meat of the matter and decide if either of our cute couple (or both!) make the RTLR wall of living printer ink! Full disclosure people, the RTLR wall is kind of four walls, and I'm honestly running out of room pretty quickly, so I might have to start spray painting anime characters on the sides of the herd of cows in the next lot over. Wonder what Farmer John would think at seeing Fumi from Aoi Hana on one of his heifers...? And no, taking down one of my multiple Ogasawara Sachiko pictures is NOT an option! Anyways, before I get further side tracked...let's get to it!
Story: 8
This is a very solid romantic anime. I am a middle aged, straight white man, but I felt like the anime dealt with what I perceive as the elements of being a Japanese teenage lesbian very well. There was a seriousness and an aspect of weight to the relationship presented that felt very 'real' and appropriate for what the story called for. This anime takes itself in a much more mature way than say other yuri types out there. (*cough* Strawberry Panic/Sakura Trick *cough*) and many elements of the feelings the girls have for each other matches up perfectly with the feelings I had for my first love, in the relationships I've had. There's an authenticity to the romance there, both on the side of the younger girl experiencing her first true love, and the older girl, falling deeply as well. I've always been a heterosexual man, but feelings, *real* feelings like explored in this story are not related to orientation or gender, they are universal and inherent to the human heart.
The story moves us through the relationship in a paced, and interesting manner. As an audience, we're brought in not long after the pair start dating, and we get to watch as the older girl guides the younger one through the complicated maze of being in a relationship, also while learning lessons herself. They go through moments where an issue comes between them, and as it often is in the real world, what one girl thinks is the problem has *nothing* to do with what's on the mind of her partner. Together they at first awkwardly move through the emotional minefield, but as they find themselves, and their feelings for each other, they become more confident.
There is of course the looming problem that every relationship like theirs faces, age. Age is the true enemy in this anime, and as someone who has moved through more life than perhaps some of you guys here, age is often the enemy in whatever matter you wish to consider. Time slips away very easily. But when you're young, and in love, a couple years, or a touch more, can be nearly an eternity. The growth of the relationship, each hurdle they clear, each touching moment they spend just serves to remind them, and us, that hard decisions are fast coming for the First and Third Year lovebirds.
This story is familiar, not only because we've all heard a variation a thousand times, but because the feelings, the relationship is based on situations and interactions that are viable in the real world. There isn't much surprise in some of the event, including the ending, because unless you're too young or for some reason haven't experienced true love, you've been where these girls are. You've had those awkward moments with your beloved, you've had the misunderstandings, the misgivings, the insecurities. You've had the tender brush of your love's lips, you've held them and felt your heart melt. The fact this anime makes me think of all these memories I have of my own romantic past is, in my mind, a powerful endorsement for it being a very well done romance. Let's be real folks, there are some elements of titillation in anime like Strawberry Panic and Sakura Trick and the like. Its meant to be somewhat 'stimulating' if you take my meaning there. Asagao to Kase-san does not have those moments, from where I'm sitting.
There are moments you can feel the almost painful innocence of the younger girl, and moments where the pulsing need to express their love physically comes off the older girl. Both of those are natural feelings, and are presented in a context that I have personally experienced (the exception being of course it was with Texas women, clearly) but the point remains, I've had those moments of heart pounding shyness, and those moments of deep yearning. This anime plays both as natural, which of course they are.
One might think it odd for me to open with such deference and not score the anime or the story elements even higher. My reasoning for this is, although so very well done in my mind, it really didn't have any truly unique hooks in my mind. There's some standard 'how do we make this work' questions to be asked, but that's par for the course. Just knowing from the synopsis we're dealing with an underclassman and an upperclassman points out the obvious 'what about college?' issue, and they did not resolve that in any manner that we haven't all seen before. I don't mean that as a complaint in the slightest, as I've said in my other reviews, knowing (or having a good idea) of what is to happen does not mean you cannot enjoy the story as it gets there. Its a solid romance, as I said, but has no real defining element to really hook into the audience. At the end of the hour run time I thought to myself, "that was a really great show, and I enjoyed watching it!" but in three months I will probably have little more memory of it beyond "I really liked that!" Doesn't take a thing away from the enjoyment I had viewing it, but it's not Romeo and Juliet famous-for-all-freaking-time caliber stuff.
Art: 8
The eyes are just amazing. I really loved how they drew the characters' eyes. The rest of the art is well done, the lines are clean, and flow well. The animation is smooth and the backgrounds don't stick out. The coloring seemed very soft and full of pastels to me, which of course works very well when you consider the story is told from the angle of the younger girl, and is thus a story about first true love. That kind of soft coloring fit the story very well, I believe.
Sound: 8
The background music was nice, adding emotional depth to moments as it played without being overtly noticeable. It was of course light, lingering, and soft, as romance pretty much almost always employs that kind of soundtrack. Perhaps a romance story with teen aged Japanese lesbians backed with a soundtrack from Metallica exists out there (and if it does, tell me it could be EPIC) but usually feelings and stuff gets the light airy sounds. No complaints here. The voices are all also well done, and sound fitting for the characters.
Character: 8
With this being a single hour run time there's not room for much in the way of characters outside our two love birds. Now it could be said that the younger girl is light on character, as she's primarily presented as a bit naive, and an avid gardener, and that's kind of it. She does express in a scene or two a pretty impressive level of devotion to her gardening hobby. It is in fact an important aspect in the girls' relationship. Now the fact that she doesn't have much else going on besides this hobby might seem light to some people. I will say this though, we're talking one hour to tell this entire romance, we don't really have time for each girl to carry several interests and hobbies without cluttering the story with unessential details that serve no point other than to chew up valuable clock time. So by keeping the focus pretty narrow to only one or two aspects of each girl's personality, we have more time to explore the relationship which is, oh right, the entire point! The younger girl doesn't need more 'notes' in her personality. She's young enough that she doesn't even consider that she might be sending a rather 'adult' signal when she invites her girlfriend to her house while her parents are out, to hang out together. Take that innocence, which she openly shares with the older girl, add a hobby that is intermingled into the story of their romance, and we really have all we need. Anything more, like she's into Spiderman comics or likes playing Minecraft is just overkill.
The older girl could be accused of being somewhat cliche in that she's a tomboy-ish type who is great at sports and is attracted to very innocent, feminine types. Yes, we've seen this archetype used many times before, but that doesn't mean it's just horrible and evil. To discount the entire story because she's a little cliche really does not only the story injustice, but you as a potential viewer as well. I do not have much experience with knowing all that many lesbian American women, but I have met one that is an athletic tomboy. I worked for a handful of years in nursing, and can readily testify that there are in fact pink sequin hat wearing, purse carrying, showtune singing homosexual men. In fact, as an aside, the first time a man ever asked me out on a date, he was wearing a pink sequined hat, having just gotten off his shift at a nursing home. The ones I know do not give a rat's ass if they are 'cliche' or not. They are who they are, and its that simple. You can either take them, or well, that's about it, they have every right to existence and happiness as anyone else that draws breath. So the older girl has short hair and is good at sports, what does it matter? It doesn't. The older girl is never presented in any manner that would belittle her for how and who she is. In fact I would imagine it was very much a story telling decision, as one of the difficulties the couple has to navigate is the older girl's popularity. Let's be honest people, it seems in most places in high school, the jocks (male and female) are often incredibly popular while the more 'bookish' people are somewhat less so. The older girl may well have some generally stereotypical lesbian attributes, but her character is as solid as a rock, and her qualities are perfectly acceptable.
Enjoyment: 8
Okay, I gotta breathe after that little rant there. Enjoyment, yes! I did enjoy this anime, and did find the romance very touching, even if a bit predictable in some manners. I honestly would rate it higher if it had just a hair more about it that was really unique. It's not quite Aoi Hana for me (but then again, no one can fill Fumi's shoes) but it was time well spent and a great story. The one thing I will give this anime that doesn't happen all that much is that the ending falls more in line with what I, as an American, am a fan of. I've mentioned before that my culture has a fascination for grand romantic actions. Its almost like the West wrote in that little bit in the marriage ceremony that says 'speak now or forever hold your peace' for the explicit purpose of allowing a person's 'true love' to bust through the doors of the building at that very moment and interrupt the ceremony. We just love that kind of thing, whereas you have a lot of anime (my beloved Aoi Hana, Sasameki Koto, etc) end on very muted or ambiguous notes. Cultural thing, I'm sure.
Take one solid romance story, add realistic moments and feelings, and slap a grand Western style ending on there, and what do you have? A show you should totally check out, and one more entry (the couple together) on the RTLR wall!
