Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day
or
Ano Hi Mita Hana no
Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai
Spoiler free review.
This
anime is about a group of students who all used to be friends as children.
However, due to a terrible incident, they grew apart as the years went by.
We
start off by seeing Jinta, who is a pretty likeable character (in fact, short
of Tetsudō, he’s the only likeable character). He’s a school
drop-out raised by his single-parent father. We also meet Menma who is the kind
of anime character that insists on being in every show because someone out
there thinks that teenager girls who act like four year olds are cute.
I hate
Menma.
Seriously, I cannot stand her character. She drove me insane with the
first five minutes she was on screen; she’s obnoxious and demanding yet we’re
meant to think she’s perfect and oh-so good.
 |
| This is Menma. She makes me want to vomit. |
Anyway, back on track, Menma wants Jinta to become friends with all the
old gang once more. He obeys, and the
rest of the series is about him trying to fulfil her wish (I won’t go into why
he obeys her, as that would be a spoiler!)
We have:
Cool Guy- Atsumu. Like Menma, this is the type of character that is
always in animes (because he hooks in the fan-girls) and the type of character
I (almost) always hate. I don’t like arrogant, pig-headed jerks in real-life,
no matter how pretty their hair is, and the same is true for my animes. I can’t number the amount of animes that have been ruined because of this kind of
character.
Now, there are
occasions where this character can work, for example Sasuke in Naruto, grating
as he is, really did go dark-side, he isn’t just a cool anti-hero, he’s a full
on villain. I like that the author was brave enough to make a fan girl
favourite a really awful human being with less and less excuses for his
behaviour as the manga went on.
But I digress, Atsumu is a pretty boring individual until one
specific episode where it was revealed that he’s basically a nut-job, I won’t
go into it too much (don’t want to give spoilers) but it was frustrating that Atsumu ‘s crazy is sort of brushed under the carpet
after the big reveal. It’s not really explained why he chose to do what he does
and afterwards it’s clear he needs some sort of professional help, but nothing
happens and he just get’s over it. I dunno, the whole thing seemed kind of lazy
and like it was only thrown in there to cause some pointless drama.
Comic relief guy-
Tetsudō. As mentioned before he’s a nice
character. He comes near the end of the series, and is just there to be the
big, tan, stupid, chubby guy that no one is going to want to date. It’s a real
shame the anime chose to go this path with the character, because due to a
reveal later in the anime, Tetsudō had the biggest reason to be unhappy and
traumatised out of the entire group. Had they bothered to develop him instead of
doing a paint by numbers character, he could have been instrumental in making
this anime very poignant and worthwhile.
The bitchy ‘Other
Woman’- Naruko. Ok, I kind of liked Naruko. Her flaws are that of a
normal teenager. She’s easily influenced by friends and it is implied that
she’s a bit of a tease by the way she dresses. She has the hots for Jinta (no
big spoiler, it’s apparent early on and doesn’t go anywhere) and we’re all meant
to hate her because we are all supposed to want Jinta and Menma together. Well,
I march to the beat of my own drum anime.
Cool glasses girl-
Chiriko. This character
is so profoundly dull I have nothing to say about her.
The
series is short, only 11 episodes, but honestly they could have done with
either making it a two-hour film and cramming in a lot of characterisation and
making the ‘twist’ (if you can call it that) with Menma more powerful; or they
should have made it a much longer series and focused far more heavily on
fleshing out the themes and emotions that they hinted on but never really
expressed.
Positives: It’s about a
relatively adult situation: dealing with death, first love, grief and obsession.
The characters, bar Menma, had potential. Beautiful artwork.
Negatives: Menma was seriously
annoying and other characters were brushed aside for her sake; it would have
been more powerful if they were the focus. All of the characters, even Chriko
(aka cool glasses girl) are more interesting and, in a story like this, more
important than Menma. But no, we need to focus on the cutesy widdle adorable
sweetheart and sod characterisation and actually trying to make a point with
our anime. As a result of this, the other characters never actually develop,
which in a story like this was really integral. We don’t really see why they
change by the end or how they suddenly become friendly again. There are a few
love triangles that are set up, but they are not really bought to a conclusion
or fleshed out. In fact they are so weak that often I found myself wondering
what the point was of even having them.
Conclusion:
Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day could have been a powerful anime
that really pushed the envelope and said something important about the nature of
friendship and about the pain of death. Instead it just resorted to a few crude
jokes and stock characters. It’s a darn shame, because with such beautiful
animation, and such a good storyline, it could have been amazing.
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