There?s no denying?Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai?is fine piece of work. Everything from animation to sound, characterization to story are all quality material and together form both a visually and emotionally satisfying experience. The anime is far past the point of debate about whether watching it would be enjoyable and worth one?s while, because it most certainly is. The proceeding point of scrutiny would be to examine the anime at it?s core fundamental level. This is the point where the ?really good? pieces of work are separated from the true masterpieces. This is also the point where AnoHana unfortunately falls flat. Specifically speaking, AnoHana?s screenplay just isn?t very good.
In fact, considering how well rounded the anime feels as a whole, the screenplay is actually deceptively and surprisingly bad.
Okada Mari, one whom I respect greatly for her work on Tordora and Kuroshitsuji is back again; this time she is chief script writer for AnoHana. Unfortunately Mari?s apparent inexperience in writing shines through clearly in the screenplay. There is no doubt she has talent and a knack for good ideas, which makes it disappointing to see she still stumbles on some basic areas of writing. The narrative for example, is sorely lacking in woven exposition, with the many aspects of the story left feeling one dimensional and underdeveloped (more on that in a moment).
The dialogue is also inconsistent; the majority of the time it is written and delivered beautifully, but there are frequent punctuations of awkward, out of place lines that leaves something to be desired. Most of these instances are offset by the talent of the seiyuu who try their best to bring emotion to these parts, but the moments are still unavoidably noticeable. For instance, count how many times this scene happens: Jin-tan glances to his side at Meiko and mutters ?Menma?? another character looks at him, confused, and questions ?Yadomi??
There are very clear distinctions between the lines that have significance to the plot or the character, and lines which are simply conversational pieces, with almost no blending of the two types. At times it feels like the latter lines have no contextual meaning at all and are simply there to fill in time because the script writer couldn?t think of anything else to write. For an anime like AnoHana where the entirety of the narrative is delivered via dialogue and character interaction, this is a very dangerous habit to fall into.
There are many good things that Okada Mari brought from her experience working on the series compositions of titles like Toradora, Fractale and Gosick. Unfortunately one of them also happened to be the abysmal pacing that they all suffered from at one point or another. Naturally, the structure Exposition-Rising Action-Climax-Falling Action-Resolution can?t possibly be adhered to as strictly for anime as it does for say, novels or films, simply due to the episodic nature of anime; there is an underlying need for each episode to be standalone in it?s own right, even if it is meant to contribute to the overall story. However that isn?t to say we shouldn?t at least make an effort.
The problem with AnoHana is that it simply tried too hard to be episodic. Each episode?s substory warranted so much attention that there was very little room left to develop the main plot. Although each individual 24-minute segment was neatly tied into a little package with it?s own structure, which seemed fine at the time of watching, suddenly we reach the end of episode 9 and we realize with 2 episodes to go we?re still on the exposition part of the main story. This is again, partly due to the fault of the narrative not having any woven exposition in itself, relying instead on almost purely dialogue and flashbacks to establish the backstory, an alternative which is both more time consuming and less efficient. (To throw an example out there, think how easy it would have been to tell stories of Popo?s adventures around the world by simply including a few souvenirs from his travels in his little hut. A few frames to easily explore an episode?s worth of exposition, which can then be used to add elements to Popo?s character without the need for spoken exposition.)
All this cumulatively leads to the biggest flaw of AnoHana: as an anime observing death and how people cope with it, there is shockingly little character development observed. What AnoHana tries to offer instead are single characters at two points in time. On one hand we have the happy-go-lucky childhood of the super-peace-busters, on the other we have the sullen, withdrawn adolescent individuals of those friends, drifting apart and trying to move on with their lives. At first sight it is amazingly easy to mistake this contrast of past and present for ?character development,? however true character development demands something a little more in-depth than, ?friend dies, people become sad.? Yukiatsu is arguably the only character who experiences true change, *spoiler alert* in his brief contact with Menma *spoiler alert* he experiences denial, confusion, jealousy and anger, and in doing so, realizing his self-loathing attitude and changing himself. Yadomi?s development is also arguable, though I remain skeptic as to whether what seems to me as merely an overdue self realization can be categorized as development if it were there subconsciously all along. In comparison, the other characters, experienced only minimal changes, exchanging confessions and realization which, while heart-moving, can hardly be justified as ?development,? begging the question of whether there was any point to the whole thing other than being an emotional roller-coaster of adolescent diversions.
I am strongly hesitant in calling AnoHana a melodrama. The constant hint of realism in both the visuals and characters suggest otherwise, as does the very real themes that it tries to convey. The anime obviously works very hard to provoke an emotional response and I wonder at times if it is trying a little too hard. Not a scene goes by without Yadomi frowning at something, and the prevalence (or rather excess), of falling tears in every episode almost screams at me: ?Here is an emotional scene, indicated by the tears. Feel sadness you sheep!? The need for AnoHana to constantly use the act of crying to convey sorrow seems almost shortsighted, and while they are a good tool for reinforcing the emotional instability of the characters, they seem to serve little other purpose.
If you?ve managed to read this far and haven?t yet flamed this review or thrown your mouse across the room in anger, then props to you, and perhaps you?d like stay a bit longer and allow me to explain where all this nonsense is coming from.
The mindset of a critic is slightly different from that of an average viewer. We?ve seen, considered and analyzed far more than what would be considered healthy for a normal human being and as a result, we view things a bit differently. Cliches and archetypes you?ve seen maybe half a dozen times, we?ve seen hundreds of times. We get bored quickly, we?re more easily dismissive, we hone in on small mistakes like vultures, we?re very excited by originality and we?re far more disappointed when a promising series falls short just inches from the finish line.
Nine out of ten times, the things we watch are mediocre at best. Stuff that?s so average that it takes all of our willpower just to struggle through a normal review; talk about some story, mutter about some character, drag on about some animation and call it a day. But then something like AnoHana comes along, something new, something exciting, something to sink our teeth into. We may end up enjoying it, we may not, but the fact that it had piqued our interest meant it had already established itself as something special, something good enough to be able to be improved upon in the future, something we WANT to spend time thinking about, something actually WORTH criticizing.
AnoHana is good, heck it?s even great. It may not be perfect, but it?s good enough to warrant a post on this blog, which is more than I can say for all the other stuff this season.
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