Shameful Otaku Secret!

Something for the ladies?

Along with Fox Girl Panty Shot High and Tenchi Muyo Rides Again (a.k.a. Kanokon and To Love-Ru, but I like my names better), something redeeming appears this season. Well, possibly. It just covers the opposing end of the spectrum, aka anime for shoujo. Of course that means romance, because girls are biologically precluded from liking robots.

Story and Characters

If Visual Novel adaptations for boys feature early light-hearted scenes devolving into tragic horror (see Kanon), then do manga adaptations for girls start with tragic horror and slowly get better? I don’t know, but Itazura Na Kiss’s Aihara Kotoko sure gets things piled on in the first episode. After two years of pining after boy genius Irie Naoki, she writes a confessional love letter only to have him reject her. His reason?

Fucking ouch.

On the upside, her friends are all greasers or ’80s-John-Cusack lookalikes.

Her father has built a lovely new house, but when the central pillar is eaten by termites immediately, a measly level 2.0 earthquake tears the whole thing down. Now she’s forced to lodge at her father’s friend’s gigundic mansion. Her father’s friend is named… Irie. And now you see the premise.

Seems from the preview that Kotoko’s goal for the season is to do better in school, to the point of topping Naoki, just to show his cocky ass what’s what. I assume that somewhere along the way, he’ll learn the error of his ways and learn to love her. Or something. Who knows, the manga never ended because the author accidentally killed herself while cleaning the house she’d just moved into. Bizarre.

Animation, Music, Acting

Neither acting nor music are particularly impressive, but I suppose that’s not what we’re here for. The only really appealing characters visually are Kotoko and Naoki, which seems appropriate considering they’re the main character and the “love” interest. Voices are not horrible for the most part, but that main pair are great: Daisuke Hirakawa (the immortal Makoto of School Days) as Naoiki, so you know he’s okay to hate the character, and Nana Mizuki, recovering her dignity after a season of Rosario To Vampire.

Thoughts

Nothing really struck me so far, and there are a lot of shows waiting. But I sort of feel like if I really am going to blog either Kanokon or To Love-Ru (still undecided which, they both suck pretty bad), I must atone in some way. Will that atonement take the form of Itazura Na Kiss? Not sure.

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.

What Happened Over Summer Vacation [post-final episode]

[no really, last link to Clannad info page]

Finally! I’m vindicated! Long ago, I accused Okazaki of being a eunuch, and almost went back on my word until this happened:

Now after the charming victory for Akio in the final episode, we get a nice light-hearted comedic recap before the OVAs, where the real tragedy can feel free to happen.

Recap after the recap

Not much to speak of here, the primary story is that Okazaki and Nagisa are moving unsurprisingly slowly in their relationship, much to the dismay of Sunohara and his visiting sister Mei — who takes to some hardcore meddling.

In the process, we get one of the best laugh-out-loud Akio and Sanae moments, a pile of cutely funny scenarios involving the awkward Tomoya/Nagisa relationship, and some real insights into how our deliquent’s mind works.

In the end, they finally make it to the dangerous step of Holding Hands. They’re not wearing bathing suits though, so I’m pretty confident no one will end up pregnant.

Thoughts

If you wondered about whether Kyoto Animation could learn a little something to apply to more “conventional” projects by doing the otaku-centric but totally hilarious Lucky Star, here’s your answer. Comedic pacing is right on, down to Sunohara’s dead thumping fall after the “cute girl looking for you” joke gets played on him for the second time in the series. Basically, this episode exists to make you laugh, and it has some of the best laughs of the series, so I guess it worked.

The preview for the upcoming vids looks more up the alley I expected when Clannad started. Horror, tragedy, bad things. So what happens now? Kyoto have teased about Full Metal Panic! and Haruhi Suzumiya getting new series this year, is that out the window? Who knows, but I’m guessing a couple OVAs aren’t going to spoil everyone’s lunch.