That was the line that first introduced me to True Tears. Now I would like to use this same line to introduce you all to this realistic romance series. The True Tears legacy began with very disappointing visual novel sales that ranked it as 41 among the 50 newly released visual novels at the time. Shortly after the visual novel came a live action film of True Tears that resembles closely to the game. So now you must thinking the anime is naturally just another adaptation to the visual novel as well right? Wrong!
The anime version of True Tears shares nothing in common with the visual novel or the film (beside the name). It has its own independent plot, its own independent setting, and its own independent set of characters. Thus why use the name True Tears and give credit to the original visual novel creator when there is virtually nothing in common is beyond my understanding. However, what I do understand is that True Tears is an attempt by Lantis to produce a similar anime type to Air/Kanon/Clannad by Kyoto Animation. The purpose of this review is not to compare and criticize True Tears with the above anime, but I personally feel True Tears is worthy of such comparison if there is one.
Many viewers may find the story of True Tears resembling Kanon or Clannad in lots of ways, such as the usual touching scenes that make us cry a river. However due to the nature of the story, instead of dealing with half a dozen heroines we only have three. Thus allowing more time to better develop their characters. One may be tempted to call True Tears a harem anime due to all the females “ganging” up on our protagonist, but I see this as an essential part to developing a love-triangle (and NO, there’s nothing ecchi in the anime). The anime takes a rather different approach to the regular love story and one can say it truly brings out the realism to this matter through the careful use of wordings. However it should be noted that, like most other story with a certain degree of depth, True Tears incorporates a great deal of metaphoric comparison. While it is not difficult to understand what those metaphors imply, some viewers may be discouraged by them.
The relationships between all the characters are expertly developed. In addition to the multi layer relations that are common in most romance genre, we also see a great deal of interactions between the younger and older generation of characters and how they affect one another. The protagonist’s parents certainly played a more central role compare with most animation from this genre. However, what I like best is the perfect illustration of a young boy’s heart when confronted with two (or three) possible lovers. I, for one, instantly saw a reflection of myself from Shinichirou (not that I am two-timing or anything, but I find his actions highly logical for a boy his age). I think I would most likely be as confused (if not more confused) than he is if I were in his situation especially after all those shocking events.
Animation-wise it certainly lives up to fans expectations. This is especially true for the key scenes of the show. As evident from the title of the anime, tears do truly seem different in here. Tears in True Tears are very beautiful, the glittering salty water look exceptionally real when running down the cheeks of various characters. In addition to tears, the fluidity of the character movements, the detailed shadows on the face of the characters as they speak, the camera angles used to illustrate certain key aspects such as the 3D walking scene etc.; everything adds up little by little and before you know it you will find yourself having a hard time reverting back to watching lower quality animations. I still have a difficult time trying to find a show with superior animation quality compare to True Tears.
Like the awesome animation production, True Tears’ music is also not to belittled with. The music was effectively used both in terms of BGM and OP/ED as they all served their purposes well. BGM creates the mood just needed to make some scenes touching enough to make people go teary-eyed. The OP is by eufonius whom Clannad fans should be familiar with. I personally find True Tears’ OP much better than Clannad’s though. Unlike most anime, True Tears’ seiyu did not interest me much (nor did they play any role in my decision to watching it). The biggest name out of the main casts is probably Kaori Nazuka (Nunnally in Code Geass, Eureka in Eureka Seven, Lynette in Strike Witches). With that note, I would like to truly thank the Lantis production crew for bringing us (the anime fans) a wonderful romance series that will forever have a place in my anime romance list.
