Shameful Otaku Secret!

So ends the gushing praise

Down to brass tacks from the start here. There’s a wealth of wordiness on this blog about True Tears, most of it just glowing with rainbow love for perhaps the best romantic anime I’ve ever seen. You heard me.

Story and Characters

Shinichiro is a high school kid — quiet artist type, but not the lame harem star type. He’s pretty smart, he’s sensitive, but prone to daydreams, usually about Hiromi. She’s a girl he’s known since childhood who lodges in his house. He’s perfectly content to pine after her with no results, but his world is thrown off balance when he meets Noe, a cute girl and the school’s resident weird kid.

And that’s it. There are details, sure: There’s Noe’s cold-ass brother Jun, who enters into a deal to date Hiromi if Shinichiro will take Noe out, but who only longs after his own sister. There’s Shinichiro’s mother, who hates Hiromi for some unknown reason — perhaps because she’s the product of her husband’s affair? But there’s not a lot of complexity, leaving plenty of room for character development.

And that’s really what True Tears is about. The characters don’t wander blindly through lame anime machinations that keep them from progressing in their lives and relationships. They change, learn, and go through… human stuff. The realism and complexity of their actions is mostly unequaled in the medium, and lets me forgive the tendency toward melodrama and the occasional less-plausible moment.

Animation

Executed with style and astounding attention to detail by (I think relative newcomers) PA Works, the animation is another area where the bar is raised. Kyoto Animation could probably pull off the complex and very subtle emotions in Hiromi’s face, but none of their characters have the depth to even possess those emotions in the first place. Noses are a little flat and chins tend toward dangerous awl-like points, but character designs are overall very appealing.

Music

The OP is a mirror of the show itself: nothing you really haven’t heard before, but very strong in its execution. I loved it. Incidental music is very restrained, even minimal, serving only to accent the gauzy, dreamlike pacing and mood of the show.

Dangers of Watching

• More than a few references to siscon
• The subject of the internet’s heated Noe-vs-Hiromi war, which will seem silly to you if you pay the slightest bit of attention to the plot
• Melodramatic tendencies that can (very occasionally) get out of hand
• Boring to write about because there’s not much to rip on

Benefits of Watching

• Great look and an atmospheric mood
• Fantastic, nuanced voice acting
• Dedication to realism and emotional complexity

Bottom Line

There are a few crazy plot twists, but overall True Tears relies on the strength of its characters. All of them are believable and sympathetic to a degree. Viewers seemed to really get caught up on the “which girl will he pick” angle, but to me the show never played like that. In spite of being inspired by a visual novel, it didn’t take that plot route (the characters and story are all original to the anime). Instead it told a cohesive story in an atmospheric, moody, and beautiful way. The people behind this should be proud, and I am 100% looking forward to what comes next. True Tears deserves to go down as one of dramatic anime’s finest series.

I blogged most of the series, so here’s the series info page for more in-depth character stuff.

And here’s the category page for True Tears, featuring this post and all the episodic blog posts, with big screencaps. Might find some spoilers in these, so tread lightly.

…Your Tears [Final]

[last link to soon-to-be-lonely info page]

This is it, people. Savor these last 20 minutes.

Recap

In spite of the ominous opening music, Noe didn’t die. She was barely hurt, just a broken leg, cushioned by the thick snow.

Jun and Hiromi have a little chat, in which he maligns her and Shinichiro’s urges to blame themselves. Seems to be his viewpoint that it doesn’t really fix anything if you say that. He confesses he never really liked her.

Shinichiro is popular back at school, thanks to his flawless execution of the traditional manly-man warrior dance. But he’s dining on awkward cake at Hiromi’s apartment, since she’s loaded down with confusion. Where does she stand in this whole triangly-shaped thing? But she has an exceptionally hard time vocalizing.

Shin asks his dad why we cry, and after recovering from his obvious surprised confusion, he says “because our hearts waver.” And that eventually makes perfect sense to Shin — because his heart wavers. But he’s not given the luxury of waffling when Hiromi delivers an ultimatum. No matter what he does, he has to do it clean.

So he goes off to show Noe his book, but she’s all full of stubborn and won’t look. He scatters the pages at the ocean where she took Jibeta, but is more than surprised to find her follow him out and try to retrieve the airplane-folded pages.

She looks at the book, and they part as he sings her little roach song, feeling guilty and sorry for himself.

Hiromi isn’t at her apartment, so Shin searches the obvious place in the woods where they walked with one shoe off as kids. Their exchange when they meet is sublime, and pretty much ends things.

Otherwise, we get a montage for closing: Jun moving away, Shin drawing more pictures, Noe making friends and becoming somewhat normal, Aiko and Miyokichi generally being cute, and of course the final shot by Raigomaru’s grave where — blink and you’ll miss it — Noe cries.

Thoughts

True Tears ended as it began: gauzy and dreamlike, seemingly casual in feel, but utterly captivating.

Its dedication to realism in the story was maintained until the end. Noe’s ultra-melodramatic attempt at suicide ended with an embarrassingly non-dramatic fractured leg, Jun slapped away everyone’s attempts at martyrdom, and most of all Shinichiro learned that love ain’t easy. Human emotions are complicated things, and unless you want to star in School Days (and we know how well that ends…), sometimes difficult choices must be made.

The thing that may have impressed me the most is that, taken from start to finish, the story moves along what seems like a very predictable arc. Nothing major (excepting the details) happened that didn’t seem like it was going to, and yet True Tears made me feel like I was watching something completely amazing and unexpected — without pummeling me with comas,  drawn-out deaths, or any of that nonsense.

This show’s position as the best thing to happen this season has been cemented as easily as it was first taken.

My Eyes Which Have Seen Nothing

Well. With Clannad coming to a bit of an easy-breezy end, it’s time to rely once again on True Tears.

Recap

The day after Noe’s chicken-napping happens to be the day of the festival, including the Mugiha dance. After watching her at the seaside, Shinichiro returns home to update Jun (via Hiromi) and angst about things for a while. He’s distressed that he’s been coasting through things, letting his feelings be guided instead of taking charge.

Hiromi, however, is just peachy. She even corrects Aiko, who mistakenly refers to Noe as Shin’s girlfriend. No, Ai-chan, that increasingly dubious honor lies with Hiromi alone.

Then, she politely and apologetically, but nontheless definitely, tells Noe to leave them alone. Seems that she’s scared that their newfound ability to be in the same room, communicate, and possibly even enjoy it, is hanging by a thread and she’s not prepared to lose it again.

But that’s not the end of Noe’s problems. Hiromi’s siscon accusations must have caused Jun to do a little soul-searching; he’s now decided he can’t be around Noe anymore, so he’s accepting a job elsewhere.

Noe doesn’t get it — of course she doesn’t, she never suspected her brother was on the creepy side, and it freaks her out when he demonstrates by trying to kiss her.

Shin does his dance, while both Noe and Hiromi watch, and achieves a zen-like state of internal monologue. What’s his revelation? That perhaps his feelings for Noe were truer and deeper than he’d thought before.

After the dance, he runs off to find her in the tree, but all is — surprise! — not well.

Thoughts

Well. The cast of True Tears is becoming a mess.

I used to praise Shinichiro for not waffling; it made him an atypical and utterly likable character. Now he’s wavering in spite of getting the girl he’s always wanted without having to do much of anything. But he’s stressing about being honest with himself, so I’m guessing the climactic event will be him making some sort of real decision.

All the characters besides Hiromi (who got it out of the way a few episodes ago) are getting angsty about how selfish they’ve been, but by and large they’re still doing it. Jun is lamenting his selfish decisions regarding Noe, but now he plans on bolting on his fragile sister because he can’t handle the fact that he’s got bro-love issues? If you ask me, that must have been the straw that broke Noe, because regardless of the transient nature of boys and whatnot, she must have felt she could at least rely on family.

And Noe… well, her time spent repressing her emotions has not come to a good end. I suppose I can’t blame her too much for gothing out so badly, but it’s still a little melodramatic for my tastes (I know… Jesus why am I watching dramatic anime then?)