" A tale that began with happiness... will take a turn and become nothingness.. Which things awaits us in school. Do we appreciate them and actually make the right decisions..."
Year: 2007
Director: Keitaro Motonaga
Episodes: 12 + 2 OVAs
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Slice of Life, Psychological
Rating: 15+ (though if some contents were just a bit pushed it could even be 18+)
Hearing the lovely sound of a new anime story… Don’t we all love that? And if it is a love story, then that can be even better. Or, I have an even better one, how about a love story with all possible twists around it, some that seems possible and some that are just unique to see in an anime? Well for that one, you should go and check this anime. The story is always the first thing that you will notice and the last thing that will keep you on watching this.
Now let’s talk about it. The plot seems to be of a typical slice of life anime. It is actually and I can’t say differently than that. I mean, look at the title, you don’t have to go farther away and to not know what this anime is about. Then again, the title is too soft to what kind this anime is. This anime will take you to itself and make the story part of you while watching. Why? It is because it’s so realistic. While I said that it is a soft word for the title, I do mean so. These are either some typical school days, to others it might be those that someone would want to have, until this one part… The part the plot itself becomes twitched around and takes most of it what it can for just normal everyday life. Don’t expect any supernatural things here because you won’t see them. But you will see some quite fast advances in the story. But that is what it is, it’s so predictable. Not the end, but most of the anime .Take example characters at first. All their actions will lead you to know what will happen sooner or later. And even when that something happen, again, you can expect what will happen next. The anime does still keep a lot of the story to itself, but sometimes it is not enough. We can see through it, the characters are far too explanatory. Then here is some interesting. While their personalities might look that are quite easy to understand and that they change sometimes, they stay following the plot and staying with how normal characters can be. Boring? Probably, but still entertaining in its own way.
Speaking about characters, I want to notice that here are some typical ones that are present in this type of animes. There is always kind of lost main character, then there is his closest friend who is clumsy, not very understandable and just wants to get close to girls. There are also some other girl characters, who actually serve their personalities quite well here and sometimes you might even feel pity to some, yet anger to some others.
The animations and overall graphics that this anime has to offers are… Oh I don’t know how to start, but they are bad. They follow and are similar to the style of Clannad in one way. They use the same style with eyes and also with some features of the characters. Thing is that Clannad did that in a fantastic way, giving much details in it and even making you forget about some details copying and such. While here, the drawings and their coloring are so blank and poor. There are not many details and you would get more showered with all the random letters and texts than the actually beautiful artwork that should have existed here, but sadly it is not. Mostly what you will see are buildings, buildings and copying of the same buildings but making them other ones. That is how much the background go, nothing too shabby. The characters could also have used more highlights and details on themselves.
The thing that I should point out is that for that, animations are actually refreshing to look at and they move very nicely. Also some parts are done quite correctly and I am quite pleased with them, like kissing scenes, dynamic ones, or just some other random ones. They all do their part, but don’t expect too much detail with them.
Animations and style are yet nice to the eyes as I said and can be good at some moments, but far from impressive. It fits this anime though and the theme behind it and even if they are like that, you feel that they actually should be in that way.
What you will “not” notice here too much is the OST and sound effects at first, other than fast thinking, arrival of the trains and running. This anime tends to get better with that over the time. Knowing that each ending has a different song if my memory serves me correct makes this anime in top in that term .The opening song is also nice and while the opening video might only function for the first few episodes and for that it might confuse some others in thinking what kind of anime this really is, the songs overall are very nice and I like them. They are simple songs, but all done properly and in the way they should be.
Later you will also notice some other OST which will bring the overall dramatic effect to all the scenes.
Voice acting is good. I can’t say much for it. It is standard and pretty decent one. All characters speak according to their personality. There are no mistakes with that and mood of voices also changes as the story changes. It follows what it should follow and that’s what I like about it.
What I want to say and that you all understand is that this is not a comedy anime. Not at all and even being a slice of life, romancing, high school type anime, it doesn’t have that much comedic relief. It tries to get in with it, but fails most of the time, because just after a comedic one there is a whole different situation and comedy doesn’t last for long because you are already hocked up knowing what is going on and about the atmosphere that is surrounding the characters.
This anime has one of the worst previews of any. What kind? They are none, just a text saying the name of the next episode. First thing is that for some reason, you get more intense from waiting for that and actually wanting to see what will happen .Second is that you will actually see and think how much you learned about Japanese culture and daily life in general from watching this.
You also should remember that this anime is really trying hard with all the features wanting to even bring some light ecchi moments, but actually they are none, only some light fan service in terms of close ups. It isn’t much and it is unnecessary but it gets its job done and is refreshing for those that like it.
This anime might have weak overall quality and some may say that is a bad thing. Well it is, but there is actually this one small thing that saves it though. And that is that this anime is very unique and different in its way than other animes of its genre. All that combination, the way the story goes and how it surprises you is different. And don’t we like when animes get different? Well we do, but we also like to keep it with its original attributes. This one does it well, keeping the original but mixing it with some different and I could even say, weird elements.
Now know what I will say now.. This anime does have some flaws with the overall presentation, but it has something that I have only seen by this anime. That unique show of the changes of characters personalities, all the true “anti-heroes” that appear in it and how the realism can hurt. This anime is a true lesson to everyone and I highly advice that everyone check it out, if nothing at least for the message that it holds inside.
You really have to watch from the first to the last episode and in one go to understand why it deserves to get this rating.
Graphics and animation: 6/10 – Suits it purpose, but one of the weaker parts of the anime..
Sound and effects: 6/10 – there are many ending songs, but other than that just average
Story: 8/10 – The story might be not to many likings, but it has good change of personalities and lots of twists and dark secrets
Presentation: 10/10 – one of the most unique and different animes that I have seen
Overall: 8/10 – a very good anime recommended to anyone wanting to see a different side of ‘slice of life’ genre
The two main girl characters... They are the beginning as well as the end.
Main cast of the show, but there are also some other minor and not so minor characters
