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Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day
Memories can be twisted
Series in a Sentence
Yadomi Jinta, the former leader of a childhood friend group called the Super Peace Busters, sets out to fulfill the last wish of Menma, a former member of the Super Peace Busters who is now a ghost that only Jinta can see.
What I liked
This series has always had a sweet spot in my heart for character design so it would be remiss to not mention that here. Each character feels distinct and unique without being too out-of-this-world in the design department and seeing how each character grew up compared to the various flashbacks was a nice touch. Some character changes were shocking and hilarious, like Poppo’s, while others were more subdued, like Tsuruko’s. Past the design, each character’s arcs were interesting and illustrated some of the extremes of despair, like Yukiatsu’s arc, in a way that felt distinctly anime. Props to the team behind this series, too, for being able to fit so much development and so many stories into such a short series. The sheer variety had me wanting more, and the aspect of seeing how each person viewed the death of Menma and reacted to it was very interesting. That made the climax of everyone getting back together and seeing Menma more impactful than it would have been otherwise.
What I Didn’t Like
I’m gonna keep this short and sweet since my major grip of overhype was addressed in the spoiler-free review and outline a couple of issues that I had with the series. First of all, the series was too short and suffered from trying to fit too much into too little. But wait, didn’t I
just praise that aspect? I did, and it worked, but I can’t shake the feeling that it could have been better executed in an extended series. Another thing that I praised could also be an issue: The character arcs. They wildly varied, as does the way that people deal with grief, but some might find Yukiatsu’s crossdressing or Poppo’s positive mask too anime. If you want a real feel for what I didn’t like, head to the spoiler free review because I laid it out in a lot of detail there.
Overall Feelings
As I stated in my spoiler-free review, this series is not one for me that I would recommend to someone looking for intense feels. Is it good? Yes, but in my view it wasn’t as sad as a lot of people remember. Seeing a group of friends come back together was more often uplifting than upsetting, and some of the drama’s reliance on anime tropes kind of detracted from the sadness. Rather than sadness, each episode left me feeling like things could only go up from there, rather than things being on the downtrend, and that’s not something I associate with sadness. All in all, this is a great show for its time and a good show in the modern age. If you’re looking for teenage drama and some really real subjects, check this out. Life hits you like a truck sometimes, try to look for the good in it all.