true tears review
It’s difficult to find an anime nowadays that keeps you in suspense whilst being incredibly original and well-directed at the same time. True Tears is one of those that branch off from your standard romance archetype by taking a more atypical approach to the genre, introducing numerous plot twists and surprise elements which serve to confound the viewer in a positive sense. It’s amazing what they’ve been able to cover in 13 episodes, or perhaps this is the freedom associated with having no source material to adhere to? The producers are free to script the show how they wish; conversely, when you have something there to make comparisons to, you’re more than likely to find those overly-critical people who have to pick out flaws in everything - plot holes, retroactive continuity, etc - you name it. Not to say that it won’t happen anyway, but I think I’ve read too much of the “x didn’t use y!“. Anyhow, I digress, as the fact remains that I made no mistake in picking this title up.
Admittedly, I’m extremely content with how the series played out; I wasn’t sure what to expect when I watched it at first as my knowledge regarding the series was zilch, being pretty much an original work after all. The True Tears anime itself only shares one similarity with an existing work, with that similarity being in name-only, the rest was more-or-less conceived from scratch, or loosely modeled after real life, non-anime related sources. In pretty much all the prominent aspects, the show really stood out from the crowd; the animation itself alluding fairly high production values and the direction being very distinct, unlike many recent titles, that is to say it was prodigious; True Tears is extremely atmospheric, being stylised to emulate a more realistic mood which is very contrasting when you pit it against many others. Given that I was intrigued from the first episode and it kept me captivated until the very end, I guess to watch something from an impartial perspective can surprise you at times if the show is that awesome, and what do you know? It was; True Tears is definitely one of the biggest sleeper hits for me in quite some time, and I don’t mean to jump on the bandwagon but my favourite girl in the series won too!
Really though, to bring forward such a positive momentum from the onset while maintaining it completely throughout is not a trivial task to achieve; the entire time, nothing felt dragged out, nor did it harbour the trait of progressing too hastily. The plot progressed at the most natural pace I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing in quite some time, the characters all exhibited very lifelike and believable personalities, and the cliffhanger endings never felt like they were too revealing in nature, yet were always suggestive in a very misleading sense; they always gave birth to convictions about the upcoming content which were usually up for some heavy debate, triggering that proactive mindset that something was about to take a 180 degree turn, even though that notion wasn’t completely evident.
One thing that got me about the series is that it wasn’t moving to the point where you’d spill tears. I speculate that the reason for this may be because I’ve been slightly desensitised by some of the more tear-jerking dramas like Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, in addition to Type-MOON’s works (namely Tsukihime and Fate/stay night) finished up with KEY’s tri-legacy (Clannad, Kanon and especially Planetarian) - all of them at some point had you ultimately writhing in anticipation for the next painful yet more-or-less expected turn of events; however, in hindsight I don’t believe that was the case. True Tears doesn’t seem like the type of series that’s scripted with the intent of making you baw excessively at it takes a more unconventional approach; rather than leaving the viewer with a feeling of melancholy as he/she/they/it are forced to sit through scene after scene of painful events, it keeps things going with its excellent momentum, spectacularly timed cliffhanger moments, and its share of absorbing plot twists which just kept you guessing what would happen next; if I were to sum it up, True Tears amounts to a very simplistic, yet compelling fundamental plotline which revolves around the additional use of metaphors to keep it going, and still manages to find a fantastic way to express itself thoroughly. Absolutely beautiful.
About as bland as the original
I also broke my personal record of nine entries in a month (October 2007, which was when this blog was created) with this post.
ENDING = WIN. THAT’S IS ALL.
Yeah True Tears was pretty good. I’m not sure if I can call it a “great” show, but at the very least, it beat the other series this season. Cool review!
I really enjoy those metaphor from this work. Like in the beganing, they use a lot of scene to display hiromi’s dressing. It was kinda strange to see those scene at first, but soon after i began to realize it was on shin-ichiro’s view to express a young boy’s feeling and thought about a same age young girl under the same roof. And switching character’s view is also impressive, like when the busybody shin-ichiro making a date for hiromi’s double side monologue.
It is a very atmospheric intricate animation, I’ve repeatly seen all the episode like two times to catch everyone’s thought. However it doesn’t stop my motivation to keep watching this.