Sakamichi no Apollon started out with a powerful episode and ended with a powerful episode, but seemed to get lost in a tangle of badly handled and clichéd romance and some unneeded melodrama. The series also suffered from bad pacing, though that only really started to show itself toward the middle-end of the run, this was when the fast pacing became a double edged sword and affected not only the plot, but the characters as well.
So now, let me look at the characters: I liked all of them individually a whole lot with the exception of Kaoru and one other character I will bring up later. He was a bit annoying and frustrating as a main character (he also did quite a few things that I would label as right out jerk-ish), but he was still very realistic and better than the usual generic main lead guy. Nevertheless, I felt that his best sides came out when he was hanging out with the other characters as friends.
But this is when the fast pacing comes it, it may have made the usual love triangle melodrama less prolonged and annoying, but at the same time it really didn’t allow me to see any of the romantic relationships build up. There was no good transitions from acquaintances to friends to lovers. It made it very difficult for me to care about the relationships found within this series.
Outside of relationships, the characters themselves suffered from the fast pacing. It made it hard for me to really connect to them, since I saw realistic characters, but I never really saw them evolve. They stayed within their character types and never really moved above and beyond them in any real significant way. Kaoru got some character development, but not as much as some other main characters have gotten this season. And the two other characters that got the most character development were side characters whose subplot gets rushed and they are gone before I could even really fully appreciate them.
Two other things that bothered me a bit in this anime was that one “accidently walked into the bathroom” scene, which was handled better than most of those types of fanservice scenes are, but felt like something that was unfitting for the type of series Sakamichi no Apollon was; the same goes for the character of Seiji Matsuoka. Generally I am usually fond of characters who are like him, but here he just felt so out of place, not only for the series but for the time period as well.
Regardless of these negative aspects of the series, Sakamichi no Apollon does have some extremely well done and beautiful parts too. First and foremost, the music is fantastic and it is utilized perfectly. The animation is also lovely and the art style is very nice to look at in general, especially when the jazz scenes are on screen. Next, when the series focused on aspects other than romance it tended to be very powerful. There was also the added aspect of Christianity, being portrayed accurately (at least in Japan and in comparison to other anime) and the fact that accents were kept in were great, too, since it really helped to make the anime feel like it wasn’t taking place in Tokyo.
These other issues that I mentioned above were all really great to see in an anime, but sadly they got pushed aside or brushed over quickly in favor of the romance, the time restraint and pacing didn’t help either. These issues came up and then passed so quickly that I didn’t even have time to properly digest them before they were already done and over.
This bugged me a bit, that romance got so much attention, when one of the themes of the series itself is that friendship is more powerful and important than that of a love affair, yet love affairs are what take up most of the series. Nevertheless, the ending scenes of this anime are still very powerful. This series didn't have the strongest or most fulfilling ending of the spring season, but it was still very poignant and on level with the first episode when it comes to impact.
As it stands, Sakamichi no Apollon is a perfect anime to watch with someone who normally doesn’t watch anime, since many of the usual things that make anime seem “weird” are not present. It is also a very well done and solid teenage romance drama, but it is still just that: a teenage romance drama. I thought it was going to focus more on the jazz and music aspects (and I actually thought I was not going to like it because of that, but in the end that was one of the strongest parts of the series), but then it divulged into the romantic aspect more than I thought it was going to.
This series was good, but not great, and I am actually a bit disappointed by that.
