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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Watch | 6 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 7 | Xenoknight | # |
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A young boy confronted with the issues of falling in love and finding the strength to realize his true emotions (fly)... "A very dramatic story", I thought to myself as I watched it straight through. In a pattern vaguely similar to the masterpiece H2O: Footprints in the Sand, the series gets into the highly dramatic issues right from the beginning. From ep 3 onward the story gets more and more dramatic and just when the viewer might think it will "level out" for a few episodes, the plot comes around full circle and continues the dramatic climb of events whether the viewer was ready to continue or not! I loved this aspect of the anime. I hoped for one or two eps where I could manage my thoughts of the events so far (just a recap for myself mainly) but that opportunity never presented itself. It was "keep up" or "fall behind" with this title! No stops on the express "drama" train... (LOL) The events themselves are nothing to sneeze at. We have the main lead and a very "unique" situation involving three girls. One - he liked since childhood, two - he initially started dating per an agreement, and three - is him being pursued by the girlfriend of his best friend! The family of the main lead is in shambles as it is with the "enormous" burden the parents must to carry about one of the main female leads. Through a portion of the story the viewer is led to believe that the main lead and one of the female leads are siblings. This would explain the massive foreshadowing of the supposed "wierd actions" of the mother, but later the viewer discovers that this isn't the case and that there was a misunderstanding! (Just when all possible story outcomes can be predicted, the writers throw this shocker into the mix! Truly a shocker indeed.) The problem I had was that the story left this issue unfinished and it just continues like I had to just make a story up myself or just pay it no mind. This is a big flaw in the story events and this issue was crucial to getting the "train" (story) on the right track to the ending destination. How can they leave it unknown like that? They never go into detail about just what exactly happened back then in the past with the parents and what was the mother's hatred towards a certain character was. At one time the viewer is led to believe the father cheated on his wife with another woman, thus putting them all in this situation but that never was the case! With no answer by ep 9, the viewer just has to let the issue go and that is unacceptable! I called this flaw, "a boulder on the train tracks" and it certainly did do a substantial amount of damage to the train in my eyes. Aside from that, the story was enjoyable and there are plenty of shockers and unbelievable situations to last a lifetime. It was nothing super special, but it was far more than "just" a 13 episode romantic school drama. I definitely recommend watching it once but I wouldn't want it on my shelf of anime purchases. The anime art style and animation instantly reminded me of Boys Be - just below average if not outright terrible. A dramatic counterpart to this anime would be Hanaukyo Maid Tai La Verite or Myself; Yourself. Both of those titles will fill the hunger of drama fans. Check out my award list to see some of the best anime titles in the world! Never forget Xenosaga. Last updated Wednesday, December 10 2008. Created Tuesday, September 30 2008. | ||||||||
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| Rent | Forbin | # | ||||||
Analysis : 9 Fansubs watched
Damn, Bandai grabbed it before I could finish it
Last updated Monday, March 03 2008. Created Wednesday, January 30 2008. | ||||||||
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| Watch | Stretch | # | ||||||
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(Watch+ or Rent-) (All episodes watched): Early on, I was getting frustrated that this show wasn't explaining it's basic premise very well, but as the episode went on a more satisfactory description came together. It seems Shinichiro is familiar with three girls: Hiromi, who is quiet and sullen since she became an orphan six months ago; Noe, who is somewhat odd and doesn't mind putting curses on people; and Ai-chan, the tomboy type. And that about sums up episode one; I detect neither anything outstanding nor anything particularly bad about this show, but am willing to continue watching. I was fearing it might be very generic, but a scene at the end of this episode had a sort of book-like feel to it (i.e, suggestive that this series is based on a well thought-out book rather than having been thrown hastily together by scriptwriters). For some reason I mentally grouped True Tears along with the concurrent series H2O: Footprints in the Sand, perhaps because both involved a sort of love triangle. True Tears definitely had no supernatural elements and struck me as more restrained. That is, a slice-of-life show with little wild action, mainly just characters struggling to overcome ordinary coming of age problems. Noe was my favorite character (not counting Jibeta), since her touch of weirdness gave her a litle uniqueness. I find it hard to characterize the others. Maybe they were a little too ordinary and could have used a bit more eccentricity in order to identify with them. For example, at one point Shinichiro agonizes over his inability to face up to problems; but I was surprised--He had seemed a perfectly normal boy, without any major faults to me. A sidenote: what business was Shinichiro's father in? a sake distillery? Was that other boy an apprentice of his? By the final episode it was obvious that one of the three girls was no longer a serious contender for Shinichiro's heart, and the question was which of the other two would come out ahead. I had a feeling I knew which it would be, but felt it could still go either way. In the end, one gets to be Shinichiro's girlfriend and the other gets something else very valuable, so no hard feelings. That worked well, but I also felt kind of confused; I wish it had been made more clear (even to someone who's not paying complete attention) whether Noe has learned to cry in a healthy manner, how Shinichiro's book ends, whether it's been accepted for publication, etc. I wasn't all that thrilled or moved by the outcome, but it was satisfactory. For some reason the fansubbers provided an alternate version of the climactic scene in which they took some liberties with the dialogue (like including the F-word at one point), but all-in-all I wonder why they bothered. Anyway, True Tears was a nice show, well worth watching and maybe renting as well, though I doubt if I'll watch it yet again. I almost typed that I doubted if this would be licensed, being so slice-of-life Japanese--except I notice that it already has been! Last updated Tuesday, April 01 2008. Created Thursday, January 10 2008. | ||||||||
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Other Sites
| Name | URL |
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| La'cryma site for the True Tears visual novel | http://lacryma.info/truetears/ |
| japanese | |
| Official page for the True Tears TV series | http://www.truetears.jp/ |
| japanese | |
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