Story
The story is simple at first. One guy, three girls, seems like your average gotta-catch-'em-all harem, but this one is different from the majority. It starts lighthearted, explaining the relationship between our male lead, Shin, and the three girls in his life, Hiromi, Noe and Ai. What starts as a random encounter turns to be the ignition key for a beautiful story. No Deus-Ex-Machina, no things that seem out of this world, just a simple story about love, sadness and the tears that one sheds, the true tears that one cries only when the heart is wavering.
Art
The animation is very good. As series pass by, it seems like the animation process becomes greater and greater, resulting awesome artwork like in True Tears. The characters are very well drawn, eye-candy almost everywhere, the background scenery is awesome and the scenes that matter most are those that are drawn the best. One thing that attracted my attention was the activity of the show. The backgrounds are filled with life: students passing by and discussing, birds flying around, the waves of the sea, it all seems so real. Hats-off to the True Tears artists that worked on the project, it's really something.
Sound
The opening song is one of the best songs I've ever heard, in my opinion. Eufonius is a great band and the song's rhythm and lyrics can make me speed up my pace and even sing along.
The background music is very good, as with all the recent anime. I love the piano and violin music they use most of the time as it fits the mood perfectly. It's without flaws yet it can always be better.
Character
The characters are one of the strong points of this anime. They're human. Their emotions really get to you because they're human. The girls really stand out for a harem show, especially Noe, who's like a torch in the middle of the cave, you'll forever recognize her unique character after watching it. Then there's Hiromi, the sweet and kind girl with a bit of a troubled past, nothing our male leader can't handle, and Ai, the onee-san type that's fun and out-going.
Shin, our male leader, is quite normal. Seems cool male leaders are popular these days. Well, he's anything but cool until the moment he finally decides to set things right. He might not be the smartest bean in the jar but he's a good guy. The one small thing that I didn't like was the lack of background story for the secondary characters (like Miyokichi or Tomoyo), the rest is awesome. I really loved the characters overall.
Enjoyment
I usually don't write a review if I don't enjoy it and this my proof. I liked this anime from the first episode and it really moved me towards the end, it was an awesome series and it was worth every minute. I'm sad it ended, since I wanted to see more but you can't help it, all good things come to an end.
Bottom of the line is that if you're into romance shows (like I am), you'll love this one. It has it all and much more and 13 episodes was too short to satisfy my hunger. Nevertheless, I'll keep this series in my "top romance anime" list.
Final Overall Grade: 8.6, rounded up to 9
