Japanophile Isle

Favorite Anime of 2008 so far? (of those that started in 2008)

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After taking my sweet time to go over this True Tears anime, I browsed the different aniblogs to see what the consensus was. Frankly, I did not like what I saw. No, not because the scores didn’t reflect my thoughts about the show, it was because I was met with a parade of innocent demagoguery.

Let me clarify: True Tears was not received by the right people. I believe the Anime Blog community was ill prepared for what True Tears was. The main point of my criticism is that reviewers were completely absorbed by the aesthetic characteristics that they made me think that they were half-asleep when watching the show! The animation, characters and music were only the facade of the work of art that True Tears was.

With that out of the way, here starts my actual appreciation of the show. When I said “work of art” just before, I was making an allusion to the subtle art, the overarching art. More particularly, the role of Isurugi Noe and the essence of the show. Many a reviewers sided with a character and went for a 13 episode ride, like they were watching some American soap. True Tears was NOT a harem anime, it was not some emotional joyride. It was a philosophical statement about life and love.

This is where I’m expected to deliver. What is this Philosophical statement right? It was about seeing clear in one’s desires, being true to love. Recall episode 12, where Hiromi was asking Noe to stay away. Hiromi was crying and she said “I’m acting selfishly I know but… ” and Noe responded: “It’s alright, your tears are beautiful.” What went on there was important, Noe wasn’t subscribing to an American view of love as a possession, Noe didn’t view Hiromi as a boyfriend “stealing” whore. She saw her as an honest girl, seeing clear in her emotions. To her, the truer the tears, the more beautiful they are. She prided herself in seeing people clearly.

When, finally, she saw that she misgauged her brother’s feelings and shin’ichiro’s too, her self-esteem and quest were at an all time low. How could she ever find someone-who-can-fly’s tears if she couldn’t see clearly anymore? I believe that is what explained her attempt at suicide when she launched herself off a tree.

My main conclusion approaches now, bear with me. I went over some mysterious element last paragraph, Isurugi Noe’s quest for the one who can fly. What did THAT mean? Why did her grandma want her to find a man’s tears? My theory on that is that the grandma knew about Jun’s sister-complex. She didn’t want Noe to end up with Jun so she made it so that Noe couldn’t cry until she found another man’s true tears. She couldn’t cry because of Jun, he was the reason she promised her tears away. That’s the allusion Jun made on the roof of the hospital in the final episode. Jun wanted Shin’ichirou to be the man with the tears but it didn’t turn out that way and Jun couldn’t forgive him for that.

IN CONCLUSION *takes a breath* Noe was an accessory in the story. She made Aiko, Shin’ichirou and Hiromi see clear in love. Why is that important? Because it’s already been done before! recall the scene where Noe was leaving while Shin’ichirou was screaming that he loved Hiromi. It was a carbon copy of a scene in Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien. One of the final scenes, when Haruka left her wheelchair and finally walked away, saying good-bye and acknowledging her role as an accessory.

Bah bah bah, I know I could go on and bash it ad nauseum right now in a pretentious rant, but I’m not going to, fear not. Sure, True Tears is guilty of milking the theme of seeing clearly in emotions, which is already very present in Asian culture. Also of basically stealing a scene from Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien, I know. I still think it was a rather tasty copycat, with a lot redeeming aesthetic features like I talked about earlier. For that, I give it a:

4.5/5

Now if you know someone with real reviews, going over the meat of what he works with, please let me know in the comments. I remember stumbling upon a guy like that during the reign of Ergo Proxy. It was magnificent.

Adrian’s take: I’m an emotional viewer. Ultimately every story lives and dies by it’s ability to make me feel emotions and empathize with characters. True Tears achieved that. I disagree that it’s somewhat wrong to cheer for one of the girls, this series manages to create such believable and simply alive characters that it’s natural to care for them enough to even cheer for them and wish failure to their rivals.
To me True Tears was an emotional roller coaster when it comes to characters, especially Hiromi. I started with a dislike to her, then hated her after she was sending conflicting signals (and bragging about her “love” for Jun). But then when the “you could be my oni-chan” revelation camed I actually accepted that, understood it and started to pity Hiromi, slowly warming up her. Which shows how remarkably well it was handled. It’s not easy to make viewer forgive a character he hated for such a long time. And yet I did “forgive her” and with each episode I liked her character more and more. In the end I was happy with the ending, the love confession was touching and after all the drama the show ended surprisingly with 100% happy ending.
Shin ultimately has chosen the girl who will make him happy. Noe couldn’t really do that, not the way Hiromi could. What Noe offered was inspiration, she wasn’t the true love, she was a muse. And in the end Shin didn’t need to be fed with red seeds anymore, he could walk forward on his own, even without Noe. But he couldn’t be truly happy without Hiromi, so the choice was obvious.
What’s also beautiful is that this actually managed to strength Noe. And after all the hardship Hiromi deserved happiness, so justice prevailed once again ^_^
Yeah…I’m a sucker for happy endings it seems.

Oh… and I simply can not get over how beautiful the main theme is. Reflectica ( the OP), while still great simply butchers the beauty of this melody. I’ve been listening to track 33 (Omoi wo Oitekite ~Reflect Tier~) of the OST at least couple times a day since the show ended.

Overall great series and must watch for anyone with even slight interest in romance and human drama. And wow..what a debut for new animation studio!

rating: 8.8/10

Most notable this week was the Finale to True Tears. This episode 13 brought a close to one of my personal favorites this season. As with all things good that happen to end, it is always too unfortunate. Such a heartwarming series.

Episode 22 and 23 of Clannad have hit this week, some of us are happy that episodes keep coming but probably more of us are at the tip of their seats hoping for the fall of Clannad that will give birth to more of Haruhi, according to some prophets.