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In this review I attempted to use the Story/Characters/Art/Sound/Enjoyment model that MAL encourages. Didn’t love it, probably never going to use it again. Also, there will be minor spoilers. Anyways, on to the review…

Story: Aku no Hana is about teens in puberty trying to navigate sexual desire. Specifically, it's about a boy named Kasuga who steals his crush's gym clothes in a fit of lust and immediately regrets it, and the main conflict of the story blossoms from there. The story is pretty significantly flawed I think, but it does still manage to be effective. I should mention up front, as others have, that this ... show only depicts the first half of its source material, and it was unfortunately never renewed for a second season. I don't really consider this a flaw, however, since I partially feel like the story could have ended where the show does and it would be fine; I often like open-ended conclusions that leave the question of "where do they go from here?" to the imagination. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

While the dilemma that Kasuga panics his way into is a solid basis for a story, the ridiculousness of many of the actual plot points becomes a bit too much. There're a number of events that occur that seem entirely too convenient, such as Nakamura just so happening to catch Kasuga and Saeki's interaction at the stairwell; the show is at no loss for low-probability, coincidental encounters that serve to expedite the plot at the cost of believability. A well-placed deus-ex-machina or two are usually fine, but this show just seemed to not want to do the legwork of moving from one important plot point to another in a more organic way. It would've been possible to write the story in a way where Saeki figures out the nature of Kasuga and Nakamura's relationship without her stumbling upon the two of them as if summoned.

I also felt the idea that Nakamura had no friends was unrealistic considering her personality. She's basically unapproachable, sure, but she's also pretty fearless; there would absolutely be other kids at the school at least, if not in her class, who would have respected her. I didn't like how the class was frequently portrayed as a hive-mind; the entire classroom's attention was focused on Kasuga/Nakamura too many times. This felt way too exaggerated, as did Kasuga's incessant stammering and sweating. Sure, it may have felt to Kasuga that no one understands him and everyone is watching him, but the fact that the show's reality reflects this so dramatically feels more than a little dishonest. The show is very guilty of making secondary and background characters behave in ways that are just too one-dimensional, which ends up diminishing the tension and immersion. I guess what I’m getting at is I’d have liked to see the class as a whole be fleshed out more, which is something many an anime has done well.

But I think I've criticized the plot long enough; it does succeed in a few significant ways. This might sound like a backhanded compliment after all I just said, but the show uses silence very effectively. The scene where Kasuga's mother weeps at the table after a completely dissociated Kasuga goes upstairs to his room felt so heavy and real, and the main reason why is because of the amount of time the camera lingers on her and Kasuga's father with the TV comedy droning on in the background, as if to mock what just happened. And of course that iconic long walk home... talk about using silence to say a lot. Also, the usage of lines from Les Fleurs du Mal was good; clearly Kasuga at least partially understood what Baudellaire was talking about, even though he was mainly into it just to posture as a more interesting person, which in itself is a good plot point.

Overall, I would say this story was genuinely intriguing, but I found myself wanting to imagine a better version of it the more it went on.

Characters: The three main characters sort of end up creating a strange version of the archetypal love triangle. Out of the three, I feel like Saeki is the one who gets the short straw when it comes to characterization. It's already a bit of a leap to convincingly make her the brilliant, top-of-the-class student who agrees to date the guy who stole her gym clothes. Even harder to make it make sense that she would go so far as to blame herself, which she ends up doing. The only way this makes any sense is if Saeki is just exceedingly patient, compassionate, and insecure. I don't think we see her in enough context outside of Kasuga to really sell this point, so it ends up feeling like her characterization bends to the service of Kasuga’s. We do learn that she has a very regimented home life, and she is very sheltered, so her curiosity and naivety make some amount of sense, but her total self-blaming when Kasuga is clearly the problem is as puzzling to the viewer as it is to Kasuga himself.

Kasuga is developed well enough. He'd better be, considering almost the whole show is from his internal point-of-view. He's a walking oxymoron that is not too hard to understand, although for some he might be hard to sympathize with. Something primal, seemingly beyond his conscious control possesses him to finger his way into Saeki's bag, and he probably wouldn't have taken her uniform if he hadn't panicked over being potentially seen. He's a very ethically-conscious kid, so he ends up being consumed by guilt at having done the thing, where other boys wouldn't necessarily feel so bad. But the way he fetishizes Saeki as his muse is beyond a mere crush, and he’s not mature enough to know what that means. He can't commit to total debauchery for Nakamura's sake, but he's incapable of living up to his own ideals for his own sake, and he's so paranoid that he can't perceive a compromise. He does grow quite a bit from struggling with this inner conflict; having the self-awareness to realize you're only into esoteric literature because you want to appear special is rare at the age of 14-ish. I feel like that age is typically when kids just start getting into weird stuff to appear edgy, not when they start to grow out of it. In that sense, he actually is at least beginning to be the wizened person he had been so convinced that he was at the show's opening.

That being said, his flight responses and constant stuttering often felt melodramatic, and they become tiresome after a while. I'd have appreciated seeing him learn to handle himself and at least be able to feign confidence a bit better as the story progressed. He's an uninteresting character who slowly learns just how uninteresting he is, but because we get to see his progression, his first real choice to assert himself and be something feels genuine when it finally happens. He wants to be something in Nakamura's eyes, not just for his own sake but for her's too, because they both know what it is to be truly isolated and alone. I don't think he'll go down as very many people's favorite character, but I do think he's a well fleshed-out one.

Nakamura, on the other hand, just might be people's favorite. Or they'll hate her, she's very polarizing. Again, I repeat, the notion that no one would befriend her after watching her have the balls to call her sensei a piece of s*** in front of the whole class is absurd. Clearly the writer never hung out with the punks in school.

Nakamura, unlike Kasuga, has embraced the identity of the deviant; she derives glee from watching people squirm and fume, she is the very embodiment of a misanthrope. But, of course, even she desperately does not want to be alone, and since she’s a child, it’s obvious that there’s something else eating at her that she doesn’t have a handle on, but we don’t really get to see what that thing is. Near the show's conclusion you can tell the focus was starting to shift in her direction, mainly because up until that point everything had been from Kasuga's perspective and he was only just starting to consider Nakamura as an individual and not just as a threat to his own social survival. There are some exchanges between Kasuga and Nakamura that feel so contrived that you could start to write Nakamura off as just a dominatrix fantasy whose actions are dictated by what gets off a male with a submission fetish. But it goes beyond this. She so desperately wants to be inspired by someone willing to burn every convention to the ground. She herself wants to do this, but she can't make herself do it alone; she needs the confirmation that someone else out there feels like she does, and her rage is immense when Kasuga reveals himself to be too cowardly, from her perspective, to embrace the taboo and come with her to the place where prudishness, rules, and even basic regard for the feelings of others does not exist. Nakamura's boldness (and sometimes just straight-up cruelty) is what makes the push-pull between her and Kasuga so strong, as the story becomes about whether Nakamura will break down Kasuga's walls or if Kasuga will break down her's. She creates most of the energy that makes the plot go, and she’s the reason why I’m compelled to read the manga, even though the manga lacks the number-one thing that makes me like this anime…

Art: Now HERE'S where this show really shines. The rotoscopic animation seems to have polarized the MAL community, but I for one absolutely LOVED it. I found the character models in this show to be FAR and away more expressive than the vast majority of other anime out there. You can detect the subtle facial expressions of the real-live actors even after they've been animated over. The characters feel so real compared to other anime, yet it still feels like an anime. And the scenery is so good. The rusty, overgrown town is depicted absolutely beautifully throughout. While some anime clearly recycle frames for budgetary reasons, I actually loved the repetition in Aku no Hana; not only did it serve to intensify Kasuga's feelings towards the town (mundane, predictable), but I also just straight-up did not get tired of looking at them over and over because of how expressive they are. The bent street-crossing sign, the faded weight-loss ad plastered to a dumpster... this show trounces most anime when it comes to imagery. And of course all the luscious vegetation bursting out around the town was very much appreciated, although I'm admittedly heavily biased towards natural imagery.

I also just wanted to say I love how flawed the characters look. It's so refreshing to see an anime -- especially one that is specifically about sexual perversion -- not contain big-eyed, over-sexualized character designs. One of the best advantages of using rotoscope was capturing the uneven, unpolished nature of what people really look like. Even Saeki, who is meant to be the model girl both in terms of behavior and appearance, doesn't look "flawless" like your typical 2-D "waifus" usually do.

Sound: The OST is pretty great overall, although maybe a bit too repetitive. Whereas the visual repetitiveness felt intentional and impactful, the background music would repeat itself in contrasting scenes where I felt a change in tone would have been better. But this is a small complaint, because overall it's definitely above average. The ambient, somber piano chords were just what most of the scenes needed, and it worked. The show has 4 different OPs, all in a catchy punk style, reflecting the angst that these pubescent main characters display. I liked 3 out of 4 of them, but this is purely personal preference. It's very cool that such a short series got 4 songs that change to fit the progression of the plot.

The ED gets its own paragraph. I ADORE the ED of this show. I love the steady, slow pulsing beat, I love how foreboding its melody is, I love the rhythm the spoken words are said at over the beat, I love how the filter on the voices sounds, and I absolutely FANBOY over how each time it comes in before the episode ends, almost as if whatever dramatic cliffhanger that just happened triggered the song to play.

Enjoyment: This category is awkward. I don't even like that MAL separates Enjoyment from Overall as a concept, but I digress. I can't really say the experience of watching this show is enjoyable, it makes you feel pretty awful for most of its runtime. But it's not without its comedy (some of the comedy being probably unintentional, but that's what happens when you make a serious story about panty-stealing). Most of the joy I got out of watching this was in the usage of rotoscope and the show's above-average ability to create a distinct mood with just its imagery. Not my favorite story by a longshot, but it genuinely is a beautiful show in its presentation.

Overall: 7.8/10. LORD QUAZ HAS SPOKEN.

(((CAUTION: spoilers af)))

By all means, The Garden of Words had the potential to become an instant favorite for me.

I, personally, love walking alone amongst the trees, and I do it on a regular basis. It's a good way to escape the loneliness of the crowded, dense city, to go outside to be intentionally alone. It is calming and refreshing. The one thing I like more than this, however, is to share the same calming, refreshing, quiet experience with another. Maybe talk some nonsense, have some laughs, then spend some time just absorbing sunlight and nothing else.

What I've just described is pretty much the set ... up for The Garden of Words. Our transparent-umbrella-wielding protagonist has wandered into Yoyogi Park to enjoy the rain, and the solitude that comes with it, because life can be shitty and who else goes to the park in the rain? Unexpectedly, however, he finds another person, a lady, who has came there for the exact same reason. When the two notice each other, they stumble for words, both unsure whether or not they are annoyed that someone else is at their hideout or if they're happy to have found such an instant kindred spirit. They're both immediately embarrassed and vulnerable, caught by surprise in the rain. It's immensely cute, and it's genuine. The protagonist sits himself down awkwardly, as far away from the love interest as he can while still being under the protection of the gazebo, and stares down at his sketchbook as she stares off into space, sipping her beer.

Then he looks at her feet. Her feet which he is drawing.

One thing I've noticed about anime and Japanese culture is that elements of fetishism, specifically female dominance/male submissiveness, are way more commonplace than here in the States. Most of the time it's innocent enough; no shonen is complete without a sexual female villain showing up and probably enslaving someone. Sometimes, it's explored intentionally and in an interesting way (see: Aku no Hana). But in this case, the moment the "camera" focused on those feet, a red flag immediately went up and any hope that this movie would be unique or original began to slip away, being replaced with the all-too common la la land of the manic-pixie dream girl story. It's old hat (seriously, the trope even has its own wikipedia page), and you can see right through it just like the main character's umbrella. The lady of the film, Yukino, is a hopeless, mysterious loner who cannot find any shred of meaning in her life whatsoever until this 15 year old kid comes through and touches her feet. Then, she just can't think of anyone else, and when he leaves, she bursts into tears, bursts through her door, runs straight into a wall, and falls down her apartment's stairwell all to catch up with him, to stop him, to stop him from leaving, to keep him with her, because he has utterly revolutionized her life. It's absurd. It's laughable. And the classic, emotionally-manipulative orchestra comes in right on cue, absolutely SWELLING as this unfolds. And, for chrissake, it turns out she's a TEACHER at HIS school, because this plot wasn't enough of a cliche sex fantasy already. Would it have been too much to make her profession something unrelated to the MC? I mean, in and of itself, her being a teacher is not necessarily a bad character detail, and given a longer run time, her life as a teacher could've been explored. But we all know that's not REALLY why the writer chose to make his muse a high school teacher. It's similar to how the main character is conveniently obsessed with shoes and wants to make them; not a bad detail at all, but its primary function is solely for the sake of setting up the foot scene, which, again, is the moment that absolutely revitalizes Yukino's whole outlook on life, which is, again, pathetic.

Of course, the art is breathtaking. I give it a 10. Of course, the sound editing is top-notch. I give it a 10. Even the dialogue is very well crafted, excelling at capturing people in a natural state. But at the end of the day, The Garden of Words is really just a boyish fantasy about wanting your hot teacher to fall in love with you whilst dangling a shoe that you made for her from her toes that *thinks* it's a moving, poetic story about two very different people who bond over walking in the rain.