Name: True Tears
Genre: Romance, Drama, Comedy
Episodes: 13
Aired: January 5, 2008 – March 29, 2008
Based On: True Tears visual novel game by La’cryma
Director: Junji Nishimura
Produced By: P.A. Works, Bandai Visual
US Distribution By: Bandai Visual/Bandai Entertainment

Cast

Review

True Tears is about a boy named Shinichiro who is part of a love pentagon.  First, there is Hiromi, a childhood friend of Shinichiro who now lives with him and his parents after her father passed away the previous year.  However, Shinichiro’s mother seems cold to Hiromi for some reason.  Next, it’s yet another childhood friend of Shinichiro, Aiko, who runs a bakery after school, where Shinichiro and his friend Miyokichi spend much of their time.  However, despite Aiko’s crush on Shinichiro, she accepted being Miyokichi’s girlfriend after he confessed and Shinichiro urged her to accept.

Finally, there is Noe.  Noe is seen as a rather strange girl at school, about whom there are many rumors (such as her ability to curse people).  She has been encouraging one of the chickens which are kept at the school, Raigomaru, to fly.  However, Raigomaru is suddenly killed by a racoon, and so Noe sees Shinichiro as her new object of affection, wanting to see him “fly.”  She also says that she’s given her tears away, and only someone very close can give her her tears back.

Shinichiro himself isn’t sure what he thinks of all this, and tries to spend his time writing picture books in hopes of eventually being accepted into an art school.

The good things about this series include the fact that I thought it was, overall, very well written and thought out.  There were several points of drama including all three of the main females, and all of them were executed in a way that made the story entertaining and dramatic.  There were plenty of good plot twists, and they were often twists that one knew something was wrong, but didn’t know exactly what until the show pulled the twist on you.  Others have noted that, this also seems to be one of the few “pure” love-triangle/rectangle/pentagon/moreagon shows where the entire show is just…normal.  No supernatural goings on.  No wild outlandish happenings.  Just people trying to figure out what they want to do.  I think that, almost more than anything else, explains why this show excelled so much.

On top of the story is added some of the best consistent animation quality I think I’ve seen anywhere.  Sometimes a series will start out strong with animation and then the quality will drop, but the animation in True Tears was flabbergasting (I was trying to find a word to go beyond mere “amazing”) all the way through.  And just to pile on, the music was very good as well.

If there is a weakness, and some people could argue that this isn’t really a weakness, is that some things are left unsaid.  What happens to the “primary loser” at the end of the show?  Or hell, for the winners at that?  I think there is still a lot of uncertainty left about many things when the show ends, but then again, one can say that that’s real life as well.

Overall, if you’re one who likes these romance so-called harem shows, and don’t mind that this is a really down-to-earth version of one, then I definitely think that you’d like True Tears.

Scores

Story: 5/5
Animation: 5/5
Music: 5/5
English Dubs: N/A

Overall: 5/5

First Watched: January 2008; August 2009
Do I Own: Yes
Do I Recommend: Yes

Akira and friends head towards Kyoko’s summer place with Akira’s brother driving the van. Waiting for them is Ko and his mother’s sister, who gives everyone a tour of the house. Along the way, Fumi admires a painting hanging on the way, and Ko’s aunt tells her that it’s Kyoko’s. The girls then go to play tennis why the guys go out for a nice game of golf.

After tennis, Kyoko leads the girls down a trail. She tells them that when she was little, she got lost on the trail, but Ko found her. Yoko, Miwa, and Misako decide to check out the spot so Kyoko, Akira, and Fumi follow. Along the way, there is a steep drop, so naturally, Akira slips and falls right into Fumi.

The next day, the group decides to go camping at a nearby campground. That night they decide to do a test of courage, with the goal of picking some lilies that were next to the river they visited before on the trail. Kyoko and Fumi go together, where Fumi tells Kyoko that she liked her painting. Kyoko tells Fumi that she’s been in the Art club since middle school, and that’s where she fell for Yasuko.

Meanwhile, Ko is with Akira, who is frightened to death. Along the way, Ko remarks that he knows Kyoko likes someone else, but Akira slips out that she was turned down. Ko then says he wishes he were the one Kyoko liked. That night, Akira ponders to herself if she’ll come to like someone eventually too.

Akira’s stomach grumbles, however, so she and Fumi run down to get a snack. However, they then get confused and think they’re in Sora no Manimani and decide to go outside to look at the stars, where they apparently both catch colds.

I guess this episode was another Akira/Fumi bonding episode, as there basically wasn’t much else going on, except perhaps some slight progression on the Kyoko/Ko relationship front.

No really, that’s about it. We learn some about Kyoko’s past, such as a little bit more of her history of Yasuko and what happened when she got lost. But that’s about it as far as notable events as far as I can tell in this episode.  At least Akira’s brother decided not to go all siscon again.

I guess having said that, this isn’t all that bad of an episode.  It just seemed kind of slow and with no obvious action (though we definitely have some buildup)

As I’ve said in the past couple of episodes, we seem to be heading toward a Akira/Fumi end. The next episode might be at the summer house as well, though at the end of the episode, Akira remarks that they both catch colds by looking at the sky all night, so we’ll have to see how that plays into the next episode.

We finally get Akira pondering whether she’ll ever like someone, but there isn’t any evidence that she consciously realizes that Fumi is an option, so with only 2 episodes left, this realization might end up being the climax of the series. Or we could have a second season (though I haven’t heard anything about that).

Sakura has a dream about floating green glowy things, but is woken up by Kero. Kero asks what her dream was about, but Sakura can’t remember, causing Kero to chide her, since her dreams may be foretelling.

Sakura sees that the last day of a nearby festival is that night and decides to invite Tomoyo to go. Toya tells Sakura he’ll come too, though this is mainly due to him being a worriful older brother, which Yukito notes.

At the festival, they run into Chiharu and Yamazaki, who always looks for more opportunities to tell his stories, as well as Shaoran who is racking up on a shooting game. However, he and Toya get into a contest over a stuffed rabbit after both Sakura and Yukito say they like it.

Sakura and Yukito then walk around together where they suddenly see a group of floating green glowy things, causing Sakura to remember her dream. Sakura tries telling Yukito something, but is interrupted by Toya and Shaoran with their stuffed rabbits.

The group then heads back, but Sakura and Tomoyo hang behind, where Sakura then captures the Glow Clow Card.

This episode seemed to act more of a reminder of things than having new things, such as reminding us of Sakura’s crush on Yukito (not that we need much reminding of that) and Toya’s caring for Sakura, despite his behavior.

However, two incremental new things did happen in this episode. The first is Sakura’s apparent first real attempt to confess to Yukito, which didn’t exactly go as planned since she got interrupted.

The second is Toya’s weird behavior in regard to the Tsukimine Shrine. Perhaps he has a history with that particular shrine?

Also, one funny note in this episode, when Toya and Sakura are making dinner and Sakura is looking back at Yukito, at one point her head is moving like she’s talking, but you year Toya’s voice, making it suddenly sound like Sakura’s voice has, well, gotten a bit deeper. Oops!

Finishing the manga series reminded me of something that I had thought about for quite a while since reading the manga when it got well beyond where the anime went: what about a 2nd season?  I think there is so much good material there that, in a perfect and just world, I think it should definitely get a second season, if not a remake. (I actually think they may be better off doing an FMA style remake where they go ahead and do a 52 episode series from the beginning.)

I won’t necessarily go over all the details about why or why not a second season may or may not occur.  AstroNerdBoy already did that way back two and half years ago in his post on the topic.  I guess the only thing I could really add is that, the prospects of a sequel, or a remake are even bleaker now than they were then because it’s been something like 8 years since the first season came out, and it’s been 2 years since the last manga volume was published in Japan.  There seems little reason to actually make a new series unless someone just suddenly gets the urge to.

However, this also made me wonder about other series that should get a sequel or a remake done of them.  So I decided to go through the list of shows that I’ve seen and see which ones I thought were worthy of a remake or sequel, and this is what I came up with:

• Bokura ga Ita: It’s been a while since I’ve seen this series, but from my memory (and reading my review of it), I was furstrated by the fact that it had a wide open ending that drove me crazy.  Of course, I’m not sure I particularly liked the show anyway, but I suppose I’ll still include it on my list.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: OK, guilty pleasure for me.  The only real reason I’d like to see this remade is to see it with top-of-the-line current animation (though the new HD releases go a long way in satisfying my improved animation wishes).  My only fear is that they’d muck up the story and ruin it if they ever redid it.
• His and Her Circumstances: Really? Is there any greater crime than ending a series, mid-story arc?  I haven’t read the manga, but I’m sure this is one series where the manga goes far beyond where the anime went, and it could sure use a continuation.
• Kannagi: This series really needs a sequel.  I think there were just too many loose ends left and it could really use another season.  Really.
• Video Girl Ai: A 6 episode, 17 year old OVA series just doesn’t give a 15 volume manga series justice.  I think this would be one of my prime candidates for a remake.  I does a sort of sufficient job of telling the story to the point in the manga that it reaches (which, if I recall, wasn’t very far) but there is so much more to tell.

What other shows do people think are badly in need of a sequel due to a an insufficient or left-wide-open ending, or do you think should be remake because it either flat out sucked and could be done better, could use an FMA-style reboot, or is old and could do with some updating? (I intentionally left out series which I might like seeing more of, but it was pretty much concluded in the episodes that aired).