We Still Don’t Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day.
Alex: Noitamina is a really famous timeslot among anime fans, and that’s for a reason: a lot of brilliant anime end up there. And that’s exactly the case with AnoHana. It’s got moe in it, sure, but not to the degree of say, Fractale, and the moe actually helps the series to be that little bit better.
What starts off as a really simple “Moe best friend wants a wish granting” premise turns into what can only be called an emotional roller coaster, shooting the viewer with a shotgun of emotions, and more often than not, every single one of them hits. The whole theme to this series is growing up and letting go of the past, despite the heavy amount of romance thats hinted throughout. Sadly, the romance never goes any further than the “We love each other” stage, but that’s really all that was needed.
I honestly don’t know how on earth i’m meant to describe how brilliant AnoHana is, actually. The last anime which was this emotionally intense was Clannad After, followed closely by Tokyo Magnitute 8.0, which was another Noitamina anime. AnoHana comfortably takes its position as the second most emotionally intense anime which is on the scene, slotting just behind Clannad After. This series does so much which just 11 episodes, it’s hard to explain.
The success of this series is in no small part to the characters. You have a group of 6 friends, and they all work together amazingly well t0 bounce emotions and thoughts off each other, and they’re such a great combination that you even start to turn sympathetic with some of the characters, and you start to notice some very strong links between you and certain characters. For me, it was Jintan. I was exactly like he was two years ago, so that may be why the show hit me so hard; It was like watching myself on the screen.
But all in all, AnoHana is really worth the 4 and a half hours that it’ll take from your day, and you’ll be left with something so rich and pure that you’ll feel good in yourself and in your life.
Mimi’s Score: 9.5 Meeps out of 10 (Great)