1 year ago
■ 1 notes
#anohana
#informal review

Mei Mouths Off: ANIME - Anohana Ep. 1 

I can talk about a lot of things, but today’s segment of Mei Mouths Off will be about an anime that I’ve been watching for the past…whatever weeks. Its full title is “Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai”, but is shortened to “Anohana” for good reason. It translates to “We Still Don’t Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day”.

 In One Sentence: Anohana is a slice of life series that follow six childhood friends who drift apart after an accident ten years ago.

What I love about this series is that it makes me laugh and smile and cry and frown in each episode, and I think it really touches me because it’s about friendship—and that’s something that has been very important to me for a very long time now. SO YES. And there’s stuff I like and dislike about every character but there isn’t a character that I absolutely dread. I suppose “Shorts” comes close to that—but it’s only because they haven’t developed him as much as the others yet.

Who’s it by? The producers of the anime is A-1 Pictures who has brought us (amongst other series) Persona: Trinity Soul, Kuroshitsuji, and Ao No Exorcist.

If you’re interested in my take of the first episode, feel free to click below! Bullets for your convenience. THIS IS AN INFORMAL REVIEW LOL. 

  • If you’re not into relaxed, lax, simple, friendship, non-fantasy/scifi/magical stuff, you’ll probably not like this anime. OR IDK. LIKE. IT’S NOT TYPICAL TO WHAT I’VE SEEN—BUT I HAVEN’T SEEN A LOT OF STUFF so.
  • I love Jintan. I’m totally biased. ”DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!! Don’t leave any of your recessive genes behind!!!” Best first impression, dude. I MEAN IT. <3
  • Jintan’s dad is neat-o too. AND HE’S TOTES KAWAII EVEN IN THE FLASHBACK.
  • Why are they all so cute? Shit. I’m totally weak against this. Not only are the designs nice, but the art style is something I personally enjoy. I’ve been told that it looked too much like Katekyo Reborn, but I don’t really see it. LIKE, THE ANIMATION ISN’T GOD-TIER OR SOMETHING (then again I don’t know what god-tier really is uh looks this up oops) but it is still good in my opinion. EXCEPT WHEN towards the latter end when Menma trips and then Jintan flashes back to where his dad is like “MENMA’S DEAD.” and he extends his arm out I kind of laughed because it was super like KALSJDFKALSDJFkljasdflkj. LOL LONG ASS ARM. BUT LOL I MEAN THAT WAS A GOOD…EFFECT, I SUPPOSE. It just still made me lol.
  • OPENING IS CUTE. I AM ABUSING THE WORD CUTE. I’M SORRY GUYS LOL. I like how everything’s in blue outline for opening too.
  • Is it bad that I don’t like Jintan x Menma? I mean, I know I shouldn’t be talking about couples so early on, but when they have the “pubescent sexual urges” it makes me kinda sobbus because we obviously know that Menma is not actually there. I MEAN, UNLESS YOU COULDN’T FIGURE IT OUT BY NOW THEN OOPS.
  • Menma’s adorable. The way she goes “I HAVE NO IDEA!!” and “BARRIER!!”
  • I love a lot of Jintan’s inner voice. I know slice of life animes are pretty philosophical sometimes, but I still enjoyed this. 
  • Pigtails/ANARUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU is so tsundere it hurts. But I like it. I am totally biased. This is an informal review—I’M GOING TO KEEP SAYING IT LOL. She was totally kawaii desu as a kid with her kawaii hair and glasses.
  • I LOVE HOW HE PREPARES AND IT’S JUST LIKE PUTS ON A BEANIE AND GLASSES. THAT’S TOTALLY A BEAUTIFUL DISGUISE. Also if you guys want Jintan’s red shirt, I’ve reblogged a website a while back but I’ll link it again. The shirt’s like 18 bucks? Yeahhh. HERE’S THE LINK. Thanks to kininaruaitsu!
  • I love the little play on words they use to avoid copyrighting.  WcDonald’s and they do it again later on. TEEHEE.
  • ANARUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu is so typical teenage. It’s kind of cute. Usually she’d be a character I hate though.
  • Megane/Glasses is totes kawaii. ANOTHER RANDOM QUIRK.
  • I kind of don’t like it that everything’s about Menma, even to this day. Like the love triangle between Yukiatsu, Jintan and Menma…Idk man. Like, it’s not because I would have different shippings—I just hope that they don’t focus on Menma (but that’s kind of hard considering this entire series is kinda based on what happened……). BUT STILL. THERE’S A LOT OF POTENTIAL HERE. I hope they don’t disappoint me. :( LIKE, I HOPE THEY EXPAND MORE ON the years everyone was separate and all. Since it’s been ten years and all. I really want to see everyone get equal amounts of growth. 
  • Yukiatsu = Shorts. Forever. I really hope they expand more on him in the future. It’d be interesting. Then again, this is the first episode, I can’t be expecting much. Though Tsuriko gave us slight insight on that, I hope they give us some more in future episodes!
  • That lantern was pretty. I really love a lot of the landscape drawings and backgrounds, etc.  They did a really really good job with them. I wouldn’t mind just looking at an artbook of them.
  • I like how he calls Menma his “stress.” Just a small random quirk.
  • KAWAII KIDS KAWAII. KAWAII KIDS KAWAII. KAWAII KIDS KAWAII. 
  • The ending was totes kawaii. I was asking where he was the entire time because of the kid version of him. AND I’M GLAD HE IS THE WAY HE IS. I obviously like all of the characters in this anime, and I think they all have interesting dynamics.
  • HOLY SHIT ASKLDJF WHEN MENMA GOES TO HER OLD HOME OMG I TOTALLY TOTALLY TOTALLY TEARED UP. NO. JOKE. “AND DAD’S GOT…LOTS OF GREY HAIR”. AND THEN HER MOM. OH MY GOD. JASKDFJASKLDJF OH. MY. GOD. MAMA….AND CURRYYYYYYYYYYY. CURRYYYYYYYYYY. AND HER REALLY REALLY REALLY CUTE PICTURE WITH THE PEACE SIGN. “Your sister was a bit of an airhead, so maybe she hasn’t even realized she’s died.”
  • AND THEN TEARS. “I KNOW THAT I DIED.” ASKDLJF OMG SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO TOUCHING SO TOUCHING. AHHHHHHHHH. And Mama’s like “Menma?” and it’s just like omg her family omg. aksldjfaksldjf Okay, done with that.
  • Then when everyone slowly left, sobs…. And it was shorts that first left sobs…..
  • CAN I JUST SAY I LOVE THE WAY THEY DID THE ENDING. I MEAN. OMG. THAT WAS UTTERLY BEAUTIFUL. Shorts is such a mystery but he’s totes creep probably. 
  • THE LIGHTS WERE ON. OMG!!! And then it was brilliant seeing who was there. I was just so kljaskldjfaksldjfaksdjf. AND THEN THE FLASHBACK. HOW DO YOU WRITE SUPER? I JUST LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. THE FLASHBACK AND THEN THE LAST IMAGE THEY SHOW. OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. Sorry, I just got the chills. IF YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WTF I’M TALKING ABOUT, GO. WATCH IT.
  • The ending theme, even though it was used for multiple animes before, is still very nice and suitable here. Definitely suitable—if you’ve seen the original music video.