03.31.2008 - True Tears - Episode 13 [END]

Posted in Anime, True Tears by Epi at 1:03 am

You think that’s why she can’t cry? That’s it? You don’t know I surgically altered her tear ducts?	Indirect kiss time!
I think we need those heaters in bus shelters in Canada.	What do you mean you can’t see the bacteria?
^_^,

This week has been a bit hectic. The only three shows I’ve been following all decided to end at the same time, and while I won’t be writing about Spice & Wolf or Gundam 00 just yet, I thought I had to start off with True Tears. I do admit though that I regret being so busy these days and couldn’t enjoy the fun of blogging the show in it’s entirety like I used to, so I gotta thank Kabitzin for having something about this to read every week.

It has been a while since I’ve seen a simple high school love anime that wasn’t full of chiche. Kanon was nice, but then again it was just so damn weird that it didn’t fit my simple tastes. On the other hand there have been a bunch of girls only school (including one man-girl) animes which were fun but just not the same even if Strawberry Panic was a fun distraction. Slice of life is also fun, but has no romance, and so Minimi-ke has to wait. All in all, I was really looking forward to True Tears ever since Jeff wrote about it on Hop Step Jump!. When I saw the first episode I was surely not disappointed, although much like Jeff I was a bit hesitant. Was this just yet another pretty first episode which ultimately falls flat or will it be one of the classics?

Over the next several weeks, I thought I had my answer. With it’s unique direction (remember the first time Shinichiro enters Hiromi’s room and we see the same scene from his perspective and then hers?), smooth animation (people were comparing this show to KyoAni productions), awesome sound effects (best sound effects ever in a non-sci-fi anime) and great character designs I was throughly impressed. It didn’t hurt that this was one of the few OP/EDs that I actually watched every time in a long while just because I enjoyed the songs.

But what of the story? The first few episodes managed to set the stage pretty well. On one hand we had the childhood friend/hottest girl at school Hiromi. Then we had childhood friend/genki shop owner Ai. And finally we had wacky but cute Noe whose cuteness was superbly helped by wonderful voice acting much like Misaki was helped greatly by acting in Welcome to the N.H.K. Thankfully the ‘no tears’ thing wasn’t some weird Kanon-type magic, and even the chicken references were sort of touching unlike a certain annoying emu. Thus the stage was set, and True Tears did not disappoint. As the relationships between the characters grew more complex, many of us were torn between the cute and spontaneous Noe, and the pouty but good looking Hiromi. The story progressed nicely and just as we thought that Shinichiro was making progress with Hiromi we had a bombshell: they might actually be brother and sister.

For me personally that was the height of enjoyment of this series. Not that there weren’t touching moments after (like when Shinichiro bikes down the hill and catches up to the moving truck Hiromi) but I really felt the story went a bit downhill after the ‘revelation’. That revelation was resolved way too early, and then some strangeness inserted itself into the last few episodes. I really felt that the story lost a lot of it’s momentum with the pointless ‘relationship’ angle between Jun and Hiromi, the increasing marginalization of Ai and Engrish-hoodie best friend, and Shinichiro’s struggle to pick between Hiromi and Noe not adequately explained. The consistently dropping production values (with the exception of wonderful sound effects) bothered me as well. It was with this view that we entered the final episode.

In the final episode, Shinichio confronts Noe and lets her read the totality of his picture book (thankfully minus the last page which was conveniently missing), and finally, finally sets his feelings out straight for Hiromi. The story ends as we all knew it would from the very beginning with ShinXHiromi and Noe finally crying at the very end. And oh yea, Hiromi finally learns the splits… Shinichiro you lucky dog…

While the ending was a pretty good ending episode in terms of neatly wrapping up the story, I felt that there was enough which was suddenly thrusted into the viewers to make me think a lot of ‘what ifs’ in terms of how this anime could have been better. What if the anime showed a lot more of Hiromi’s feelings throughout? For a lot of the anime, she is presented as a very quiet character who never really talks about how she feels or how things are affecting her. To be sure we get the festival flashback, and the Kanae-Hiromi tension, but I would have appreciated a bit more from Hiromi, at least as much as the final two episodes where they finally did focus on what she really thought and how events were affecting her. Secondly, I felt that Shinichiro’s feelings were a bit muddled. I understand that this was the point of the show, but in the end I think the side plotlines with Ai-chan and the chickens really detracted from Shinichiro’s real feelings. Again, a bit too much of him acting all angsty and not enough reflection. Finally a bit more sports, or a bit more Hiromi learning the splits could have been a fun distraction.

Overall, I did enjoy this series. It certainly is not the best high school romance anime out there (that title of course goes to Suzuka), and in fact I will probably not remember much of this a few months from now, but it was enjoyable while it lasted. I appreciated that simply high school romances can still be made in this age of endless crazy harem animes or gimicky KyoAni-type high school romance animes, and that this anime handled the high school love genre with respect and a lot of class.