Tuesday, July 7, 2009

True Tears


"Because I gave my tears away"

That line made me a fan of this anime and of that character.

This anime is brewed with drama, angst, romance and cuteness. It would have been perfect if I were the kind of girl who loved the normal typical love story. I don't. Nevertheless I still love it. It reminds me of Clannad and Kanon, minus the comedy. There are several scenes that would make you cry a river.

There are three female leads who typically chase after one male lead. It might be considered as a harem but don't let that discourage you since it was well written. The anime takes a rather different approach in dealing with the multi-layer relationships and since they only have 3 females instead of >10, the relationship between the characters are intricate, fragile and well developed. Throughout the episodes, you will see Shinichirou (the male protagonist) trying to choose between three different girls; Noe, Hiromi and Aiko. Noe is the odd girl whom he met at school. She is straight-forward and managed to pull that naievity persona without being overly cute and obnoxious. She is the catalyst for some of the important occurence in the anime. Hiromi is the girl Shinichiro has a crush on since childhood. She lives under the same roof and have to endure the sneerings from Shinichiro's mother. Aiko is the girlfriend of Shinichiro's best friend, Nobuse but in truth she gets together with Nobuse because she wants to get closer to Shinichiro.

So like it said, the relationships are very complex.

There can be two outcomes for the ending of this anime. Either you love it or you hate it. I happened to be the later. I cried my eyes out watching the final episode of True Tears because I was so fucking disappointed and pissed beyond believe. If it wasn't of the ending, I would have give it 10 out of 10. Animation-wise, it would certainly lives up to fans' expectation. Likewise for the music. The OP is by eufonius which quickly becomes one of my fav J-pop song.
This wonderful romance series will forever have a place in my anime romance list which include Honey and Clover, Nana and LovelyComplex.

I have found my true tears. Will you?



Graphics 9/10
Sound 9/10
Storyline 9/10
Characters 8/10
Overall 9/10

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

thx alot......:)

kluxorious said...

urgh why must you chose THIS amv?! >_<

Maniak said...

whats wrong with the amv i've chosen?

kluxorious said...

because i fucking hate that whore.

kluxorious said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sapphire Pyro said...

I don't think Aiko had ever been Shinichirou's choice. He didn't really like her romantically. It's been one-sided from beginning to end.

Relationships here had been complex indeed, and I'm happy that this hasn't been a typical romance anime. I had like this series a lot.

My favorites had been Noe (I love weird girls) and Jun (I'm a sucker for cute guys with sister complexes xD haha)

Anyway, this had been a really good series but I don't think clannad could be compared to this (I didn't last more that one episode of kanon). I love clannad but storywise it's not as good as true tears, imho. hehe

kluxorious said...

oh god @__@

*highfive!*

I LOVE Noe and the near-missed incest with Jun ^^"

aiko wasn't even in the equation.

Just so you know, I hate both endings of Clannad and Kanon. Just like I hate this one. So maybe that's where I found the similarity?

kk said...

In true tears,I thought that the characterization was superb for the four main character's as well(Shin,Hiromi,Noe and jun) .



I disagree with you on Ai because I don't think that she was a main character though.She was pretty much a deep side character to me though less than Hiromi and Noe and I agree she was not developed as much as them and you know why -because Ai was used as a symbolic placement in this show though many ppl failed to understand her purpose ,her less screen time play was also intentional ,Ai had so many internal conflicts/guilt's as well .she was the most realistic person in that show because if you focus on her very small side story ,you would noticed that she made the most mistakes and she was not just there to make this show a harem show and increase the fan base like what ppl gave her credit for .Ai was there to lose and face harsh reality and pay the price for her sins ..lol ,I don't see why ppl count her out ,the end is Hiromi ,Noe is the girl with the tears she lost and Ai was the one with the ill-fate. Her theme was 'moving on from you first love because it's unhealthy ' It's true that Hiromi and Noe were deep character's with tragic background stories but Ai's love for Shin was very destructive(full of self-loathing) and based on her fantasies .True Tears is not a harem show and it was never like that .The reason why most of you count her out is cuz she never stood a chance which made her easily neglected by the fans of this show but the whole losing was necessary for her story ,for her to move on and find true love and I think that that the writers did an amazing job on portraying her as a character .She was just a side character after all and for them to give her more development maybe asking a bit too much in my opinion simply because of how the story was written .In other words Ai was used to give this show a sense of realism and without her ,we wouldn't have a realistically portrayed female in this Show .The whole story is about Shin's heart wavering between Noe and Hiromi and Ai was simply not part of it but the writer's used the destiny card with her ..We could see this as her struggle to be like Hiromi and Noe in terms of complexity and character which itself is something deep ,I've read an interview with the writer and he said that he wrote Ai as this dark girl who wanted to try it more and so she became stronger and stronger(more selfish) because she wanted to fit in with the other girls but she was also fighting many obstacles and conflicts with her feelings like what her voice actress said .I'm not saying that the other characters are not realistic but Ai's situation was something you could defiantly see in the real world because she never stood a chance .I myself didn't think she was deep at first like you but after I re-watched this then I knew these facts. There's actually so much to her than just a third harem girl with no purpose and that 's why I believe the writing for true tears was superb for both main characters and side characters..but then again this is just my opinion based on what I saw and they are so many ppl like yourself who thinks she was pointless which is a pity really ..Ai was ambiguous/dark character because she was not deeply delve into like Hiromi or Noe and instead left for the fans to analyze..She got shafted a ton in this anime in terms of character screen time and fate but it was intentional by the writer –he wanted to screw Ai's character and destroy her chances-so he can focus on the two main girls instead which is if you ask me a harsh way to present and treat a character ..I think it was the easiest way to make their third heroine special –she was more of a symbolic heroine rather than a normal/hermetic candidate..10/10 for the writer's.. I find it strange that I can write this much on Ai even though she wasn't giving much screen time play but it proves that she is a deep character in her own way ..


Poor Ai-needs more love ,Hiromi and Noe have way too many ..

kk said...

Sorry , it was way too long but I wanted to help ppl understand the purpose of Ai in this story ..

I loved the ending and I'm glad he chose Hiromi..

Noe didn't even get a sad ending ,she got her tears and became an emotionl complete person

I also didn't really care for all the shipping war cuz I'm an Ai fan..I just loved her story ..

kluxorious said...

Sorry. I just didn't care about either Aiko, Shin or Hiromi.

Each to his/her own.

kk said...

I liked all character's in this show and not just Noe but I was just trying to make ppl understand Ai's character a bit more cuz ppl seem to count her out all the times.

Maniak said...

@kk, wanna join our team? ^^

kk said...

ok ^^

Maniak said...

@kk, could you please write us an email so taht we could establish a connection at animenerdz@rocketmail.com ?

kk said...

Sure ^^

madfoxy12@hotmail.com

To me this anime falls into the white album ,school days.kgne list's .Your depressing ,romance drama .True Tears had so many heavy scences though not as much as school days but it almost went that way -Aiko=Sekai ..

It was nothing like clannad ,clannad didn't have those dark/freaky character's we saw in true tears .Clannad didn't focus much on love traingles ,it was more a bout faimly .

kluxorious said...

like i said, the only similarity about clannad and true tears was that I hate both endings ^^"