First Date: True Tears
- Title: True Tears
- Studio: PA Works
- Genre: Romance
Ratings (out of 5):
- Story: ♥♥½
- Animation: ♥♥♥½
- Characters: ♥♥
- OP/ED Themes: ♥♥♥
- Overall: ♥♥½ (Okay, but…WTF is this shit?)
Thoughts:
Okay, let’s see how much of this I managed to get straight. Shinichiro belongs to a family that does traditional Japanese dance (Mugiha), but he wants to draw manga. He also lives with a hot chick named Hiromi, the daughter of his dad’s deceased friend, who he kinda has a crush on. But she keeps herself separate from the family.
Then one day he meets a transfer student who is stuck up a tree. She drags him to a chicken coop and tells him that one of the chickens wants to fly and the other doesn’t. She also tells Shinichiro that he doesn’t want to fly either. He makes some comment about how she can fly ’cause she’s an airhead, and she curses him.
Life doesn’t get any betterafter that : he has a rough dance class, and he accidentally walks in on Hiromi about to take a bath. So he grabs a tissue box and…makes a chicken out of it as an offering to the strange girl, Noe. Then his remarkably young-looking mother opens a rejection letter from a manga publisher, causing some family havoc.
He gets to school and offers the chicken thing to Noe, and she drags him to the coop again, where it turns out that the bird she liked has been eaten by a racoon. She yells at the other chicken to tell her what happened. She and Shinichiro officially introduce themselves to each other, and he sees her in the light of a sunset, and..that’s the end of the episode.
I guess Noe is supposed to be charmingly eccentric, but I kinda think she’s just batshit insane. I don’t find her very cute, though I know I’m supposed to. Honestly, I just feel perplexed by her. And I feel a bit sorry for Shinichiro for being such a spineless pansy.
And yet, to be fair, I keep hearing about how popular the series is already, so there may just be something about it I’m completely missing. And I do feel intrigued enough to watch a second episode, to be sure…if only to see if I can make more sense of it. But yeah, I just felt confused, and not in an amusing way like with Zetsubou, which feels intentional, but more of a “…no, seriously, what am I missing?” way.
Tags: first-dates, true-tears, winter-2007-8
January 15th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Yeah, I kind of had that feeling too when I was watching the show. The animation was nice as expected, but the overall plot really made no sense, especially with the addition of Noe, who’s a loony. Plus, I can’t see why anybody would be happy to recieve a cut-up tissue box fashioned in the shape of a chicken. It’s not avant-garde, it’s just a ripped-up box!!!
I’ll probably continue watching, but even having watched both episodes, I felt like I had missed half the series :(
January 15th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
It could be you’re looking for too much in such a short amount of time. One of the things I love about True Tears is that it hasn’t given everything away in the first episodes, all it has given is a brief glimpse at a number of intriguing and multi-dimensional characters.
Hiromi and Shinichiro, despite living togethers, really don’t know anything about each other. Noe could be important to helping them look at the world in a different way. Shinichiro doesn’t seem so much spineless as he does out of place and floundering. Noe definitely comes from an odd background. And the first episode does little to show Hiromi as anything other than a sad girl.
Simply put, it’s a drama. If you’re looking for the funny, or for a simple show that delivers the same thing every episode True Tears isn’t for you. Stick with the shallow pools.
My favorite show of the season by far!
January 15th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I’m afraid you’ll just have to take my word for it that I can tell the difference between something that is confusing *by design* versus something that is *unintentionally* confusing. ^_^;
If the creators of the show are trying to create a sense of mystery, i.e. to keep something from me in order to intrigue me more, they have most certainly failed. I have no sense that there’s some secret to be uncovered whatsoever. That’s fine; not everything has to have a mystery. But as a writer, I feel that your audience should only ever be confused if you want them to be. And maybe the creators of this series want me to be confused. But it *feels* more like haphazard plot execution to me.
As for “what I’m looking for,” that IS simple: I look for good storytelling in whatever medium it comes in. In an anime that involves strong characters, a solid plot, appropriate visuals, and compelling voice acting. This show has *a* strong character and two potentially good ones, very nice visuals and voice acting– but the plot feels sort of arbitrary.
No, actually, I take that back: I think my problem does stem from the characters. The story is character-driven so far, but I don’t feel like I understand the character motivations. The things that they do are incredibly illogical to me based on what we’ve seen of the characters and their emotional states.
Does that make sense?
January 15th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Good sense.
You’re 100% right that this show doesn’t seem to be one trying to confuse you, so if you’ are confused there must be something missing.
And your “what I’m looking for” is remarkably similar to mine. In one episode it’s hard to ask for everything, and I think your review for just one episode is spot on. The characters aren’t remarkably likable or well defined yet and the reasons for their actions aren’t there either.
Most of my excitement comes from the potential I see; I’m amazed that although nothing has blown me out of the water yet, nothing has put me off either. So when that defining moment comes around, it can become one of those anime I’ll remember forever.
I may be the only one, but the show did a good job of making me want to know these characters.