But having gone through a hard time recently, I actively sought out a tear-jerker, figuring it might redirect my sadness into something a bit more conducive to ending my cycle of grieving. My point is that I was ripe for crying and this series couldn't do it. I got more out of watching Pikachu cry for five seconds in the first Pokemon movie than I got out of this 11-episode series, which is being pushed as a tear-jerker. Yes, really.
And to clarify, I am not one to turn down stories for being perfectly trite. Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, flirt, awkward confession, whatever? Nah, it's cute. I can get behind cute.
Anyway, I digress. Let's move onto what makes this anime such a disaster.
STORY (1/10):
Unfortunately, it's difficult to avoid spoilers here, but I will do my best. What we have is a character, Menma, who is at the absolute centre of every occurrence in the anime. This would be all well and good except that she is unforgivingly annoying.
To be clear, I have watched anime for actual decades by this point. I am used to people throwing around the word "annoying" when talking about any character that has a high-pitched voice or is more energetic than a dead car battery, so trust me when I say that I don't use the term lightly. Menma jumps on people, hits people with minimal provocation, throws things around, talks incessantly while other people are talking, talks ad nauseum when the other character is clearly not interested in engaging, whimpers or cries at the drop of a hat, makes other people do everything for her, and overall, her mannerisms become actively distracting. Somehow, this is supposed to be endearing, but no.
Wait, we were talking about the story? Okay, so, as mentioned, this character is at the centre of everything. It all starts with a wish that she can't remember. I won't drag the amnesia concept for being over-used (I'm sure there are enough reviews already doing this), but I can't imagine that someone would go through all of the trouble of re-entering the life of someone they haven't seen in years only to forget what the wish is the second someone doesn't use scrambled eggs in their ramen. It feels pointless and contrived. They try to wash away multiple series discrepancies in this way, using being "absent-minded" as an excuse. Absent-mindedness is a thing, but the issue compounds when the character that she's paired with has all of the exact same blind spots. This results in melodramatics that could've been easily avoided, which makes the melodramatics seem actually pointless after the fact, and makes it difficult to invest in anything to come later in the series.
What this amounts to is Menma running others around to try and figure out what she wants (instead of, you know, figuring it out herself), manipulating them (try telling me that "maybe that's my wish" any time things aren't going exactly her way isn't manipulation), and reveling in watching the drama unfold because she's trying to bring five largely incompatible people who are clearly at different stages in their life now back together.
It gets worse.
So much of the early story build-up emphasizes that their complete reunification is a prerequisite for her wish to come true. Guess what? This ends up being entirely meaningless once you find out what the wish actually is. Literally, only one person was required for wish fulfillment. All of that screaming and crying for nothing. This series practically trains you to cry for no good reason using shouting and crying characters. I'll go back to watching the two Pikachu from Mewtwo Strikes Back slap each other. Thanks.
CHARACTER (1/10):
This brings me to the second part of the review. I believe I've said all that needs to be said about Menma, so I'll move onto Jinta.
Jinta exists in-world as an ideal. Basically, everyone who knows him immediately associates him with who he was when he was younger, which became incompatible with his current reality over time. This causes a lot of anxiety on his part, which makes sense, but it also leads to weird romanticism coming from other characters, including characters who openly put him down. The reality is that as a character, he isn't anything special. He presents as a hot mess that at least one girl gets hot over for seemingly no reason and he gets hot himself for a dead girl. (And don't lose any sleep. The writers didn't forget to point out that dead girl's boobs hadn't developed. Classy.)
Anjou, despite providing the basis of what could've been a lovable darling of a character, doesn't make any sense when held up to the slightest scrutiny. The story initially tries to take her drama in the direction of others sexualizing her inappropriately (ironic given all of the crotch shots the animators decided to include of a girl going through puberty), leading to someone attempting to assault her, then someone else attempting to take advantage of her. This might've had the opportunity to go in the right direction, but instead, we're treated to a backstory where Anjou is jealous of someone else's beauty. She's jealous at the beginning of the story and she's jealous at the end. She has an opportunity to explore or build her character during one interaction with Tsurumi, but that never goes anywhere. The resolution seems to be that she wants someone to call her out and patronize her for being easily influenced. I still don't know what she wanted that to achieve or how that would help her grow into a more confident character, but okay.
Matsuyuki is creepy. Before I continue, if you want to see a non-creepy version of a man cross-dressing as a dead woman to process trauma, I would recommend Fushigi Yuugi. You're welcome. No, Matsuyuki isn't creepy because he cross-dresses as a dead woman. He's creepy because he actively sexualizes her. Note also that by this point in the series, he's a teenager and she was a young child when she died. His experience of her is entirely in his attempts to possess her and not some well-meaning but misguided thing he's trying to do because he believes it's in her best interest. He keeps a wig that looks like her hair and smells it. He dresses up in her clothes and runs around, which... I'm not even sure what that was supposed to accomplish. The boy seems to recognize that he's not well at least, but you think it stops him from picking on others who have also been negatively affected by her death? Of course not. Matsuyuki walks his line through the whole series with next to zero consequences for his bullying and jealousy. The one time Tsurumi attempts to give him a consequence is entirely selfish in nature and we aren't lead to believe that it amounted to anything other than maybe a few girls being less interested in dating him. Big loss. He never had to atone for anything, which made him entirely scummy and irredeemable. Yuck.
While I wish I could have something positive to say about Tsurumi, I really don't. She is perhaps one of the least relatable, sympathetic characters next to Matsuyuki. She acts like she's on a pedestal, looking down her nose at others while enabling bad behaviour whenever things don't go her way. She is not above using blackmail to manipulate and if she can't do that, then she'll use it to set a fire and watch the flames. She doesn't have shame for what she does and mocks Anjou while being subject to all of the same pitfalls, including being easily influenced and catching a case of petty jealousy at every opportunity. This would be all well and good if she wasn't portrayed as being part of the protagonist group. Her laundry list reads more like it was meant for an antagonist, but she's yet another character with a stick up her rump who is cool with burning things down, then doesn't have to face consequences afterward. Cool.
Hisakawa is probably the only somewhat redeeming character in the main group in that he's probably the only one not exhibiting a case of "I want to bone him/her, but I'm mad/jealous because I can't." Which is what the rest of the characters amount to. Hisakawa still frames his outlook as being selfish since he wants to act to clear his conscience of guilt, but if you watch the series, you'll quickly notice that he is fundamentally different in that his "selfish outlook" centres Menma's needs! What a concept. His selfishness is by far the most sympathetic and forgivable.
HONOURABLE CHARACTER MENTION:
Atsushi Yadomi, Jinta's father is a gem at the bottom of a barrel of pig feces. I wish more characters were portrayed as being understanding of their depressed/anxious youth. If I were judging by just this character alone, the character rating probably would've been a 9/10.
ART (6/10):
Nothing about the art left me with anything negative to say. It's an okay style, not my favourite but easy on the eyes, and the animation is fine. With that said, it wasn't exactly memorable either.
Sound (7/10):
Again, no complaints. The voice actors did their job, the music was very nice, and the SFX were all well-placed.
OVERALL (1/10):
Why so low? You have what is supposed to be a tear-jerker with a bunch of characters who are either annoying or acting on petty jealousy. The characters have barely any chemistry whatsoever and the story is banal. I normally don't show up to drag anime through the mud, but I sincerely don't understand why this one got so popular.
If anyone asks, I will tell them to find something better.
If you're looking for suggestions, this one isn't exactly a tear-jerker, but I would still recommend the movie When Marnie Was There.
