It is able to make the audience resonate with its themes with pinpoint accuracy. The use of animation and sound is used to its fullest extent, something that is fully apparent in the op, where in less than a minute it made me both smile and shed a tear.
The problems arise when the characters are introduced.
I know that is only one of 5 pillars needed to rate an anime; however, this show is a character-driven drama. So even if in the sound, themes and art department Anohana succeeds, it disastrously fails in the character one.
Let's go down the list, from least to most annoying.
Poppo doesn't do much and he should because he brings the energy and cheerfulness this show desperately needs. Things are sad because we are able to experience happiness, and without this character I don't know how we'd scrape by.
Menma is a weird case. She is extremely childish and even though sometimes it can be seen as charming, it mostly falls into frustrating levels of ditziness. This wouldn't be such a problem if she bounced off well with Jintan but she doesn't. It's not much her fault as his though.
Jintan's very bland. He is our snide, emotionless husk of a human being we have all grown to recognize as most of our MCs in anime. We are told and promised he is extremely cool and totally worthy of so much admiration in his group of friends but I'm still waiting for the reasons.
I get what they were trying to do with Anuro. Geeky girl turned into a gyaru but they don't fully commit to either of these roles so she's just left as a unstable individual with radical mood swings that mostly end up with her in tears. Mixing her with other people though, makes her devolve into a tsundere (I mean, she has those pigtails for something) that in turn creates those clichés we all see coming.
Tsuruko made me roll my eyes each time she did because god was tsuruko an uptight bitch. She is unable to form any kind of decision unless Yukiatsu has given his OK and then proceeds to stare everyone down as if she is superior. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have an extremely dependable character be bored and cool and making me suffer when she tries to put people in places she thinks they belong by cutting them off or staring them down as if they were mere insects. I understand characters shouldn't be perfect, but don't make them into nuisances.
And talking about nuisances.
First place for worst character has to go to good old yukiatsu.
Each time the story needed to move on and seeing we are left with bland Jintan who just lets the story happen to him instead of making an impact himself, the creators go and make Yukiatsu a bit crazy.
This boy makes some decisions that made me pause the video, take a deep breath and will myself to continue. I have seen characters like him, but they are normally not this central to the plot, so we can admire their trainwreck from a safe distance. He just barrels through it all with bitter comments and hateful energy. Whenever you are thinking "wow, this character is getting so much more likeable" or "well, that's a neat idea, maybe arcs can be resolved" or when you are just enjoying the story and its character interactions, worry not my friend, Yukiatsu will descend upon us and ruin it all.
I understand drama needs, well, drama to fully be successful. But stirring up shit that happened when you guys were 5 is not a great way to do that. There is a scene where the characters are all bursting into tears by this and I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous it looked.
Not to say this anime didn't bring me to tears, because it sure did. The last episode did its job wonderfully, but this was achieved despite its characters and not because of them. Themes about loneliness, growing up, moving on, and death will always be relatable to any of us because these are feelings we will encounter as we live, and the anime fully takes advantage of this in order to make us empathize with their situation.
I think too many people adore Anohana because of how effective it is to make you cry, while ignoring the frustration it made you carry to reach that point.
