Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day is an eleven episode anime. It starts off with Jintan being pestered by a younger girl, named Menma. You immediately start to notice something is wrong when despite all the noise that Menma makes, Jintan’s father doesn’t mind it at all. Thus you are not surprised when you find out that Menma had already died and this is her “ghost” coming back. She is only able to be seen and heard by Jintan, although other characters do feel something is odd whenever Menma tries to interact with them.
The plot then shifts between the childhood of Jintan, right before Menma died, and the present day. We learnt that Jintan and Menma were in a group of really close friends. When Menma had died, everyone was in shock and they all drifted away, which is a sad event no matter what the reason. Jintan ended up being somehow who always stayed at home and refuses to go to school, instead idling his time away, to the frustration of several others.
Now that Menma had reappeared, Jintan learns that he has to fulfill her wish. The trouble is that he doesn’t know what that wish is. He has some recollection and tries to complete those but those are not the ones that Menma is truly here for. One can suspect that it’s probably Menma’s desire to bring the group of friends together again and this slowly happens. Despite a few awkward encounters at first, including some hostile ones, Jintan slowly gathers the group of friends together again, explaining what had happened.
The anime excels at pulling some sort of emotional reaction from you, it has a nostalgic and melancholy feel to it. Getting the group back together is tough, it gets awkward and the characters may not like each others’ personalities given they haven’t grown up together or seen each other for years. However, it is because of this that every little improvement sticks out in a good way and gives you hope that Menma’s wish may just come true after all.
As the episodes go on, you’ll come to realize that all the characters blame themselves for Menma’s death to a degree. Despite what it seems on the outside, they are all affected and filled with guilt. As each character remembers their final moments with Menma and you see how they blame themselves, it keeps tugging on your heartstrings. Perhaps what keeps you engrossed is slowly finding out all the feelings of the characters. Each one has their own regrets and their lives may not be so contented after all. Some are obvious, like Jintan shutting himself inside his house, but even the perfect Atsumu with his good looks and great academic achievements, or Naruko with her friends, they are hiding several issues.
You can’t help but smile at seeing some rifts heal and that the characters are doing nearly all their can to help Menma along the way. Considering that it seems far-fetched that Jintan can see Menma and isn’t making it up, it’s like they want to believe in it as they couldn’t let it go themselves. There’s a lot of pain felt by everyone and this transfers to the viewer, especially when things do not go their way and they start fighting among themselves.
It’s not all positive given there are several scenes that take you out of the mood, especially ones where Jintan does something embarrassing or cringeworthy. They’re things that he does with the best intentions, like helping his friends, but it feels cliched and relying too much on cringe humor. Furthermore, the deeper you go, the more apparent it is that it is a messy pool of feelings that each character harbors for the other. Given the title can be a bit of a spoiler, you’d expect nothing that hte group tries to do is actually Menma’s true wish. You will also wonder how the anime can possibly end on a satisfying note given how even by the penultimate episode, it feels like there are too many loose ends left. Surprisingly, it manages to do just that and ends on a fantastic note, giving proper closure to all the characters. The ending has its emotionally strongest scene yet and it will serious bring tears to your eyes.
A lot of the emotional punch is thanks in particular to the ending theme. When it is played every time at the end of an episode, usually at a pivotal emotional point, it gets you with its soothing and innocent nostalgic melody. Even the lyrics are meaningful and considering that this song was a cover, it matches the anime’s plot so well.
Overall, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day manages to capture you from the get go. It immediately brings forward a strong sense of nostalgia, serenity and innocence with its premise. It’s not a perfect anime, and neither are the characters. Each character has their own flaws, hiding their ugly sides and the anime shows their path to redemption over the course of the episodes. It strikes a relatively good balance between the themes of family, friendship and romance. There are various plot threads that manages to tie together very well, although the usage of romance can be a bit tiring, but it leads to a satisfying ending.
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