ANO HI MITA HANA NO NAMAE WO BOKUTACHI WA MADA SHIRANAI.

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA DramaAno Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai.
SPECIAL ComedyAno Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai.: Menma e no Tegami
MOVIE DramaAno Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai. Movie

REVIEWS

• 

  nflstreet

  75/100
  Not the best anime, but one of the more rememberable ones around

  Ano Hana is a compelling anime. It is one about loss and traumatic events--and about coping and recovering from them.

  

  The story is centered around Meiko Honma (Menma), a ‘summer beast’ that has started appearing in Jinta Yadomi’s vision. Menma was a girl that was part of his friend group ten years ago that died tragically by falling into a river. Back then, Jinta was the energetic de-facto leader of the friend group (the ‘Super Peace Busters’), but now today he is a reclusive NEET. While he originally believes that Menma is just a manifestation of his mind, Menma proves that she is ‘real’ by being able to do daily tasks like cooking. Menma tells Jinta that he needs to fulfill her ‘wish’, although they both do not know what that ‘wish’ is. When that wish is granted, Menma believes that she will finally be able to go to heaven.

  

  In trying to grant Menma’s wish, Jinta re-connects with everyone that was part of the Super Peace Busters. He first runs into Tetsudo Hisakawa (Poppo), who lives in the shack that the friend group used to hang out in. Poppo now goes on trips around the world and has not attended school in years. The second friend Jinta reconnects with is Naruko Anjou (Anaru). She goes to the same school that Jinta is enrolled in and is the ‘closest’ to him before Jinta starts reconnecting. He also contacts Atsumu Matsuyuki (Yukihatsu) and Chiriko Tsurumi (Tsuruko), who go to a more prestigious school as Jinta and Anaru. Both are friends with each other and have a pompous air around them (especially Yukihatsu towards Jinta). While the conditions of their rebudding friendships are tenuous, they come together due to Menma.

  While they do not show it at the start, the tragic passing of Menma still greatly affects their lives. Vivid memories of that day has stunted their emotional and mental development as young adults. While none of them except Jinta can communicate with ghost Menma, they all want to fulfill her wish. They still feel guilty about what happened that day ten years ago and are still dealing with the consequences of it--having her go to heaven will finally give them some closure and help them push forward.

  

  As for the story itself, it definitely does enough to pull you in. For an anime like Ano Hana, it is worthless to watch if you do not care about the characters. Even if I do not like some of the characters, I still care for them. Ano Hana delicately creates an ecosphere where all of the main characters rely on each other, with Menma being the glue that holds it all together.

  That being said, Ano Hana definitely has its issues. The main one is on the part of how long it takes for everyone else to actually understand that Menma is a real ghost, and not something that Jinta made up. While this might seem trivial reading this, it really annoyed me while watching how Menma was being talked about like an illusion and not as a real phenomenon, and how long it took for Jinta and her to prove them wrong.

  

  Is Ano Hana worth watching? Definitely. If you are a fan of tear-jerkers and coming-of-age anime, then Ano Hana is right up your alley. Even if you are not a fan, I would still recommend it. Ano Hana is not great per se, but it is moving and captivating. It is an anime that might be best consumed in one night (although that might mess you up emotionally the next day if it hits you hard).

  ---

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• 

  frankwang0098

  60/100
  Anohana is a great looking show that unfortunately fails in every other aspect

  DISCLAIMER: Everything I write is based on my personal opinions/analyses and I don’t have anything against people who love this show. Since I provide explanations for pretty much all my points, I would suggest you read them before completely disagreeing with my statements.

  The main reasons that anime is one of my favorite forms of entertainment is because many of these shows do not shy away from tackling heavier themes and issues. Although a multitude of anime with gloomier themes have successfully managed to be entertaining, thought-provoking and emotionally impactful, Anohana, on the other hand, is unfortunately not one of them. Out of all the heart-wrenching anime, Anohana seems to be a favorite among the general public, especially with those who resonate with the theme of coping with the loss of someone close to you. This makes sense since just by reading the synopsis, Anohana appears to be a bittersweet show about a group of friends dealing with and overcoming grief due to the death of their childhood friend. However, when you finish watching the show, it becomes quite clear that the show is only about traumatic events on an extremely artificial level, but the theme that gets explored by the majority of the main cast is actually coping with unrequited love instead. Due the addition of a completely different message, the show becomes so confused at its own identity that it tries to stitch both major themes together with forced melodrama and dragged out as well as terribly rushed story arcs, and as a result, it fails at portraying either themes in a realistic and impactful way.

  This review will contain major SPOILERS so skip to the end if you just want to read a general summary of my thoughts on the show.

  Story - 5/10
  The story of Anohana is very simple, which is not a bad thing by any means, especially when it had the potential to be incredibly emotionally impactful. When they were children, a group of friends gradually drifted apart due to the death of someone in the group. Years later, the main character, Jinta Yadomi, sees the ghost of his dead childhood friend, Meiko Honma (most characters refer to her as Menma), during summer. Jinta, who initially believed the Menma he was seeing to be a hallucination caused by his stress, decides to send her to heaven by granting her a wish that she had when she was still alive. Through his attempts to grant this wish, Jinta slowly reconciles with the rest of his childhood friends and manages to fix many bonds that were once broken. Unfortunately, this major plot device that drives the whole story forward is only the main focus for the first three episodes and gets pushed aside for a completely different story about love triangles (I will discuss this in detail in the character section of the review).
  I also want to quickly talk about a gripe I have with the story (that didn’t heavily impact the rating but is rather an annoyance I had) which is the plot hole of the inconsistency of Menma’s ghost. Since she is clearly able to lift objects and consume food, it never made any sense why it took Jinta so long to prove her existence to his friends. The show actually realizes this and tries to give it an explanation by making Matsuyuki say that Jinta just wanted to keep Menma for himself. This also doesn’t make any sense since a part of what Jinta has been trying to do throughout most of the show is to prove that she exists and Jinta felt nothing but happiness when everyone finally acknowledged her existence. This problem along with many others can be solved simply by making Menma an actual hallucination instead, even though it would make the plot more predictable (I will also explain this further in the character section).

  

  Art - 9/10
  The art design is absolutely incredible, everything from character designs to backgrounds are all beautifully drawn. The character designs definitely deserve some more praise since in my opinion these designs portrayed each character perfectly without being overly cliché. Although there were a lot of character tropes in the show, the characters never felt like a generic hikikomori or tsundere from a design standpoint despite the long black hair and the classic twin tails. The animation also felt smooth and all the characters were able to portray their emotions very well as a result. The score for the art is not any higher because in some scenes with more aggressive movements, the anatomy of the characters felt very unnatural.

  Sound - 9/10
  The sound design and its quality stands out a lot compared to the rest of the categories (with the exception of the art). The openings and endings of the are all well composed and memorable, none of them felt rushed and the tone of the songs perfectly conveyed the feelings of the show. I don’t claim to be an expert in music or sound design but, in my opinion, the soundtrack always managed to strengthen the story arcs and the character moments. The music alone made me feel emotional in overly dramatic scenes that would have otherwise been extremely cringe-worthy.

  Character - 3/10
  I have two major complaints about this show and a few other slightly less serious criticisms. The first significant problem I have with the show is ghost Menma’s entire character. To understand my criticism with this seemingly “crucial” character, it is important to remember the main point of the show is supposed to be about a group of characters dealing with and overcoming grief instead of a character dealing with her own death. It is not a stretch to say that Menma probably had more screen time than any of the main cast including Jinta. I don’t dislike Menma’s character, however, she eats up a large amount of the runtime for absolutely no reason. The show spends a lot of time following ghost Menma’s independent actions and emotions, especially in the first few episodes, without the involvement of the other characters. By taking focus away from the primary characters that the show tries to get the viewers’ to sympathize with, these characters only end up feeling like empty shells filled with artificial attempts at being relatable. But Menma’s appearances allow her to become a fully fleshed out character that the viewers can care for right? This is also not the case since, even if ignoring the fact that she didn’t have any proper development despite all her screen time, ghost Menma cannot have a proper emotional moment involving her death since she is already dead when the show started. In this case, it is more likely that the viewers would only feel bad for Menma (which is something that can be accomplished without a lot of screen time) instead of tearing up at a character dying after already having developed an emotional attachment with them. Only feeling bad for Menma would have been completely fine since the real emotional moments are supposed to be with the rest of the main cast who are dealing with a childhood tragedy, but this is again ruined by the lack of screen time these characters had to fully develop their stories. If the show really wanted to develop Menma, they could have made her story a lot more tragic and relatable by spending more time with her prior to her death instead, however this would again overshadow the main theme and development of all the other characters. Not only should Menma have less screen time, she should have been an actual hallucination since the fact that she is a real ghost completely eliminated everything intriguing about Jinta as a character. At the start of the show, Jinta blames his stress for ghost Menma appearing in his house which meant that Jinta was impacted enough by his childhood trauma to hallucinate about his dead friend. However as soon as it is revealed that ghost Menma is real, Jinta is no longer a broken teenager still stuck in the past, he is rather an irresponsible kid who uses his childhood tragedy as an excuse to be a hikikomori who doesn’t do anything but lay in his house all day. Of course people don’t have to experience hallucinations to deal with the loss of an important friend, however Jinta is around 15-16 years old in the story and, although not clear, Menma most likely died when he was around 10 years old. Since it has already been over 5 years since this tragedy, Jinta’s behaviors of self-isolation and hatred at the beginning of the show can only really be excused if he was emotionally scarred enough to have delusions of his childhood crush/friend to combat his own loneliness.

  Even though it is always a good thing for a show to have a few different themes and messages, these secondary themes should never overshadow the primary messages of the series. However, the theme completely shifts to that of unrequited love in the second half of the show, which leads to my second and perhaps my biggest issue with this show. The problem is that when you look at the character arcs of nearly the entirety of the main cast, they are all about resolving their feelings of one-sided love and when you think about it a while longer, it becomes quite clear that these character arcs would have had literally the same outcome even if Menma did not die because besides Matsuyuki and maybe Jinta, Menma’s death barely impacted the other characters at all. Both Anjou and Tsurumi have the exact same boring character arc, they both need to get over the fact that they both love people who are in love with someone else. After they cried for the tenth time, they finally are able to deal with their feelings, however, their resolutions had absolutely nothing to do with Menma’s death. In fact, if Menma is still alive, the boys would have still been in love with her (perhaps even more so) and the girls would still need to go through the journey of overcoming unrequited love. Hisakawa (better known as Poppo) is the most useless character in the show, even though I liked his personality, Poppo exists only as a comedic relief who did not contribute anything to the overall plot or to other characters’ story arcs. The only development for poor Poppo is the show’s pathetic attempt at giving him a reason to cry in the last episode by making him reveal that he actually saw Menma die. This came out of absolutely nowhere and when the other characters practically ignored his comment and continued to cry, I almost burst out laughing while watching the complete absurdity of the scene.

  

  I actually have a lot more to say about a few other things but since this review is becoming way too long I will only be giving a summary of my thoughts on two more things. The first thing is actually a positive opinion I have on the character of Matsuyuki. Even though he is not perfectly written, he is a good example of the potential this show had since this character is pretty much the only one who goes through actual character development that is related to the central theme of the show. Matsuyuki is the only character that is shown to be heavily impacted by the death of Menma. He is an extremely creepy character who cannot let go of the past and even dresses up like Menma, however, as the story progresses he starts to move on and learns something from his past mistakes. The second thing I want to discuss is the opposite of the previous point where I will talk about Menma’s mother (Irene Honma), who is the perfect example of what to avoid when writing a character. Irene is a grieving mother who becomes so traumatized by her daughter’s death that she becomes ignorant to those around her including her husband and son. However, the problem arises when she blames a bunch of kids for her own incompetence as a mother. She actually wishes that the kids (who were 10 years old at the time of Menma’s death) would also die because it is not fair for her daughter, the worst part of it is that she fails to even acknowledge any fault of her own even after the supposed “resolution” to her character arc. Irene is written as a flawed character, which is completely fine, however, she needs to be someone the viewers can also sympathize with to a certain degree in order for her character arc to be satisfying because she is not a villain. Since she has absolutely no redeeming factors as shown by the show, her character not only fails to portray grieving parents in a realistic way but also makes her story arc completely pointless.

  Enjoyment - 5/10
  It is no surprise that I didn’t enjoy this show. There were multiple times where I wanted to stop watching because I was so bored especially during the last few episodes. Since anything below a 5/10 in my rating system is a fail and Anohana was not entirely painful to watch, the show passes as just barely watchable for my entertainment purposes.

  Summary
  Anohana had so much potential to be great, but the end result is nothing but a gigantic disappointment. The best way to describe Anohana is that it is a show filled with poorly written character and story arcs, that strayed too far from the central theme, with some good ideas sprinkled in. When the show ended, the only thing that I felt was confusion about the point of the entire show and how a story about characters overcoming grief turned into characters crying together about completely different things. To be perfectly honest, the show probably deserves an even lower score than my rating, but the art and the music are so good that I actually felt bad giving it anything lower than a 60 percent. I would definitely not recommend anyone to watch Anohana unless you can closely relate to the story and characters or if you are a hardcore fan of romance and don't mind cheap melodrama.

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• 

  superp2222

  96/100
  Moving on by remembering

  Death is like the wind, its always by our side, yet we never acknowledge it until we have to. For AnoHana, that is different. Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai, or AnoHana: The Flower We Saw That Day is a masterful amalgamation of subtle musical storytelling, art styles, and character development that caps off with an absolute climatic and tear-wrenching ending episode. It tells the story of five friends-the Super Peace Busters- 10 years after losing one of their members, Menma, and how they each subsequently coped with her death. Right off the bat, it should be no surprise to anyone interested that this anime intends to get your waterworks flowing. And flow it did.

  Story
  The story is actually rather straightforward in terms of plot. One day in the hot summer, Jintan, our protagonist, is hard at his games when a grown-up version of his late friend starts annoying him. Upon realizing that he isn't having a heat stroke, he sets out to figure out what brought her soul back into our realm and gathers his old friends in the process. In terms of originality, it's low, not very creative. However, as the story moves on, the execution of well-placed flashbacks, character interactions, and a step-by-step-like approach to resolving Menma's troubles allow for each "layer" of emotions built up to subsequently crash into the ending episode, which I guess was definitely intended. You feel every high with the group, and cry with them at every low. It's almost like you're part of the Super Peace Busters as well.

  Art and Sound
  AnoHana did a fantastic job with art. Every single detail is important, and each character and background is drawn to be crisp and reflective. Each flashback and "childhood memory" is drawn to be distinctive and separate yet same. It's top-quality art you can usually only find in KyoAni works or Ghibli works. Props to A-1 for that perfect execution.
  As for music, the memes speak for themselves. Anohana's OP: Aoi Shiori is light and bouncy, reflecting the nature of the Super Peace Busters, yet at the same time deep and touching, there is honestly a slew of things I can cover. But for anyone wondering I'd recommend watching the Mother's Basement: What's in an OP? Video covering the topic, as he dives into way more depth that I can possibly manage. The ED, secret base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~ is on a level of its own. It either plays right when the credits start rolling or a few seconds before it to do a cliffhanger-esque end (sorta like Jojo's Roundabout). With each time the ED comes early, it conveys that someone has struck a nerve and tears were going to fall. Therefore making your brain permanently associate this theme with sadness. This is especially true on the final episode, but that is major spoilers so to save you interested weebs who are viewing this review because you're interested about the anime, I won't spoil it :3.

  Characters
  Oh man, I can go on for hours about the characters, as each one developed their own persona around Menma's death. I'll go one by one for a more in-depth explanation.
  As I mentioned before, each member of the Super Peace Busters was negatively affected by Menma's death. Jintan's is the most obvious of the bunch. The former leader of the Super Peace Busters descended into a deep psychological trauma after the event. Unable to come to terms with how his last words to Menma was calling her ugly. He has since stopped going to school, his grades dropped, and does nothing but be an indoor shut-in all day. This effect is further doubled because his mom died around the same time as Menma as well. Meaning that not only has he lost his dearest friend, but his mother. With the double slap of their deaths hitting him, its not surprising Jintan because a ghost of himself.
  Next up is Anaru, a distinct tsundere, Anaru was someone who was very malleable to societal norms. This malleability and vulnerability to influence is a major driving force behind her decisions and subsequent mistakes. Menma's death made it only worse for her. Because with Menma as a role model, Anaru was partially blocked from outside influence due to her looking to Menma as an idol, but with her gone, she has no one to base her image off of, and subsequently becomes a ball of clay for her friends to play with.
  Third is Poppo, he's actually the oddest of the bunch, because it appears that he was basically unaffected from Menma's death. However, take into context of his timid nature, slightly younger age compared to the group, and the fact he dropped out of high school to tour the world afterwards and it becomes clear what he is. His character development may not have been plenty, but it served enough to connect the reader to what Poppo truly felt when it is finally revealed of why he's been his cheery self.
  Yukiatsu suffered from bottling up his emotions. It becomes clear that he is a calm and collected tactical genius, with flying grades and a school to prove them. However, anyone who's seen enough shows in general knows that its these types of people who are the most susceptible to bottling up their emotions in an attempt to keep their outer image intact. As of such, the calm and collected Yukiatsu dealt with Menma's death in the most unique of ways. However, once the group manages to break his jar of emotions, they come flooding out, revealing everything Yukiatsu has felt from the morning of Menma's death to the present day.
  Tsuruko is the hardest to gauge, she's your typical ice queen, and doesn't break out of that shell for most of the anime, however, like Yukiatsu, once you break her ice barrier, she spills everywhere.
  Menma doesn't have much character development, and remains mostly flat for the anime, this is most likely due to her being a catalyst for change in the other characters. I feel that this is a logical move because it would ultimately be useless to develop her since she is a ghost. However, they still put in just enough of her bouncy personality to make it hit hard at the end.
  Due to the fact each character reacted a different way after Menma's death, the majority o the anime focused on the interactions each of these characters had, playing around with their personalities under the influence of each other, and ultimately creating a vibrant group that we can empathize with.

  Ultimately, AnoHana was a great way to demonstrate change and the effects of death on people, and it dove deep into how we feel and manipulated them to create the rich anime that is AnoHana

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