I finally binged and finished Anohana in English via Netflix after adding it to my Crunchyroll queue ages and ages ago but never starting it.
You know from the very first episode which includes a ghost girl, Meiko "Menma" Honma (本間 芽衣子 Honma Meiko), that this anime series is going to be about grief, loss, depression, survivor's guilt and recovery. The Peace Busters Gang were a bunch of childhood friends. One of their members seemingly took a fatal fall from a nearby bridge and died. They never really spell it out entirely....either that or she slipped on a wet rock and took a fatal blow to the head.
The gang grows apart and we rejoin them near the end of their High School years. The former leader of the gang, Jinta "Jintan" Yadomi (宿海 仁太 Yadomi Jinta), has grown moody & distant....not only did he lose the childhood love of his life but he also lost his mother, presumably to cancer or some other unspecified terminal illness. He lives alone with his widowed father who works construction jobs to support the both of them. Then one day a ghost version of his dead childhood friend appears...only she's aged up to perhaps (late) Middle School age with hips and developing breasts. He can see and touch her as if she's alive, and she's a very boisterous and energetic spirit, literally. She even gives him an involuntary erection in one early scene that is laugh out loud funny. He doesn't want to tell anyone about his ghostly visitor but eventually spills it. His former friends are skeptical and think he's hallucinating. He thinks so to and yet Menma persists. He knows that a ghost that hasn't passed on is haunting him because she has some unfinished wish that she has to see through before she can ascend to the great beyond. The series is basically a journey of discovery into finding out what that final task for ghost girl Menma actually is...for most of the series Menma is only visable to Jintan. She is basically an unseen poltergeist to the rest of the Peace Busters for the vast majority of the series. They can begin to detect her presence indirectly, but some are more accepting of her ghostly existence than others.
My favorite character far and away is Naruko "Anaru" Anjo (安城 鳴子 Anjō Naruko), who has been secretly in love with Jintan all these years and still loves him even though it hurts sometimes.
In time we learn that Jintan's mother didn't want her son to embrace a kind of sullen "macho" facade to deal with her eventual death. She doesn't want her son falling into a form of walled-off, closed-down toxic masculinity to cope with the loss. So she makes Menma promise her she won't let that happen, that she'll make sure Jintan learns how to cry and be okay with his emotions. Menma is only a little girl and doesn't fully understand what has been asked of her by this dying woman, but she takes her mission very seriously and tries to devise a scenario that would provoke tears from Jintan. She basically sets him up into being pressed to confess his real feelings for Menma (which she suspects already) in front of the group, figuring the surprise and stress will provoke the tears Jintan's mother asked for. Instead, Jintan has an angry outburst and says meanly that Menma is "ugly" (she's beautiful) but then blushes and storms out of the clubhouse....confirming for all present that yes, he loves Menma. Menma, concerned for Jintan, goes racing after him. Another boy who also loves Menma and has been hiding his feelings takes the opportunity to confess to Menma when they have a quite moment alone on the trail. This is Atsumu "Yukiatsu" Matsuyuki (松雪 集 Matsuyuki Atsumu) who in the present still resents Jintan and is particularly incensed that Menma's ghost chose to appear only to Jintan and not to HIM. He is college bound and arrogant and lords his academic success over Jintan to taunt him. This is all the precipitating events that lead to Menma's untimely death at the riverbank so many years ago. This anime is very much a tear-jerker and at times seems to milk it a bit excessively....but I still enjoyed it for all the character interactions and rooting for my favorite ship (Anaru x Jintan). Binging this series is probably not the best idea, but once I started it on Netflix I simply could not stop until I was done at last, even though it meant staying up until 2am Sunday morning. You will definitely have a good cry watching the series. The characters are all suffering, even years and years later. But one gets the feeling that one of Menma's undying wishes post-mortem is for her friends all to be friends again like they were in the old days. The conclusion does involve a small miracle but it doesn't detract from the loss & pain. Memna is finally able to ascend to heaven to seek reincarnation, but at long last she's finally able to give a tearful goodbye and ALL of them can finally see her in the fading light of twilight. Not sure I would bother to seek out the movie version of Anohana but I definitely enjoyed the series in English.
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