[WT!] AnoHana - The Flower We Saw That Day

AnoHana:* MAL, Hummingbird, Anime-Planet, AniDB, Anilist, Animenewsnetwork.Introduction: I know AnoHana already has a WT!, but it was a little too short in my opinion, so I decided to write one myself. Hopefully I can motivate some of you to watch it, as it is one of my all time favourites. For this feel trip you should have a few boxes of tissues ready. The TL;DR is on the bottom.What is AnoHana?AnoHana (full name Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai.) is a 2011 Slice Of Life - Drama with a little supernatural touch, produced by A-1 Pictures Inc. Its story revolves around the Super Peace Buster, a group of six childhood friends. Or that's what they used to be at least.A few years prior to the present events in this anime, a girl from the Super Peace Busters, named Meiko Honma, died in an terrible accident. After this the remaining friends split up. Especially our main character Jinta Yadomi starts skipping school and just loiters around at home becoming a loner. But now Meiko appears as a ghost in front of him (or is he hallucinating?...), telling him she wants her wish granted. To do that he needs to get the old group together.The Cast: The cast is really small as this anime mainly focusses on our six friends. You will see how the death of their childhood friend affected each of the five other friends, how they feel about themselves and how they feel about one another. The developments and the struggles of the characters are the focus of this show, which I feel the show handled that superbly well.Meiko "Menma" Honma: Menma is one of these lovely and cheerful characters that you just have to love. She is a little naive but still the person everybody loves. She was seemingly the glue that kept the Super Peace Busters together and her unfortunate death is what gets our story rolling. Her death had a different impact on everybody due to their different relationships with her. Now, years after her death, she appears in front of Jinta and wants a wish granted. But what is that wish?Jinta "Jintan" Yadomi: Jintan was the leader of the Super Peace Busters but as he really liked Menma her death hit him really hard. To make matters worse his mother died around the same time, so he already had his fair share of grief and loss in his young life. He does not go to school and just hangs around in his room the whole day, displaying an unmotivated attitude. But this changes as Menma appears before him as a ghost with a wish, but is she really there or is he hallucinating?Naruko "Anaru" Anjou: Anaru is my waifu one of the three girls in our group of friends. She attends the same school as Jinta is supposed to be, and is his classmate. She really shows some harsh behaviour towards Jintan but under that surface she is worried about him as she cares for her old friend(s). As opposed to her rather shy and unobtrusive behaviour as a child she has grown into a girl that likes to go out and cares (too much) about make-up and clothing. She still has a big collection of manga and video games though and works in a part-time job.Atsumu "Yukiatsu" Matsuyuki: Yukiatsu seems to despise Jinta nowadays. Menma's death has taken its toll on him too but, on the surface, he seems to be over it. But as soon as she is mentioned he gets angry pretty easily. He and Tsuroko still see each other as they are both attending an elite school, so they are the only two members of the Super Peace Busters who are in contact on a regular basis, even years after Menma's accident. He is tall, good looking and really popular with most girls.Chiriko "Tsuruko" Tsurumi: Tsuroko attends the same school as Yukiatsu and seems to be a really serious person. She displays a cocky, phlegmatic and sometimes even cynical attitude. Especially Anaru has to endure some seriously harsh and unfriendly behaviour by her. Tsuroko and her connection to Yukiatsu is really non-transparent. They even have been mistaken as a couple but there are no feelings in between them or are there...?Tetsudou "Poppo" Hisakawa: Poppo was the smallest kid of the Super Peace Busters, overexcited, friendly and always loyal to Jintan. He hasn't changed much, besides his appearance, as he has grown into a huge guy. He didn't go to school for years as he rather travels around the world while making some money with part-time jobs. He is the first one to believe Jinta that he can see Menma and so he becomes Jinta's first ally in his quest to reunite the friends and fulfil Menma's wish.There are some more characters like Jintan's father, Anaru's it-girl friends or Menma's family but as I said earlier the focus is on these six characters.Animation: If you have seen Ao no Exorcist, OreImo, Magi, Fairy Tail, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso or Sword Art Online you should know that A-1 Pictures is capable of awesome things and AnoHana is on the very same level. The characters and backgrounds look awesome, especially the character's emotions which are very well done animation-wise. Also A-1 Pictures is one of the few studios capable of making characters look really cute without making them too moe or even moving to a fan-service direction.Sound: The AnoHana soundtrack is hands-down one of the most fitting soundtracks you will ever hear. There wasn't a single point were the soundtrack wasn't perfectly underlining and highlighting the mood and emotions of the scene. If you are looking for big orchestral pieces, this isn't your soundtrack. This soundtrack mainly uses the piano and some acoustic guitar in a really gentle and calm way.The voice acting was splendid in my opinion and the voice actors of our six friends all delivered flawless performances.The opening and the ending are each in my personal top 5 of all openings and endings and I cannot tell you how much I love both! There is no English dub thus far.Why should I watch AnoHana? Summary: If you are looking for an anime where the characters are mainly stereotype-free with exquisite character development this is your anime.If you are looking for an anime where the soundtrack and animation work hand in hand to perfectly highlight and underline every single scene, this is your anime.And most importantly if you are looking for a feel trip that will make you cry your eyes out, a feel trip in the same league as Clannad: After Story or Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, a feel trip which also has some warm and very light-hearted moments and is not just depressing, this is your anime.AnoHana handles some huge and difficult topics like friendship, death, grief and overcoming grief, jealousy and love. These are handled perfectly with a lot of sensitivity and delicacy. There was no reaction that felt unnatural or forced.Also I want to say: This anime has one of the most beautiful ends I've ever seen.TL;DR: AnoHana stands out as it perfectly handles some difficult topics with a lot of sensitivity. The characters and their developments and struggles are the main focus of the show and the show handles that perfectly. The animation and soundtrack both are awesome and fitting and I promise you this show will take you on a feel trip with an beautiful and satisfying end you won't forget. WT!Personal notes and final thoughts: There is also a movie which is mainly re-telling the story with some additional scenes. I recommend you watch the movie a few months after the anime as it maybe is a little boring if you watch them successively.I am aware that there are some people that dislike some parts of the anime and I am not saying it is perfect.People often say Jinta is stupid because he does (or doesn't do) things they would have done in his situation, as those things are the obvious things to do (in their opinion). I think you always need to consider his back-story and what that boy already went through in his young age.So if you watch it for the first time after reading this and you don't understand or like Jinta, you should wait until his back-story is revealed properly and then you should try to understand his struggle and pain as well as his decisions.I guess to really enjoy this anime you need at least a little empathy and I guess not all people have that attribute.If you are still here and not already (re)watching AnoHana I want to thank you for reading all of this. As this is my favourite anime in the 10 - 30 episodes area, it would mean a lot to me if I can get just a few people to watching it. I'm really looking forward to your comments. As I'm not a native English speaker I want to thank /u/Mega_Nerd for helping me out and counter-checking for mistakes.As soon as I was finished writing my WT! yesterday, I submitted a post here asking for help with the counter-checking. But not just Mega_Nerd but a lot of fellow redditors offered their help there so thank you to all of them. You just reminded me again how awesome the community of /r/anime is! http://ift.tt/1L3OhEV

[WT!] School Rumble

School Rumble: MyAnimeList, Hummingbird, Anime-Planet, AniDB, Anilist, Animenewsnetwork.Introduction: I just searched something in the awesome WT! Archive of this subreddit when I noticed that there is no WT! for School Rumble so I felt that it is time for me to create one. As this is my first WT! and I'm not a native English speaker (I'm German) I am looking forward to comments that include help, suggestions and advice on how to improve this. In this thread I'm talking about the first and second season of School Rumble. So before I get started the mandatory TL;DR is on the bottom.What is School Rumble?School Rumble is a romantic comedy from 2004/05 that easily stands out among others thanks to its light hearted humor, lovely soundtrack and outstandingly funny cast. Our main characters are Kenji Harima and Tenma Tsukamoto who are secretly in love. Oh you thought with each other? Well that's wrong. Kenji indeed has a crush on Tenma but she has one on another classmate of hers (I'll talk about him later). School Rumble is mainly about our two clumsy main characters trying to confess to their crush (in sometimes really unorthodox ways) which puts them in hilarious situations where you will find yourself facepalming and/or crying tears of laughter. But obviously they are not the only characters in the show. Some of the side characters are involved in the main lovey dovey part and they sometimes have some romances among themselves.The Cast:Kenji Harima: Ahh Kenji Harima... I could write you a 5000 characters essay about why he is my favourite character of all time but I'll try to keep it short. Kenji is our male lead and in love with Tenma. He is a delinquent who gets involved in a lot of fights and is feared among the other students. But he is one of the most misunderstood characters ever. And I mean literally misunderstood as his awkward attempts to confess to Tenma often end up with him looking like a pervert or even more like a "bad guy". His actions, reactions and interactions are some of the main sources for the comedy elements of this show. He is not just a man with thousands of nicknames (seriously look at his MAL) but he will also find himself in various different roles throughout the show like mangaka, fisher, sage or kappa which are just adding to the fun.Tenma Tsukamoto: Tenma our female lead is head over heels in love with her classmate Ouji Karasuma. She is not the brightest candle on the cake but makes up for that with her over the top motivation. Her attempts to confess to Karasuma-kun are really clumsy but some failures are not stopping her at all. She is like a hurricane of cheerfulness and you'll find yourself infected with that good mood she is having (most of the time).Ouji Karasuma: Karasuma-kun is a silent character who seems disinterested in everything. His facial expression is almost always the same and it is rare to see him emotional. But this contrast to Tenma (and actually most of the cast) is what makes him so funny. He is the calm and steady part in this very energetic anime. But there is one thing he loves more than everything else...Eri Sawachika: Every anime needs a tsundere am I right?IguessIam?AmI? Eri is one of Tenmas best friends. She comes from a rich family and occasionally expresses some snobbish behaviour. Eri finds herself fighting with Kenji really often. Those two just don't seem to get along well.Yakumo Tsukamoto: Yakumo is Tenma's younger sister (little sister wouldn't fit) and she cares deeply for Tenma. As she is not just beautiful but (in opposite to her sister) also smart it may come as no surprise that she is really popular at school. Especially Hanai-kun likes her a lot and has no hesitation demonstrating this to her. She has some mysterious additional sets of skills which lead to her not having a boyfriend yet.I could go on about the cast for hours but to keep it short: There are way more characters and most of them are very likeable and funny. There is Hanai, who I mentioned above, with his love for Yakumo and his rivalry with Kenji. Akira who is silent and smart and mostly unaffected by misunderstandings and there is Mikoto who is often the voice of reason (those two complete the group of friends around Tenma and Eri). There is Imadori who likes boobs, Lala the mexican wrestler, Buddha Nishimoto who is the leader of the perverts, Harry and Tougou the leaders of another class,...You see the cast is big but it is as good as it is big and you will find yourself caring for those characters and you'll love them in no time.Humor: As mentioned above there are a lot of characters that are funny but what kind of humor is to be expected here? A lot of scenes have the kind of humor that comes from unexpected character reactions. No sane person would react in the way e.g. Kenji does on multiple occasions. Also the misunderstandings caused by those reactions or solely misunderstandings caused by the characters stupid approaches to certain things are hands down hilarious. Another part is the slightly unrealistic touch some gags possess. I think it is pretty funny if an established character is tied to a kite and excluded from the show for a few episodes just to randomly fly through the sky in the background. But as I said earlier the main source of humor is the way characters interact in unexpected ways and the huge misunderstandings this will cause throughout the show.Animation: Well the animation is pretty decent for 2004 standards I'd say but I'm not an expert when it comes to that. In my honest opinion the character design as well as the backgrounds were really nice and also the humor and the emotions are very well complimented by the animation for example through chibi versions of the characters to underline those emotions.Sound: I personally really enjoyed the OST as it is really uplifting and fitting. Every scene uses a suitable track that highlights the mood of the scene perfectly. The openings and endings were really good imho. I definitely liked them all a lot. It's been about 3 years since I last watched it but I still listen to the OST occasionally. Also I think the seiyuus did an amazing job, especially Hiroki Takahashi, Ryousei Konishi and Ami Koshimizu nailed it.Why should I watch School Rumble? Summary: If you are looking for an anime that will make you laugh a lot, that has an awesome cast, a nice OST and one of the highest re-watch potentials ever then you've come to the right place. It is an high paced anime that that has an appealing humor and keeps its quality throughout the show. I cannot recall a single other anime that was so consistent with it's humor. School Rumble imho doesn't have a single boring episode.TL;DR: School Rumble has an awesome humor based on misunderstandings and unexpected interactions between characters, is consistent and doesn't get boring after a while. It has one of the most likeable and funny casts ever and the OST is very nice, the animation is decent and the re-watch potential high! WT!Personal notes and final thoughts: I want to say again that with this post I am referring to the first and second season of School Rumble. The show also has a two episodes OVA that is worth a watch. But KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF SAN GAKKI IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE MANGA.The first two seasons of School Rumble cover ~160 chapters of the manga that has 283 chapters in total. The San Gakki OVA skips most of the chapters and just covers the last few to bring the anime to a rushed conclusion that will confuse the not-manga-readers. I also do recommend the manga but you don't necessarily have to read it for the first two seasons. But if you want to watch San Gakki I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you read the manga first.If you are still here than I want to say thank you for reading all of this. Again I am not a native English speaker so please don't be too hard on me. I'm really looking forward to your comments. http://ift.tt/1Erbh42