Anime of the Week
If you’re in the mood to watch one of the saddest anime, here is Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day is an anime original created by the Super Peace Busters. They consist of Director Tatsuyuki Nagai, screenwriter Mari Okada, Character Designer Masayoshi Tanaka.
The production studio behind the anime was A-1 Pictures. They are known for anime such as Sword Art Online, Your Lie in April, and Fairytail.
Anohana aired in 2011, a manga was released the following year. In 2013 a film sequel was released. It took place one year after the end of the anime series, and included the different perspectives of each character.
Check out last week’s Anime of the Week: Girls Band Cry
Synopsis
Five childhood best friends who drifted apart reunite in their high school years when the ghost of one of their friends appears. She demands them to help her grant her final wish before passing. The group once called the Super Peace Busters help each other move on from the traumatic event they experienced that fateful day.
What I Liked
Story
The Super Peace Busters: Jintan, Menma, Tsuruko, Poppo, Anaru and Yukiatsu are the main characters of this story. They were best friends in middle school, always hanging out at their ‘secret base’, an old shack in the mountains. The group was formed to maintain peace.
However the passing of Menma, one of their members, led them to drift apart. Now in high school, Menma’s ghost appears in front of Jintan and says that she had a wish to fulfill before passing. The thing is that only he can see Menma, the other members can’t.
All the characters are complex and have their own personalities. They have their own way of dealing with the tragedy that they experienced, which makes them realistic and relatable.
Climax of the Story
The story begins in a lighthearted fashion. The first half of this anime is getting to know each of the members, and the Super Peace Busters eventually coming back together.
The second half of the story is where it turns, this is where Anohana gets its reputation of being one of the saddest anime out there. The atmosphere of the story gets more heavy and serious.
The final couple episodes were my favorite of the series. There were a lot of emotional scenes, they really tug on your heart strings.
The Super Peace Busters have a revelation of sorts, we discover secrets that each member was hiding from one another, and why they have been hiding it. It’s hard to write about it without spoiling the majority of the plot.
Voice Acting
Japanese Cast:
Miyu Irino as Jintan
Ai Kayano as Menma
Haraku Tomatsu as Anaru
Takahiro Sakurai as Yukiatsu
Saori Hayami as Tsuruko
Takayuki Kondo as Poppo
I think this was the best thing about the anime. As I mentioned, there are a lot of emotional scenes in the second half of the anime. The voice acting was amazing for those scenes, you really feel the emotion of the voice actors as if they personally experienced the tragedy themselves. Many of these voice actors went on to do more major roles in anime.
Soundtrack
The opening track (OP) and the ending track (ED) are iconic. As I’ve mentioned before I don’t speak Japanese, however they sound great. You don’t need to know the language to feel the emotion.
The ED is so iconic that on the 10th anniversary of the airing of Anohana, the artist re-recorded the song.
Would I Recommend You Watch Anohana?
If you are in the mood to cry for whatever reason, Anohana is considered one of the saddest anime. I re-watched it recently and I forgot how sad this anime actually is.
Anohana is over 10 years old yet everything about the anime still holds up. People can also relate to some of the aspects of the story such as a close friend group drifting apart because of something.
Another relatable aspect is the suppression of emotion. I’m sure everyone does this, and you can’t fault the characters in the anime for it. It’s easy to say that the anime could be two or three episodes if the revelation happened earlier. But it isn’t like that in real life either.
Going back to the question of ‘would I recommend you watch Anohana?’ Yes I would. It’s one of those dramas that sticks with you for various reasons.
