AnoHana

[lilboocorsola]

I watched the last episode. It was a good enough ending, IMO. Predictable, but executed fairly well. For me, this show has always been more about the personal feelings and memories it evoked rather than the story itself. It succeeded in that department, and brought a cute closure on its own.

I will write a more detailed review later when I'm at home, but for now I'm faced with a dilem(en)ma. *shot* I brought a USB flash drive with me so I can download the episodes, and while I'd like to take the best subs possible (gg, according to Talon), only UTW's releases are fully available in .avi format - the only one currently acceptable in WMM. Should I skimp on the quality and grab UTW for now, or wait and see if gg (or Doki) will have XviD releases?

[Talon87]

Just finished Episode 11. A good episode. Could have been great but wasn't. Could have been awful but wasn't. Overall, a good episode.

Criticisms

Spoiler: show

I thought it got off to an okay start, but I didn't like how much time was (imo) wasted back-and-forthing on Menma's disappearance-then-reappearance when Jinta tried to bring her to the secret base and then they all "played" "Hide and Seek" with her. Then it was good that at the end she got to see them all off, but the presentation was a little corny.

The biggest problem I have with the episode is that it didn't conclude a lot of things. In fact, you could even say that the final scenes (post-Menma's disappearance for good) reopened cans of worms that I'd thought the episode had properly cleaned up in its opening act.

Of these non-concluded things, my biggest gripe is that after making such a big deal about Menma wanting to be reincarnated to be with the others again, the series didn't provide so much as a whiff of what happened to Menma after she disappeared. Sure, there's the hint about the flower (given Jinta's speech at the end), but this seems to be entirely at odds with Menma's desire to be reincarnated as a human who can join them again. Heck, it even seems to be at odds with what little I understand about Buddhism -- I thought it took a major screw-up for a human to exit the human reincarnation cycle and to instead be reincarnated as a lesser animal or lifeform, and yet here's pure innocent Menma and Jinta's narration indicating that she may have been the flower he saw that day. WTH. Would it have been really cheesy if a little five-year old girl had walked up to a five-years-older Jinta and flashed him a cheery smile with a "V!" peace sign and said, "Hello, Jintan. <3 :3"? Of course it would have been. I'm glad that didn't happen. And yet ... and yet I would have still preferred even that to what we got, which is absolutely no indication about what happened afterwards. Oh well. ^^;

Second-biggest gripe would be all of the relationships. This is what I was saying I thought the opening act of the episode had cleanly addressed: Jintan x Anaru is dead, Yukiatsu x Tsuruko is dead, etc. And yet the end of the episode shows that Anaru still likes Jinta and that Tsuruko still likes Yukiatsu and that neither guy is doing a particularly good job of sending the girl the correct message of "not interested." From Jinta giving Anaru her handkerchief back to Yukiatsu riding the train home with Tsuruko, these are small intimacies which, however small, are still intimate! They're the sorts of things fanboys and fangirls latch onto with delight to argue in favor of a particular pairing. So why, after trying to thoroughly deconstruct these pairings, did the writers spring them back upon us in the final moments? I would have been content at this point to have seen the kids each go their separate ways romantically and for none of them to pair off with any of the others. But whatever.

A third thing I didn't like about how this ended was that we didn't get to see Menma's death. I'm not a morbid guy and I don't need to explicitly see her crashing into the river, but I was really hoping we'd get to finally see the day she went to the base, slipped off the edge of the cliff, and died. Poppo's flashback was the closest we got to this but (a) they didn't show anything besides her sandal again and (b) she'd already fallen at that point. I wanted to see Menma going to the base, I wanted to see what she was up to while no one else was around, I wanted to see what she was doing near the cliff's edge, and then I would have been okay with an abrupt cut to black. No morbid fascination with seeing her actually die. I just wanted to see the events that directly led up to it. And all we got was the Menma+Tsuruko conversation concerning the events which took place before the day they all went to the secret base and confronted Jinta about his feelings towards Menma.

A fourth, smaller gripe is that Menma's mother ultimately had very little to do with her reasons for lingering in this world and consequently her reasons for departing. While I guess you could say that she was lingering because of a promise she made, it still felt like a very Jinta-centric reason for Menma's ghost to persist in our world. By Doppelganger's logic the other day, when you consider all of the people who die without fulfilling every last one of their promises they've made before death, you'd think the world would be positively teeming with ghosts. But whatever. AnoHana's been a fun ride, but we learned a long time ago that the writers, much like Menma and Jinta themselves, aren't always the sharpest tools in the shed. ^^;

Not Criticisms

Spoiler: show

You might think that I was really upset with this last episode. That's not the case. ^^; It's just that I'm a very analytical person and I can find lots of faults even in those things I enjoy. AnoHana's final episode is no exception: for while it failed to deliver a flawless experience matching my hopes and dreams, it certainly was a much better ending than 90% of animes get. As I'm sure you all know by now, being long-time anime fans, it seems that the Japanese animation industry struggles with writing good endings. Nowhere is this more apparent than with those anime which have original endings (i.e. endings not based off of pre-existing manga, novel, or game material). And AnoHana, being an original story, was statistically likely to have a terrible ending. The fact that it didn't -- the fact that it's second to last episode was very strong and its final episode was still pretty good -- is a testament to how good this show has been.

So let's get talking about what the episode did right.

For starters, thank goodness they let the others finally see Menma. I started to worry when she vanished from Jinta's sight, but the whole Hide and Seek angle, cheesy as it was, gave me hope that when they "found" her, they'd all see her. When I saw the diary pages sprawled out on the grass, I began to lose hope. And then? And then the writers pleasantly surprised me. Thank goodness for this. It would have been terrible imo if they'd never let any of the others see her.

Another great thing the final episode did was to give us some solid character development. If AnoHana were a longer program, I'd fault it for waiting until so late in the game to reveal some important aspects of Tsuruko's and Poppo's pasts. But at only eleven episodes, it's understandable that they'd wait. And in the case of Tsuruko's conversation with Menma ten years ago, it's obvious now in hindsight that the writers were deliberately stalling on developing Tsurumi's backstory just so they could deliver all of this stuff in Episode 11, first with her raging at Anjou in the opening act and then later when we saw the flashback scene with her and Menma as children. It was fantastic to get confirmation that Poppo really did go abroad and wasn't just lying about it, but it was also great to hear why he did it. How he was trying, desperately, to put distance between himself and the secret base. And yet how inevitably he'd keep coming back to it. While I would have appreciated some insight into Poppo's family life -- what is a teenager doing dropping out of middle school and living in an abandoned shack in the woods? -- I can appreciate that he exists as is and run with it.

Speaking of Poppo, one of the highlights for me was in the final scenes of the episode where they showed what the kids were up to, and they showed Poppo with a bucket full of textbooks, trying to cram and learn years worth of education he'd missed by being a globetrotting delinquent. While I don't think he had to go back to school, it was certainly a pleasant surprise to see that he cared to. I loved Poppo a lot watching this show and, even though he's a make-believe character lol, I wish him the best.

I thought that Menma's desire to stay with the others was done very realistically. It hadn't been for much of the show, but confronted with the reality of fading away against her will, she began to show the signs I think are most realistic and appropriate for the dying. (Again, not trying to be morbid about it. ¬¬ Just saying I appreciate a good, realistic take on this sort of thing.)

So ... let's review the series, I guess.

Plot: 7/10. There's not much plot in a show like this, but what plot is there is done well. There are a few grating hang-ups mostly in Jinta's and Menma's actions and their general failure to prove her existence to the others until very late in the game and by very obvious means, but aside from this most episodes were very fresh, fun, and always at least slightly unpredictable.

Characters: 8 or 9/10. Hard to pick. If I had to, I guess I'd say 8 for some lack of develop in some and for unrealistic retardation in others. But the thing is, these six kids felt like six real kids. Their past-to-present transformations felt incredibly realistic and appropriate. I knew all six kids in the past, and I knew almost all six kids in the present as well. Clearly the characters were modeled, at least in part, on real-live people the writers knew growing up. It shows in very small ways, but for such a character-driven series, these small ways mattered and they're what catapulted AnoHana to such a high position for the Spring 2011 season.

Music: 8/10. Mostly thanks to some epically fantastic pieces in the OP and ED, but the rest of the soundtrack is very appropriate background music and is more entertaining than the elevator music of most shows. Without the OP and ED, this score would definitely be lower. ^^;

Animation: 9/10. Superb animation. While it isn't Hanasaku Iroha, the animation darling of the Spring 2011 season, the quality in AnoHana is still top-notch stuff for a small, modest production like this. It's leagues better than we're used to getting in mellow life story programs like this one. (See Moshidora if you want a good example of what AnoHana would have looked like in any other universe given the kind of story it tells.)

Replay Value: 9/10? It's almost always a difficult thing to give a program a replay value score before you've even spent time away from it, but I can honestly say that, having already watched half of the program's episodes two full times through, that the show isn't lacking in replayability. Give the story a few years to gather dust in the recesses of your memory and I don't doubt that a second full viewing would be much enjoyed.

Overall: 8/10. A very good show. Had a few rough spots here and there but on the whole this was a solid silver medalist that I'd happily recommend to others in search of shows in the same vein of programs like Myself;Yourself.

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Spoiler: show

Of these non-concluded things, my biggest gripe is that after making such a big deal about Menma wanting to be reincarnated to be with the others again, the series didn't provide so much as a whiff of what happened to Menma after she disappeared. Sure, there's the hint about the flower (given Jinta's speech at the end), but this seems to be entirely at odds with Menma's desire to be reincarnated as a human who can join them again. Heck, it even seems to be at odds with what little I understand about Buddhism -- I thought it took a major screw-up for a human to exit the human reincarnation cycle and to instead be reincarnated as a lesser animal or lifeform, and yet here's pure innocent Menma and Jinta's narration indicating that she may have been the flower he saw that day. WTH.

Spoiler: show

I read some of UTW's translation notes for episode 10, which explained that they changed the "nirvana" references to "heaven" for a similar reason, since in Buddhism reaching enlightenment supposedly means release from the reincarnation cycle entirely. May just be a case of Did Not Do the Research on the writers' part.

I'd like to think this is where the show's title comes into play: No one knows whether the flowers that bloomed that summer were really Menma or not. They could have literally been her, or they might've just been a sign for them not to forget about her. Telling them perhaps to "keep an eye out". The group can still hold out hope to meet her again someday, but in the meantime, they're finally able to carry on with their lives. Who knows? Like the ED song says, I believe they'll meet up with her again in another 10 years - perhaps in the form of one of their children.[/optimisticbonussequelanticipation]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Spoiler: show

Second-biggest gripe would be all of the relationships. This is what I was saying I thought the opening act of the episode had cleanly addressed: Jintan x Anaru is dead, Yukiatsu x Tsuruko is dead, etc. And yet the end of the episode shows that Anaru still likes Jinta and that Tsuruko still likes Yukiatsu and that neither guy is doing a particularly good job of sending the girl the correct message of "not interested."

Spoiler: show

Can't say I care for the girls sticking with their choices either - I was beginning to hope for Tsuruko and Anaru to finally say "screw you idiots" and form their own lesbian pairing girl power alliance. But like you said, I think the end results were pretty obvious from the beginning, no matter how messy things got.

Maybe Menma's messages at the end gave Yukiatsu and Jinta enough closure for them to get over their obsession. Reading between the lines, Yukiatsu finally receives a direct answer from Menma - that she loves him, but not in the sense that she wants to marry him. For Jinta, just knowing that his feelings were fully reciprocated may be enough.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Spoiler: show

A third thing I didn't like about how this ended was that we didn't get to see Menma's death.

Spoiler: show

Agreed with this. Really would've liked them to squeeze in an explanation of how and why she died. I wanted to see my flower-bridge theory proven true. =x

Originally Posted by Talon87

Spoiler: show

A fourth, smaller gripe is that Menma's mother ultimately had very little to do with her reasons for lingering in this world and consequently her reasons for departing.

Spoiler: show

Someone pointed out Menma's family didn't appear in the epilogue at all, and now that I realize it, this is probably my biggest complaint about the ending. Even just a few seconds to check in on her mom and show us she's recovering/doing well would've been nice. Show her taking up gardening or something (XP), or on an outing with her husband and son. Maybe even include a scene of her saying hello to the kids as they pass and/or inviting them in.

Overall, I agree the ending was good - could've been better, but then it could have been worse. I would've scored the entire series on exactly the same scale as you. I just wish they had one more episode to completely wrap things up. Which reminds me, did anyone notice...

Spoiler: show

The shrine scene reeked of Endless Eight references? Maybe it's just me, but I felt major déjà vu vibes while watching it. XD I didn't mind the melodramatic crying within the context of the story, but I couldn't stop snickering since the resident moe redhead was the one to start to bawlfest. I kept imagining her repeating "Classified Information". I would've laughed my butt off if the writers pulled an epic troll by having Yukiatsu reveal "we are stuck in an infinite time loop" and Tsuruko pitched in by saying "this is the xth loop". And the series would keep airing from the beginning until Jinta figured out Menma's wish was to do summer homework. X3

Oh, and not to mention Yukiatsu's friendly arm around Jinta reminded me of another certain FABULOUS creepy bishie.

Originally Posted by Talon87

Spoiler: show

It was fantastic to get confirmation that Poppo really did go abroad and wasn't just lying about it, but it was also great to hear why he did it. How he was trying, desperately, to put distance between himself and the secret base. And yet how inevitably he'd keep coming back to it.

Spoiler: show

I really liked this development as well, and on that note I'd like to give the point to my friend again. ^~ One could argue Poppo was the most traumatized, and that his life was changed more compared to the others. Witnessing a friend's death at a young age must be devastating, and it put Poppo in that conflicted state where he tries to run away from his childhood, yet never grows up. I was also glad to see him studying at the end to try and catch up on all the years he'd missed. Good luck, big guy, definitely gonna miss you. =)

On a random note, forgot to mention I squeed upon seeing Jinta's green & white outfit in episode 10 since it reminded me of Link. XD I even voted for it in the Ano Hana fashion poll. Menma's white one-piece is in the lead btw, and guess who's number two? X3

Out of curiosity, Talon, do you think you could translate what the characters on all of Jinta's shirts say?

I was also impressed by the scene in episode 9 where Yukiatsu...

Spoiler: show

Prostrated himself before Menma's father and begged him to help, as well as confessing his love for Menma and empathizing with her mother's feelings. That was a ballsy move, I'll give him that.

[Talon87]

I wouldn't give it to your friend at all. (S)He claimed Poppo was traumatized mind-fuck style and was making it all up. (S)He called it wrong. "Traumatized", yes, sure, but no more so than Jinta or Yukiatsu. And arguably (and I would sincerely argue for this point) he was still less fucked up in the end than Yukiatsu. (The dude was still sniffing the wig and talking to it, even after he discovered Menma's ghost had really come back! WTH!?) But whatever: (s)he's your friend, you support him/her.

"Out of curiosity, Talon, do you think you could translate what the characters on all of Jinta's shirts say?" Sure, and I've already done it for half of them earlier in this thread. But I wouldn't want to! Top row, they say ishi (will), nishi e higashi e (to the west, to the east), chi {can't read it} jin (this is the molepeople one we read before), and buyoujin (which we looked up last time, it means either insecurity or carelessness, context determines which of the two). Second row, kuma goroshi (bear killer ) and then kazan (volcano). And I'll stop there. Is there a specific one you want? You mentioned the green and white one from the finale. That's shiro negi, white onion. And I have no clue what "I <3 CB" means.

Regarding the poll for the favorite costumes, I voted ...
Jinta: row 1, column 3, his shirt from episode 1
Menma: N/A, only one costume
Anaru: row 2, column 2, her hair let down and the nice white summer dress
Tsuruko: row 1, column 5, and it looks like I'm all alone. I'll never understand short hair fanatics, just like I'll never understand flat chest fans. >_>
Yukiatsu: row 1, column 1, what can I say, I dig his Koizumi Itsuki look
Poppo: row 1, column 1, love the dude's look in the OP, love that color of blue, think it just generally complements him very well

As for everything else you wrote, most of it was responses to me that I don't think require me to counter-respond. But I did read them all, and thanks for replying.

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I wouldn't give it to your friend at all. (S)He claimed Poppo was traumatized mind-fuck style and was making it all up. (S)He called it wrong. "Traumatized", yes, sure, but no more so than Jinta or Yukiatsu. And arguably (and I would sincerely argue for this point) he was still less fucked up in the end than Yukiatsu. (The dude was still sniffing the wig and talking to it, even after he discovered Menma's ghost had really come back! WTH!?) But whatever: (s)he's your friend, you support him/her.

Okay, okay. XD We'll call it a tie, how's that? (And yeah, Yukiatsu still sniffing the wig kinda killed his character for me. What a hopeless case. ^^; )

Originally Posted by Talon87

You mentioned the green and white one from the finale. That's shiro negi, white onion.

Mm, that immediately made me think of "negi ramen". Tasty~

As for all the poll choices, I picked...

Jinta: row 5, column 2, green T-shirt and white long-sleeves for aforementioned reasons
Menma: N/A
Anaru: row 4, column 4, pink dress and white sweater, cute because it reminds me of Haruhi's outfit from the end of the first season
Tsuruko: row 1, column 5, light blue shirt and white long skirt and jacket, my favorite color combo (guess why?) and the length complements her hair. I don't mind the trim or short hair in general, although in this case I was hoping it would signify she was over Yukiatsu. Anyway, I'm with you in saying this is her best look, though I was debating the ones where she had a ponytail.
Yukiatsu: Do I even need to say?
Poppo: row 1, column 2, I think the purple suits him better.

Originally Posted by Talon87

As for everything else you wrote, most of it was responses to me that I don't think require me to counter-respond. But I did read them all, and thanks for replying.

What'd you think of the Haruhi comparison? XD Just wondering if you noticed it as well, and whether you think it was deliberate. ^~

[Talon87]

Pretty sure I already addressed that.

[unownmew]

So it's over? That was only 11 episodes, I'd have thought there'd be 12 like most 1-season animes.


Anyway, I really enjoyed the ending. I'm not going to analyze it, but I really liked how, when they finally could see menma, it flashed them to their child counterparts and had a final conversation like it was the "old times".

Second-biggest gripe would be all of the relationships. This is what I was saying I thought the opening act of the episode had cleanly addressed: Jintan x Anaru is dead, Yukiatsu x Tsuruko is dead, etc. And yet the end of the episode shows that Anaru still likes Jinta and that Tsuruko still likes Yukiatsu and that neither guy is doing a particularly good job of sending the girl the correct message of "not interested." From Jinta giving Anaru her handkerchief back to Yukiatsu riding the train home with Tsuruko, these are small intimacies which, however small, are still intimate! They're the sorts of things fanboys and fangirls latch onto with delight to argue in favor of a particular pairing. So why, after trying to thoroughly deconstruct these pairings, did the writers spring them back upon us in the final moments? I would have been content at this point to have seen the kids each go their separate ways romantically and for none of them to pair off with any of the others. But whatever.

IMO, I think that was their way of showing that the two guys had finally accepted Menma's parting, and were now open to accepting the girls' feelings.

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Pretty sure I already addressed that.

Oh, is that what you meant by bolding the Koizumi statement? I was wondering. XD

[Talon87]

Yeah. It wasn't just you: ever since episode 1, ever since the opening, I've been struck by just how much Matsuyuki Atsumi resemblles Koizumi Itsuki in look. His hair is slightly shorter, his eyes slightly colder and narrower, but the parallels are striking and rendered even more striking by his school uniform look.

[lilboocorsola]

Ah, I never noticed you remarking on the physical resemblance to Koizumi, though I know I brought it up myself once based on their dark personalities. The striking similarites between the entire cast and the plot itself didn't occur to me until the last episode though.

Poor Poppo's the only one left out. Hm, maybe he's a slider-tan? XP

[Talon87]

Just wanted to mention that the Comiket 80 doujins are trickling in and there was on by Circle ED that had to do with Ano Hana, was a cute fanfic'ish epilogue story for Jinta x Anaru, and which has been translated into English for your guys' reading pleasure. Obligatory WARNING: NSFW, 18+ only! I didn't think it was all that effective as an erotic comic, personally, because it was too good at being a legitimate fanfic'ish epilogue. That is to say, I couldn't see it as a sex comic, rather it was a fan comic that happened to have sex in it. The sex was pretty marginal and the major focus of the comic was on Jinta trying to legitimize a relationship with Anjou in the wake of his lingering feelings for Menma and the fact that she's only just passed on. Check it out if you're over 18 and interested. Can't post direct links, also can't post a file path name as that would lead people here who are searching for it elsewhere. Just do a Google search for C i r c l e _ E D _ A n o _ H a n a _ m e d i a f i r e (delete the inappropriate spaces) to find the Japanese version quickly and the very same search string with v a n i l l a (again, delete inappropriate spaces) tacked onto the end to find the English translation.

[Talon87]

AnoHana animated film Summer 2013

YouTube promo

Saw the video on YouTube so I did some light investigating. Looks like the film is going to retell the story but all from Menma's point of view. To me, this sounds like a nice little bonus for fans but nothing I expect to be majorly awesome considering the show, for me, was mostly about the five survivors. But who knows. Could be really good. Guess we'll see next summer.

[Schadenfreude]

Just started this Anime. Currently, I am up to the Yukiatsu & Crossdressing episode. I will give more detailed thoughts on each episode later but so far, my thoughts are that the OP and ED are amazingly nostalgic and poignant.

[Talon87]

Aniplex trailer for the movie (English subtitles enableable)

Aniplex to bring film to American theaters in January 2014

Apparently the film comes out on home video in Japan next March, which is why we still haven't seen any fansubs of it. (I was wondering ... ) And some people are saying that they watched the film on CrunchyRoll, but I can't seem to find it anywhere on their site, not to mention that the CR article says nothing about them hosting the video for anyone (the public, paying members, whomever).

Spoiler: show

As you can see from the promotional poster, not to mention the second half of the trailer (i.e. the part with the non-television content), it looks like a timeskip takes place and the purpose of the film is to see what the five surviving members of the Super Peace Busters are up to. At least two of them (Jinta "Jintan" and Naruko "Anaru") continue to write letters to Menma, Tsuruko's gone and chopped off all her hair (DO NOT WANT ), and beyond that the trailer isn't too informative. ^^; Which I guess is a good thing, in a sense? Too often trailers give away too much. For fans of the franchise like us, it's simply enough that you tell us the movie exists. You don't really need to show us too much of its contents and give everything away. But this does admittedly make it difficult to gauge the quality of the film, what place we wish to afford it in the Ano Hana canon, etc.

Originally Posted by Schadenfreude

I will give more detailed thoughts on each episode later but so far, my thoughts are that the OP and ED are amazingly nostalgic and poignant.

They sure are. The OP was so impossibly hard to find on YouTube for long back in the day too ... and judging from the uploaded videos' upload dates, it still seems to be the case that Sony takes the videos down frequently. ^^; Such a shame, too: it'd be nice to be able to show more people this quality music.