So, recently I've been in the mood to watch a good, old fashion drama romance anime. I looked around for one that had gotten mostly good reviews and I stumbled upon True Tears. This anime is highly praised by many reviewers as a masterpiece of the drama/romance anime genre. While it is pretty good, it absolutely does not live up to all the hype in my opinion. Let's go over the reasons why I think the anime is not as top tier as people seem to be saying.
Story: The anime begins with a decently interesting premise. Young boy who wants to be an artist finds eccentric, young girl and they kinda hit it off as friends. The story continues and it all kind of ends up as a love square kind of thing where the boy likes both the eccentric girl and his childhood friend, and the girl who is dating the young boys best friend actually has feelings for the him. This can all get a little confusing at points, but if you watch the anime then it is all pretty well presented and explained. There's not really any plot holes to speak of, which is nice seeing as how that's one thing that cannot happen, especially in a drama/romance anime. But... there is one thing that I cannot just let go. The conclusion of the anime was EXTREMELY poor. Not just kind of upsetting, it literally made me want to grab my hair and rip it all out. And, the reason for the terrible ending can be attributed to the main character.
Characters:
Shinichiro Nakagami - This little fucker is the main character of this whole anime. He literally is not able to understand his own feelings. I understand that that is usually how the main character is in a traditional romance/drama anime, but this little bitch was only hurting everyone around him by not understanding how to actually talk with people about his feelings. By the end of this anime, I was hoping that he jumped off a building or something and killed himself. No joke.
Noe Isurugi - This is my favorite character. She is cute, funny, lively, and very honest with her feelings which I absolutely love. She is the eccentric girl who meets, and starts building a relationship with Shinichiro. Too bad for her that she had to fall in love with such a total douche toolbag.
Aiko Andou - This bitch is possibly the most selfish person in this anime. She is dating Shinichiro's best friend, Miyokichi, but she still has remaining feelings for Shinichiro. But, it's not like she is hiding anything. She straight up presses herself onto him right in front of her boyfriend, goes on shopping dates with him, and kisses him. All the while still in a relationship with Miyokichi. I felt so sorry for the dude, especially since he is so awesome and caring.
Hiromi Yuasa - The childhood friend of Shinichiro who also happens to live in his home because of the untimely death of her mother. You would think that living in the home of a guy in this kind of anime would lead to a bunch of traditional ecchi "misunderstandings". But, alas, this is not that type of anime and nothing like that happens. All we get is one walk in on a shower situation, which just ends with a "Sorry". Huge missed opportunity for character development there.
Art: The art is actually very good in this anime. Nothing to really talk about here.
Music: The music flows very well with the events that are happening on screen. Nothing really notable.
Enjoyment: The first half of this anime was actually amazing. I loved the interactions between the characters which helped develop them very well. The second half of the anime is where it fell very short. The character development basically stopped in favor of long inner monologues where Shinichiro would just debate his feelings for the girls. Very boring, and way too repetitive.
Rating: I'm going to give this anime a 6/10. This anime started off very strong with amazing character development, great art, and interesting character interactions. But, the last couple of episodes brought everything down. The fall of in character development, the annoying emotional clashes with Shinichiro, the BITCH Aiko. Everything just went wrong. The only things that remained consistently good throughout the entire anime were the music and the art. Fuck you Shinichiro. |
