The reason I chose AnoHana is because while everyone around me was talking about "Deadman Wonderland" and "C" before the season began, those talk quickly became dominated by AnoHana soon after the season got under way. And as the show also looked like a drama that isn't bursting with moe juices, I honestly thought it was going to be awesome.
...but it's not.
Which is not to say it's a bad, or even mediocre series, but while I definitely think the positives outweigh the negatives, I certainly don't think Ano Hana is a show that deserves all the praise it's been garnering.
Firstly, let me get something off my chest: having recently been annoyed by the spontaneously violent, clingy, cheesily cheerful, hyperactive white haired girl Shiro from "Deadman Wonderland", I was dismayed to find a clingy, cheesily cheerful, hyperactive white haired girl in AnoHana too. If you extracted everything that's annoying from Shiro and put it into a new character, you would essentially end up with Menma from AnoHana.
And unfortunately, Menma is one of main characters of the series. In short, AnoHana is about this exceedingly annoying ghost girl Menma returning to the world to make her childhood friends' lives miserable.
Ok ok, I jest - it was only me she made miserable... her friends were already miserable to begin with, and her re-appearance just brings their problems into focus. These group of friends, who collectively called themselves the "Super Peace Busters", had drifted apart after the unfortunate accident involving Menma that left them all mentally scarred in one way or another. But her return succeeds in bringing them back together again, and in doing so opens up the old wounds that never really healed.
Oh yeah, I should mention that there're a couple of catches in the set up. The first one is that only one of Menma's childhood friend can see her - and that's the main character Jinta (but this gets a satisfactory explanation). The other catch is that she apparently returns in order to get her wish granted... except she can't remember what it is (which smells like a bullsh*t plot device to me), and so they spend the series going on wild goose chases in order to make this unknown wish come true and thus help Menma achieve nirvana.
This second catch helps to illustrate one of main issues I have with the series - though the concept itself is promising, the story is over reliant on convenient plot devices. In the short space of 11 episodes, I counted at least four or five major plot devices being used to keep the story on its intended track, resulting in some quite exasperatingly un-natural plot progression, not to mention some massive plot holes.
The other problem I have with AnoHana is its melodrama. It may not have it by the bucketload, but it does have it in spades. The "Super Peace Busters" sure live up to their name, as whenever they come together, the peace is bound to be busted at some point. The dialogue and character interactions would often take up baffling turns that inevitably lead to lots of confrontations, angst and tears. I guess if you try hard enough, you can come up with reasons for why a character say this and does that etc, but at the end of the day, the way it all comes together just doesn't feel quite right to me. I can often feel the tug of melodrama taking the flow of conversations etc off their natural course.
AnoHana's habit of overcooking promising drama into melodrama gives me the impression that the makers are a little insecure about the potential of AnoHana to move people, and so felt like they had to work it harder in order to cement its idenity as an emotional drama. But the thing is, I feel AnoHana a show with enough good material and interesting ideas that it doesn't NEED the melodrama to make it tick. A good example of this is during final episode, when the realisation regarding Menma's situation dawned on her friends. In all honesty, it was a great moment, perhaps the best one in the entire series... and then the girls started screeching and grappling at each other and completely ruined the mood. What the hell were the makers thinking??
But while I was complaining to my friends about my disappointments regarding this series (as well as this overrated experience of following currently airing anime), I was struck by a sudden realisation: in spite of its shortcomings, I really WANTED to like AnoHana, and kept desperately hoping the show would get it right. It's a striking contrast to "Deadman Wonderland" where I couldn't care less what happens. Despite AnoHana's frequent heavy handling of drama, there's a sincerity about what it's is trying to achieve. Also, being a nostalgic person, the strong sense of melancholy about the show really speaks to me. The bittersweet joys of getting together with old friends and briefly re-living the carefree days of childhood, the aching sense of loss as you realise things can never quite be the same again... these are all feelings that the show manages to convey very successfully.
The role that the background music plays in creating the poignant moments in AnoHana cannot be underestimated. While the show itself can be accused of trying too hard at times, the same accusation certainly cannot be levelled at the music. Simple, and yet quietly evocative, it barely put a foot wrong throughout the series. In fact it's hard to fault the music in AnoHana at all - the opening and ending themes are both very solid songs, which is quite rare in anime as at least one of them is a dud normally.
Given everything AnoHana has going for it, it's a real pity that it isn't a lot better. Perhaps, given the length of the series, the makers made the decision to rely heavily on contrived plot devices in order to keep things moving along, and on melodrama as a shorcut to character development. But some things are not meant to be hurried, especially when some of the problems the characters have are quite bizarre, and the hurried execution just made them seem more random than anything else. However, it is a show that deserves some credit for its good intentions and powerful ideas. In some respects it reminds me of "Cross Game", as the two shows have some overlapping themes, particularly in the early episodes of AnoHana. "Cross Game" though, does it so much better.
So yeah, this whole following currently airing show thing has proved to be quite a disappointing experience. Don't think I'll be doing it again in a hurry (unless I succumb to peer pressure again). On the plus side, finishing a show so soon after it airs did briefly make me feel like I was down with the kids for once...
