Hello everyone! In this lesson, we are gonna get into a drama type of anime with a lot of feelings coming together with Ano Hana or as the whole name is Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae. Which translates to Anohana: the flower we saw that day. As I was saying, Ano Hana is a drama, a tragedy, a growth type of story, and also a slice of life. So, the slice of life type of story is most commonly a comedy type but it also can be a drama. It basically shows the everyday life events at some point in the life of a character. In this case, we definitely don't have a comedy type of story, on the contrary, is a drama and is about a significant event in the life of the characters. Also as I mentioned Ano Hana is a story with a lot of growth meaning that the characters have a lot of realizations, learn a lot and therefore we get a lot of character development.
Ano Hana is the story of six friends that go their separate ways after one of the girls Menma dies in an accident. Some years later the five remaining friends are no longer friends and are in high school already and the story starts with our protagonist Jinta who doesn't even go to school anymore and is visited by Menma as a spirit. For some reason, he is able to see her and talk with her and she tells her that she cannot go to the afterlife till her wish is granted, but she doesn't remember what the wish is. So from this point on Jinta is gonna try to get close to his old friends again but things get more problematic as Jinta is the only character able to see Menma.
Now our story is simple in the sense that the events that develop are easy to understand but it is complex in what refers to every character's feelings and development and also figuring out what Menma's wish is.
Our characters are great, they are not really extremely good nice characters or extremely evil characters just normal high schoolers in a normal environment trying to move on after a friend's death. You could really feel they are just normal humans I guess? First of all, we have our protagonist Jinta who is an antisocial guy that doesn't even go to school anymore and has no intention of relating to others, he is really serious. He used to be the leader of the group of friends when they were children and back in the days he was really different from now.
And then we have Menma, the child that died in an accident. She is presented as a spirit in the present in her grown-up form, just as she would look if she went to high school. She is a really nice, sweet, and friendly type of person and also a little bit shy since she used to be bullied because of her foreign appearance.
For the rest of the members of the group, we have a girl who is more fashionable, and talkative, and bossy, and another girl who is into studying a lot, likes arts and is the quiet type of girl. As for the rest of the guys in the group, we get a big guy who was really more like the free spirit and relaxed type of friend also really funny. And for the last member of the group, we have a guy who is also pretty intelligent and good looking who is also serious and has a lot of confrontations with Jinta.
This story was originally created as an anime produced by A-1 Pictures Studio and the script was made by Mari Okada. The anime has eleven episodes and a movie that is basically a sequel to the events of the anime. Later a novel, a manga, and a video game were made. The animation is great, is really pretty and nice, and gets really the delicacy of some scenes really well made and the nostalgic or kind of sad atmosphere was also really well made. And of course, the music of the anime is one of the most important things as well as everything else in order to get the feelings completely transmitted to the viewers and they do an excellent job in this aspect. The opening is excellent as well the song Aoi Shiori by Galileo Galilei is sung in really delicate tones and the design of the opening is beautifully made, so delicate following the song bits perfectly and also introducing perfectly the situation of our ghost Menma and her friends.
So, this was everything for today's lesson on this sad and pretty anime. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and look forward to the next one. Thank you for listening and talk to you later. Bye-bye.
