DISCLAIMER: Everything I write is based on my personal opinions/analyses and I dont 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 thoughtprovoking and emotionally impactful Anohana on the other hand is unfortunately not one of them. Out of all the heartwrenching 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 didnt heavily impact the rating but is rather an annoyance I had which is the plot hole of the inconsistency of Menmas 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 doesnt 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. https://littleanimeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/6b48canohanatheflowerwesawthatday.jpg?w=1200 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 clich. 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 dont 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 cringeworthy. 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 Menmas 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 dont dislike Menmas character however she eats up a large amount of the runtime for absolutely no reason. The show spends a lot of time following ghost Menmas 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 Menmas 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 didnt 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 doesnt do anything but lay in his house all day. Of course people dont have to experience hallucinations to deal with the loss of an important friend however Jinta is around 1516 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 Jintas behaviors of selfisolation 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 onesided 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 Menmas 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 Menmas 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 shows 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. https://hachimitsuanimeblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/anohana0811.jpg 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 Menmas 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 daughters 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 Menmas 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 didnt 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 dont mind cheap melodrama.