1. The soundtrack was pretty darn good.
2. Anaru looks cute. Hm, that's more like half a point. Um, Menma hugging her brother was also cute?
3. The final episode finally allows the actors to act for the first time and they do decently for around half of it.
10 Things I Hate About This Show:
1. Every character has at least three names they are consistently referred to by: the first name, the surname, and the nickname. This makes keeping track of what character is being referred to annoyingly difficult at best and frustrating at worst.
2. Despite this, I had to look up everybody's names whenever I referred to them in this review. They somehow picked the 15 most forgettable names I've ever heard.
3. There is no defined goal or path to that goal. The main guy wants the ghost to go back to heaven. Why? How? What does this mean for him? How does this change things? None of this is addressed until the final episode, and by then it's too little too late.
4. The characters are awful people, except for Menma, who never interacts with anyone in any meaningful manner, and Tetsudo, who is constantly upbeat and tries to encourage everyone at all times. For this, everybody treats him like trash and the show makes fun of him.
5. The show tries way too hard to lean into its drama and the pain of losing a loved one. Yeah, that's hard, and can screw up your life even ten years down the line, but because the show never puts any sort of spin or moral center on the idea, it gets old remarkably fast, and without personality, charm, or humor as a focus to land back on, watching further episodes gets progressively tiring.
6. Maybe don't have your main character the one who is emotionally distant and disconnected if you don't know how to write characters like that. Mob from Mob Psycho, Saitama from One Punch Man, Roy McBride from Ad Astra, Jack Harper from Oblivion, Kousei from Your Lie in April, these are all excellent examples of how to write a main character who lacks emotion due to repression. Jintan is unlike any of these; he is no active force and never is pushed into being one. Every single confrontation he finds, he runs away from. I got so sick of watching him do the same thing scene after scene after scene with no emotion, no care, and no progression.
7. Jintan's dad is a terrible parent and a terrible example of proper parenting. I don't care how much he smiles and talks excitedly, any father who lets their child sit and do absolutely nothing and doesn't care whether they go to school, work, get into trouble, or sit around all day doing nothing and mooching off them, they either don't love their kid or aren't fit to be a parent. This is a person that needs guidance, help, and a swift kick on occasion, and there is nobody to give him this. Despite that, the anime goes out of its way to show what a loving, perfect father he is. It upsets me to no end.
8. Why are all these six-year-olds in love with each other? Why do they all retain this exact infatuation ten years down the line, even when they go years without seeing each other?
9. Why does everybody have the same alignment and goals but their individual relationships are complicated beyond reason? Why did the writers draw name out of a hat to determine who would have what feelings towards who? "Jintan is in love with Menma, but hates everyone, including Menma, oh, Matsuyuki is also in love with Menma, and also Anjo, but Matsuyuki hates Jintan, but not because of the love rivalry, but Anjo is in love with Jintan, but hates Menma, but not because of the love rivalry, but Tsuruko is in love with Matsuyuki, but hates Anjo, but not because of the love rivalry, and Menma loves everyone!"
"What about Tetsudo?"
"Who?"
10. This is an 11-Episode series. It takes nine episodes - NINE, before three of the main characters believe Jintan about Menma's ghost. And it's not like its hard to believe or that they kept their disbelief a secret, or like Jintan and Menma weren't around when they were being accused of lying and drudging up painful memories. And here's the thing: Menma isn't like a regular ghost. She is treated the exact same as a normal person, just invisible and inaudible to anybody except Jintan. But she cooks food, sleeps, plays games, and interacts with the outside world regularly. There is no reason whatsoever she couldn't just slap the disbelievers, or, if she wanted to be nice about it, pick up some rocks or something and show off an invisible force moving them around. Or Jintan could tell Menma to do something, like, say, turn off the lights, and she would do it. Almost half of the first eight episodes are spent on nothing but people trying to figure out if Jintan is telling the truth or not, and it all could have been solved in less than ten seconds. It is unbelievably aggravating just how stupid these characters are.
There's more, such as subplots that are never explained, arcs that are never finished, and a heart-to-heart that, while quite good, needed to happen in the first few episodes instead of the very last one. Narratively speaking, this is one of the most unfortunate experiences I have ever had with an anime. There is so much out there that accomplishes everything this tries to, but does it in a quarter of the time with ten times the effectiveness. There is no reason to watch this mess.
