Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day Review

Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai (We Still Don't Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day)

often shortened to Anohana

Genre: drama, tradgedy, romance, slice of life
Format: 11 episodes (24min)

Anohana is the story of a group of high-schoolers who were good friends as children until a tragic event causes these individuals to go their separate ways.

Our lead protagonist is Yadomi (Jin-tan) who has become something of a recluse - a hikikomori if you like. He is pestered by a vision of one of his childhood friends, Menma. It was her death that caused the breakup of their clique.

At first he thinks that this vision is the result of his stress but he quickly learns that Menma is more than that. She requests that Yadomi grants her her wish but she doesn't know what this wish is. Only Yadomi can see Menma and though she can interact with the physical world to an extent, only he can see this.

This leads to the group of former friends to get back together in an attempt to grant Menma's wish. Naturally not everything goes smoothly. Some of Yadomi's friends think he's crazy and why wouldn't they? He's a hikki who sees ghosts. It is also clear that the group have not quite managed to come to terms with her death and that there are still tensions amongst them from their childhood days.

They try various things in an attempt to grant Menma's wish. 

This forces them to talk about their emotions and feelings which have been suppressed for so long which helps them gain an understanding of each other – something which they were not able to do since their sudden breakup as children. There is also a romantic element to the show which consists of love triangles and unrequited love which Menma is also part of, adding an interesting twist to it.

Ano Hana is a heart-warming story of reconciliation, acceptance, friendship and love.

It has beautiful artwork and animation and diverse and unique characters. It's not just that the

characters alone are interesting but their interactions as a group in the past and now the present,

is what makes Ano Hana so brilliant. It's masterfully paced and delicately poignant yet uplifting.

It comes with my highest recommendation.

Anjou "Anaru" Naruko

I decided to just add this as an extra after the review. Anaru is an awesome character. She's fashionable, good looking, has a great personality, a great body, huge tits and she plays video games. In other words, she's every geek's dream girl and she doesn't exist in the real world.

No shiny pidgey nonsense here!
She was also wearing hipster glasses before hipsters made them (un)cool.