Let's get to it!
Story
"True Tears" follows Shinichiro Nakagami, a talented drawing-lover highschool boy living in a sort of important family of the city with his mother, father and childhood friend Hiromi Yuasa, whom he has known since elementary school. Hiromi has been living with Shinichiro for a year since her father's death, who has been a close friend to his parents. She is a popular girl at school, who's also kind, cheerful and athletic, but when at home, she has a sad look, doesn't talk much and acts a bit cold. Shinichiro, who has had a crush on her for a long time, knowing she is probably hiding something sad for herself, wants to help her, but is unable to do so because of her being unsocial and cold at home, and being always surrounded by her friends at school.
One day, at school, he meets Noe Isurugi, an eccentric and strange girl, around whom many not-so-nice rumors exist; she is taking care of one of two chicken that are in a small barnyard, saying that "it can fly", while since the second one cannot, isn't worth being taken care of. After Shinichiro teases her a bit, Noe "curses" him with misfortune. After this weird first encounter, they start interracting more and more with each other, until developping romantic feelings for each other.
Meanwhile, there is Miyokichi Nobuse, the best friend of Shinichiro, who is dating another childhood friend of the latter, Aiko Andou. And, even though they look happy together, Aiko has some lingering feelings for Shinichiro from before being with Miyokichi.
Basically, we follow Shinichiro building relationships with these three girls and with various other characters; and in the meantime, he tries to figure where his true feelings are.
Overall, the story is well-executed, with it being realistic and believable in many ways. The romance is done very well, with the feelings being admirably displayed, and the development going pretty smoothly. As for the drama, it was done well, too, making the scenes believable and realistic.
Another thing that I like is that, by the end of the anime, Shinichiro makes a clear decision on who he truly likes, and the execution of that part was brilliant. I really appreciated that he was able to address that in the anime, although a part of the ending made me very sad.
However, some of the drama felt a bit too much for the show, and some sections in the romance should have been focused more on. The romance between Shinichiro and Hiromi, as well as the one between him and Noe were executed mostly properly, but the one between him and Aiko was quite lacking, having only 2 important scenes with them together.
Also, a big disappointment for me, was the lack of backstories for certain characters and aspects of the show, like what exactly is his father doing or why so many people are expecting great things from Shinichiro and his family. Did his parents or grandparents do something important for the community before? Nothing is explained on that part.
But as far as the story goes, the rest is good. It is definitely not amazingly great, but it is pretty good.
Characters
Characters is a section in which "True Tears" both shines and has flaws. They are not super amazingly outstanding, but they are still very nice.
As I already mentioned, the story follows Shinichiro Nakagami, a highschool boy who is very talented at drawing, some of his pieces of work being about his crush, Hiromi. He is, overall, a normal boy who leads a normal life, with the difference he lives under the same roof as his childhood crush, who is however gloomy since she came into the house. Shinichiro is the typical kind guy, who is willing to help people and cares about others; not that it's a bad thing, because in this case, it doesn't feel that much generic.
Hiromi is a childhood friend of Shinichiro, for whom he has had a crush for a long time. She is beautiful, cheerful and kind when at school, but when she is in the house, she never smiles, talks little and acts a bit cold towards the others. Her romance with the protagonist was well-displayed and felt extremely realistic, although there were a few moments when she acted selfishly. But the selfish moments are what makes her relationship with him believable. I also liked the way they addressed her backstory and her reasons for being gloomy in the house, which made perfect sense.
Noe Isurugi is a very bizarre, eccentric and cheerful girl, who is slowly and steadily building a romantic relationship with Shinichiro. From the three girls, Noe was my favourite, by far. She had an amazing chemistry with the protagonist and their romance felt very genuine, yet less realistic than with Hiromi (in my eyes). She often compares people on whether "they can fly" or not, something she also does with two chicken in the small branyard of the school. She claims she cannot cry even if she wants to, and seeks to find the person who will make her able to cry again.
And then, there is Aiko Andou, who works in the small restaurant of her parents. She is another chilhood friend of Shinichiro who has had a crush on him for some time, but is currently dating his best friend Miyokichi, after the former introducing her to the latter who confessed to her. Her relationship with Miyokichi was very nice and I really enjoyed it. However, she still has lingering feelings for Shinichiro, which have an impact with her actual relationship; the way they addressed that, the feelings portayed to us, and the conclusion of the whole romance was just great.
Speaking of Miyokichi, he is a great character. Not just because of his kind, cheerful and teasing personality, but also because he is far from being a generic anime best friend. Most of them are either perverts who serve for comic relief, or smart kind guys. Miyokichi is neither, while still having funny scenes. And he actually is in a relationship!!! Holy fucks! This must be written in anime history! This is really the 1st time I've seen the best friend having a girlfriend AND having character & romance development. A lot of credit for that!
Other characters include Hiromi's friends, Noe's older brother, and Shinichiro's parents.(By the way, I hate his mother!!!). All play their important role in the story and help the characters evolve. Shinichiro's mother and Noe's brother even get plenty of development, something I did not expect at all.
Though, I do have a few problems with the characters:
- Aiko's romance with Shinichiro was very little focused on, and she didn't get much development herself either. They didn't even show a backstory with her either, which made me upset. Overall, while being a nice character, it felt like Aiko was a poor character, who was just pushed to the side. I would have also wanted more screentime between Aiko and Miyokichi, since their romance was very interesting.
- There was absolutely no real explanation of the relationship of Shinichiro's parents, either being between them, or with Hiromi's parents. Since the situation between the parents of the two teens was an important factor to the story, it would have been much better if it was more detailed.
- This is more of a personal feeling, which is towards Shinichiro's mother, Shiori, but I just hated the hell out of her. What she does and the way she does it made me very mad, even after the whole situation being properly explained. Though, her presence helped the story develop is many ways.
I could nitpick some slight details here and there, but overall, the characters are enjoyable, help in the story and have good development.
Sound
If there one thing "True Tears" exceeds at, it's the music. It was just so good. They were able to use different instruments in each of the soundtracks, either they were happy, depressing or light-hearted. Each soundtrack matched the scenes they were in perfectly, increasing the power of the feelings that were portrayed at these moment. My favourite soundtracks were the ones playing when there was a dramatic scene, and the ones used for the emotionnally powerful moments of the anime; they were so beautiful. I loved it. The opening theme "Reflectier" by Eufonius was also beautiful, combined with beautiful animation. The ending theme, "Sekai no Namida" by Aira Yuki, had a funny and light-hearted element to it, with all the chibified characters running together. The original voice acting was also good, without any "bad" or "hit-and-miss" character-actors pairing.
There is something very noticable about this anime. There are plenty of scenes, where few or no words are spoken, making the viewer feel and understand what is happening inside of the characters just from the animation, facial expressions and actions of the characters. I am not a fan of that aspect, but I have to admit it did work well in this anime.
Animation
Now, the animation, done by P.A. Works, is a department where "True Tears" also did a good job. While simplistic, it fits the mood of the show very well and made me feel at home and at peace. It didn't try to be outstanding, but remained as a simple, yet beautiful style. The facial expressions were detailed enough to get their emotions just from looking, and the background was filled enough not to make me feel it was "empty".
Also, something that I really appreciated was the fact that in most scenes, the background characters were moving around, and not just standing immobile in a single spot. This immediately added a lot of liveliness to the world of "True Tears", and I truly felt that "the world was moving". This anime made the background characters act like normal humans, unlike a shit ton of others.
Final Verdict
Story: 7.8
Characters: 8
Sound: 8.7
Animation: 7.9
Enjoyment: 7
Total: 7.88
"True Tears" is a very realistic, believable and enjoyable romance anime, with an overall balanced amount of drama and comedy to transfer the emotions of the characters to the viewer; has a good cast of characters; simplistic, yet beautiful animation; and a simply magnificent music score. It is not the best anime of its genre, but it is definitely worth a watch, especially for romance and drama fans.
This ends my 13th anime review. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to comment, if you want to express your opinions. Thank you for reading.
Youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/scorpy163
Very nice review
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you said about the story and the characters but I can understand why some people wouldn't like this show especially because some of the characters changed a lot on the second half and some people hated this ending because of who he chose.
I want to write something about Aiko’s character though .
A lot of people said that she was underdeveloped but I’m one of few who actually liked her development and the direction they took with her character .She’s the character that changed the most in the end and her development was very fast and effective ,she was also a very deeply flawed and complex character.
The writers had to use one of these three choices for Aiko’s story and her development
1-Make Aiko the adviser for Shinichiro when has problems and make her stay as background character which is a very overused plot for the third girl in many shows (Nobuse’s development will be quite lacking here and his character will be reduced to the average comic relief /best friend character.
2- Involve Aiko more in the story by making her part of the love triangle with Hiromi and Noe (This one will turn Aiko and Shin into villains and Nobuse’s character will totally be destroyed here not to mention that the show will be too melodramatic and tragic)
3-Make a separate plot for Aiko and Nobuse and in order for that to happen ,Aiko had to confess her feelings and be rejected to further develop her relationship with Nobuse (Nobuse gets lots of development here )
The writers chose the third one because it was the best and most refreshing one among the three ,they didn't choose the first one because it’s too overused and they didn't choose the second one because it’s doesn't a suit a tame show like true tears (This isn't school days after all even if Aiko will get a lot of development here) ,they chose to focus on Nobuse’s relationship with Aiko and in order for them to that, they had to cut her development with Shin.
Aiko wasn't supposed to have any romance with Shin in the first place simply because she’s his best friend’s girlfriend .Any romance with Shin will be a complete betrayal to Miyokichi and not morally right (even someone like Ami from toradora had more chances in her show than Aiko) .She also made some very terrible mistakes and hurt people so her not ending with Shin was poetic justice which is what makes Aiko so tragic .
I think that Aiko was portrayed by the writers to be this materialistic and shallow girl who has a low self-esteem (she think that she’s inferior to both Hiromi and Noe in terms of looks and personality ) and while she does seem to love Shin ,I think that part of why she likes him is because he comes from a high class which explains her cold treatment of Nobuse because he doesn't have that much luxury in comparison to Shin.
I don't want to write a bout the other characters because the post will be too long so I have to stop here .
I'm very sorry for the long post but I just wanted to share some of my opinions .
Thank you very much.