Ano Hana, the shortened name for Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai is what I will be reviewing today. The story is about five friends that drifted apart after their friend died. When Jintan starts to see their dead friend Menma, he ends up bringing the group back together to help her get her wish and move on to heaven.
Jintan doesn't know how to react to Menma in the beginning.
The story for Ano Hana is quite good. It goes between the past and present quite often to help tell the whole story. The flashbacks are a key point to the story and not just a tacked on story arc. At one point it gets a little bit repetitive with one flashback in particular, but it did not really stop me from enjoying the show. The story shows a lot about how people deal with death when they feel guilty about the person dying. It showed people who are visibly hurt by the death and those who seem to have moved on, but have not. I think that the story handled the subject well. I would have liked more detail into how things went with the characters at the end, but I almost always do.
Flashbacks are used quite often in this show.
The characters are all very well developed. Through the course of the show you get to see many sides of them, which is different from many shows. By the end of the show the characters have grown and changed for the better. Seeing this growth is very refreshing.
The group is playing Nokemon to try to fulfill Menma's wish.
The animation and backgrounds for the show were very nice and the characters were each very distinctive. I did wonder in the beginning though about which character was each child from the flashbacks. They probably should have made them look a bit more like their grown up versions. I especially had a hard time with the bald kid. Even if the two looks were not always the most obvious they were both still well animated. The closing was especially pretty and I loved the falling flowers throughout.
Overall this show has it all good story, wonderful character development, and nice to look at. I would give it a 5/5.
Menma approves of the score.
Thanks for your review, it’s nice to read about my favorite show 🙂
Ano Hana is definitely the best show I’ve seen in this year so far. Everything from the show, including the plot, characters building, animation, music etc was so great. Like you mentioned before, I also want to know more about their life after, yet it’s still a pretty good ending that I cried and smiled at the same time.
One thing that held me back to give a perfect score maybe the over complex (a little bit IMO) romance relationship between girls and boys. But well, maybe I’m just out of the age 😀
PS: Menma is definitely one of my top favorite characters. She’s so adorable, lively, and does have a so-kind heart that lighten and warm up everybody around. And her voice, so sweet and adorable, specially when she called “Jintan”, thanks to the seiyu (Ai Kayano, which I searched from Google :P).
Thanks again your review and sorry for my bad English
When i saw the last episode i cry so much