True Tears

Synopsis: Shinichiro Nakagami is a rather ordinary high school student in almost every way except for his brilliance with visual arts. There's something about his artistic vision that keeps him going back to the motif regarding tears, most likely stemming from Hiromi Yuasa's (a girl who had recently moved into his home when her parents died) circumstances. While outwardly, Hiromi seems to show no sorrow and is actually very upbeat and energetic at school, when at home, her demeanor changes and she is much more solemn. Hiromi's behavior towards Shinichiro is already causing him quite a bit of frustration, and a chance meeting with Noe Isurugi only increases the amounts of frustrations even further. Noe is different from most other girls in that she's eccentric, mysterious, and is rumored to have the power to curse others, and yet she and Shinichiro form a bond rather quickly. How things will progress is up in the air, but it's evident that Shinichiro must be able to help each girl resolve and reconcile past events.

Thoughts: There's something about this series that just managed to grab at my attention despite being a really slow-paced series. It's not an immediate and obvious element that I can immediately put my finger upon but I can say from what I've seen so far that True Tears does such a magnificent job of dangling tantalizing bits in front of us such as hinting at the depths of the characters, providing us with beautiful animation and artwork, and giving us a beautiful soundtrack composed by Hajime Kikuchi.

The overwhelming focus of this series is going to be on the characters' personalities and relationships in light of the tragedies which have occurred in the past. Already, the characters have been presented with quite a few surface details that provoke curiosity within the viewer and there's definitely more that can be delved into. In fact, the first episode reveals quite a bit of the breadth of issues that they'll cover, but they've yet to reveal to us the depth, and that's where the series has the opportunity to make the biggest impact. As such, it's no exaggeration to say that I look forwards eagerly to each new episode.

While there's a very high chance that this could become a mindless harem, the first episode indicates otherwise. This show certainly takes its tone much more somberly, which means that we may just be in store for a most excellent plot as the issues and problems face are brought to the forefront (without resulting in any boats, nice or otherwise). There's a chance that they could mess it up somewhere along the line, but that possibility looks to be remote as this has been an extremely strong start. Definitely a strong contender for best new show this season.

Links: (Ai-Doremi subs)
Episode 1 (avi) (mkv)
Episode 2 (avi) (mkv)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Cetra

I find it a bit odd, but after watching the first two episodes I'm really hoping for a straight up, oldschool romantic anime void of any major life tragedies. I think I'm just burned out from ef, Sola, Myself Yourself, etc.

Shouldn't you be watching something like Kimikiss if that's the case? :V

How ya doing, buddy?

Well, some of us aren't exactly watching anime because it was a good reflection of real life. Otherwise I'd fear the day some guy walks up to me and bankais my ass. Point taken though and it would be nice to throw in more divorce cases or the other examples you mentioned.

In the case of True Tears, it's somewhat understandable because Hiromi needs to have a good reason to move in with Shinichiro. I suppose they could have made her parents divorced or something but the impact of the circumstance IMO wouldn't be nearly as strong and would lead to viewers pondering why she wasn't living with one parent or the other.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.