SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW

Putting a bunch of ordinary high schoolers in extreme situations in hopes to break the egg’s shell and forcibly scoop out the dwellers within them is nothing new in fiction. Kokoro Connect decides to be quite meta about it, so with all this, I should excuse the incessant shouting from the characters like it’s a competition of being the loudest person in the world. They definitely should be a mile radius away from any voice-amplifying devices.

Every episode is expectedly filled with drama from a slice-of-life story with a twist embodied by Heartseed’s (whose origins were never elaborate in the slightest) interference on their everyday lives, but considering that the various phenomena occur arbitrarily for the main characters due to the random nature, which can still be controlled by the foreign sentient being, the viewer can easily sense Kokoro Connect’s formulaic characteristic after a while since the premise practically shoves down conflict after conflict for the sake of an “exhibition” meant to be “interesting” for Heartseed. Tense drama over teenagers is not a swallowable material like any fluid–rather, it is akin to a thick medicinal tablet that needs effort to take in. Not to say that that is inherently bad, but it takes a lot to believe that what you’re digesting is worthwhile when irrationality meets the erratic and volatile behavior of the youth. Only after the OVA did I find the whole story lying on the positive side since, in a bird’s eye view, it does portray our hidden selves intriguingly, and I did find particular characters helpful for some reflections.

Heartseed’s phenomena challenge the members of the Cultural Research Club in various ways, each ordeal separated by arc. The first of which is the body switch. The story’s premise actually hooked me at the start. I take it Heartseed is basically a stand-in for the external entities peering through the lives of fictional characters like lab rats in an aviary where our collective fantasies are being satiated through imaginary circumstances in the form of stories. How rare is it that, especially at a young age, we do not find ourselves thinking about possessing magical powers, or living in a world where universal laws are replaced by our whim, or living as someone else? It might be unsurprising to know that everyone does it at some point. But there is no world beyond reality wherein fantasy comes to life in a personal, bodily experience. Thus, these imaginings take form through art and fictional stories like Kokoro Connect.

Before proceeding to tackle the phenomena individually, it’s important to take note of each character’s personality since Heartseed’s trials ultimately test how they conduct themselves in the face of extraordinary circumstances.

1. Yaegashi Taichi - The “selfless jerk” that acts like a messiah. He becomes the closest confidant to each member of the CRC. He advocates for conversation and confrontation and likes to save people like a hero and a trauma absorber. One reason for that is the satisfaction it brings to his heart. He has no trauma and he is said to be born as straightforward as he is (since there are no flashbacks to refute it). Inaba’s partner-in-crime.
2. Nagase Iori - High schooler with an identity crisis brought by childhood trauma in the face of prolonged domestic issues due to having five different fathers, one is prone to violence. She is self-aware of her apparent many-faced nature. Combining those struggles makes Iori highly guarded for fear of others knowing who she truly is and/or finding that there is no “real” Iori, making her a people pleaser. She is the president of the Cultural Research Club.
3. Inaba Himeko (The Queen fr) - Inaba is privy to Iori and Yui’s trauma and believes Taichi could solve both. Despite being the vice president of the club she is the one who leads the whole team. Rational, frank, and astute, Inaba represents the driving force that allowed the club to find solutions for their problem. Deep inside she is void of trust even from her close friends and even sees them as her greatest enemies. She has had a history of being friendless and exhibiting shut-in behavior prior to meeting the club’s members. Taichi’s partner-in-crime.
4. Kiriyama Yui - Tough girl with strong physical might honed by her years indulging in karate, in which she excels at. She has experienced direct sexual and forceful advancements and harassment which caused her to have a phobia of men. Because of that incident, she quit martial arts and does her best to hide the weak spot which made her view herself as fragile.
5. Aoki Yoshifumi - Resident goofball who exhibits lustful behavior because the chemistry in a slice-of-life high school anime is never complete without one. Eventually, we learn that he is emotionally observant and acts lightheartedly to ease the tense atmosphere in the club. He openly shows his love to Yui even in public and has been frequently rejected during his confessions.

With that out of the way, let’s explore each phenomenon and relate its relevance to the characters and the story. Through this we can assess a pivotal portion of its overall quality as the delving of this major component’s subparts, examining the rhyme and reason, with the “soul” of each character in mind, carves open comprehension in the context of the story.

Body Switch: Putting Yourself in Other People’s Shoes

Body switching is an opportunity to live the life of someone else. It does leave out the swapping of thoughts because it wouldn’t be a different experience when your perception of your self is not your own self but the owner’s. Therein comes a mode of learning when the host’s vessel is transferred to another.

Kokoro Connect plays out the body switch in order to first and foremost unearth Yui, Inaba, and Iori’s underlying struggles.

Yui’s issue was straightforward. Her androphobia dissipated after Taichi disclosed every man’s kryptonite: the balls. That scene was very iconic. The body switch gave Taichi a way to resolve Yui’s inner issues through concrete, firsthand experience. Now that Yui feels the paralyzing, devastating, mind-numbing, soul-separating, earth-shattering agony of being kicked by the balls, especially with her robust strength, fear becomes something of the past. Experiencing something through other people’s shoes gives you full understanding due to the personal sensation. This partners with the saying “You never know how it feels until it happens to you”.

The thought of four other people being in complete control of her body caused Inaba paranoia enough to detriment her physical condition due to sleeplessness and a state of high alert all the time. In theory, it is completely rational to feel anxiety from such an otherworldly situation as an ordinary person and I like how this reaction is introduced. Fast forward to a confrontation and the club translates her distrust for everyone, so much that she vilified herself for it especially since Yui and Iori at least trust her enough to open up their trauma to her, as being a simple worrywart. The lesson here being: sharing your problems with other people trivializes them, which makes solving them easier than you thought it could ever be. What this should illuminate upon the whole club is the achievement of full trust now that the most distrustful person has come clean. Little did we know…

Now some things didn’t sit right with me. The story provides no rhyme or reason for Inaba’s distrustful attitude. As the highlight of her character’s conflict, the next phenomena did not display even a hint of Inaba’s apparent wariness at all–it takes time to break habits–nor was it shown convincingly at the start. She treats her closest friends as enemies–that is a crucial point that remains hidden from her actions prior to the paranoia for she shows no hostility at all. Maybe her keeping herself at her lonesome in middle school like a lone wolf even hostile to her own pack was because of a betrayal incident? It’s left to speculation, a missing puzzle piece of the biggest size. (But even then she said she has no trauma…) Eventually, she did show more trust and even love for the other members, and I think that’s character development that lacked more substance to it due to the shaky bridge of the origins of her issues. I can’t buy extreme trust issues without proper reason. Maybe it’s just teenagers inflating their problems–and I know I’m prone to that especially back then–which correlates to the last statements I laid out in the previous paragraph in a fitting fashion. Still, it could have been executed much better.

As Inaba said, the body-switching phenomenon struck Iori the most. Her sharpened pick-a-persona capabilities meant the fragile little shred of original identity she has left is endangered when she is literally forced to become someone else. That psychology lecture she had on the train with Taichi using Aoki’s body (hilarious at the suddenness of a deep topic discussed mystically) basically foreshadows her identity problems (though to be honest, most of that conversation got out of my head because it was just too funny to me). See, when you’re already posing as someone else normally, how do you think it would affect you to live four entirely different lives mix-and-match in erratic times every day with no end in sight, and act as perfectly as possible lest the cat gets out of the box? I’m certain the burden was heavy on Iori. We’ll go deeper on her whole character in the OVA.

Something worth mentioning for me is Inaba’s decisiveness. It was her that considered Taichi to be a suitable listener for Iori’s problems, and really told Iori, with Taichi right there with them, to let Taichi hear of it. Linking together involved parties as she deemed suitable like that, although it might come off as patronizing and unneeded, I would have wanted a friend like her back in high school as it gets things done. Taichi, being as heroic as ever, vowed to get rid of her trauma. Honestly, I wonder if real people actually say this stuff so outrightly.

In a confrontation on the bridge Iori finally tells everything. Her self-awareness all this time backfired her, which caused her inner voice to lambaste her with a barrage of criticisms calling herself fake. Taichi comes to say that all of that is a part of her, and that everyone acts calculated to a degree when interacting with everyone since every single person we meet is not like the other. Iori just needs to calm down and be more confident in her actions. To grasp the opportunity present in the atmosphere, Taichi expresses a dramatic confession of love for Iori. She starts to reply, until Heartseed controls Iori’s body and jumps on the bridge.

The story sharply curved to a dark road without a warning that I couldn’t help but leave my mouth hanging open. Suffice to say, it was well played by the author. The incident drove the CRC members into a corner and shot them with the gravity of what they’ve been made to experience. As a final act pushing them to the edge of the plank, Heartseed gave them an opportunity to die in Iori’s body in exchange for her living as the person swapped. In the end, Heartseed only said Iori would die because it was an interesting test.

At this point I wanted more for sure. The drama was a feast, the conflicts were interesting, and it allowed me to analyze their reactions under extreme circumstances (especially Iori’s and Inaba’s) like a sick spectator watching a tragic puppet show.

Progress Report: The first phenomenon, body switching, showcased what high school friends would do when their bodies have been switched and in the face of an alien as an enemy. The CRC successfully worked through two traumas and an issue of distrust. It should bring them closer together as they successfully pushed through a perilous ordeal which theoretically causes anxieties when someone else is in charge of your body. It should increase Taichi’s capacity to care after being in everyone’s shoes. It should help Iori manage her identity after being someone else and after a near-death experience or it should break Iori’s sense of self further due to prolonged exposure to someone else’s situation, dispersing shards of memories of who she really is. It should help Inaba open up to her friends more genuinely without reservation. It should help Yui become less wary of men. It should help Aoki be more considerate of girls in general and help him take care more of the group’s state in his own way.

Unleashing of Desires: Exposing What’s Concealed

Society restrains primal urges. We are expected to place lids on the jars of our impulses, hidden desires not meant for the world as a collective to witness. Shadows exist in all of us, but they ultimately do not define who we are as a core (Persona reference). Intrusive thoughts also do not necessarily fall under crooked morality.

Another interesting move from Heartseed keeping up the wave’s currents. Repercussions could easily spawn like the family count of the olden days whenever compulsion overrides self-discipline and makes an appearance in society. Shame, guilt, demoralization–familiar emotions when feeling regret, exactly what the whole CRC felt after accidentally inflicting pain on each other. That such actions were unintended and a result of a deep desire birthed on the spur without undergoing any process of filtration we humans are exceptional at implies that our urges are definitely not us. What we are is what we do (though it is still difficult for me to completely believe in it when it comes to my own self. They do often say we are our own worst critics).

The phenomenon slit open wounds in the group that took a hell of a long time to mend. In the face of unfiltered desires, even the trust that should have kept them close together such that nothing else could ever be an obstacle to their relationship come what may was torn apart. It is rare, or even impossible, for friendships to stay sturdy without a period of storm when all is laid bare. It’s perfectly natural that they came across a roadblock there, and it’s not really because of a sense of malice towards others, but more so the fear they have of their own selves when what they’ve laid hidden all along leaps straight right in front of their vision’s frame. What seemed like desecration of what they’d been through before turned out to just be pure worry and fear of their inner demons.

Have we not vindicated ourselves over our own thoughts when we realize we have thought of something unacceptable to our moral standards? Kokoro Connect whisks its characters further and involves them in uncontrollable, regret-inducing unleashing of such thoughts. Therefore I find Inaba’s and Yui’s fears to be well-founded. I find Gotou’s and the class president’s advice to be simple yet wise: just talk and have faith in your friends that have seen your worst yet stayed either way. It all ended well even with a new mixture to the atmosphere of Inaba confessing her love to Taichi and admitting it to Iori despite the established relationship he has with the latter. Yui was eased by the boys and learned to let down her guard, a sign that her phobia has improved in this show of sensitive trust.

What this arc was as a whole is heated drama back and forth after seeing the worst out of everyone. This is where I initially thought that things were getting kind of annoying and Yui and Inaba were dragging their feet too much. It is only now that I’m sitting and reflecting on the whole series of events that their actions proved to be within the realm of reason, considering what they’ve been through.

Progress Report: The unleashing of desires extended the club’s ability to have faith in their own selves and in others. They have passed through fiery arguments with newfound lessons. It should help Taichi in navigating an ocean of solutions with a clearer vision when it comes to solving problems while realizing that kindness can hurt people too. It should provide Iori with a challenge in managing her romantic relationship with Taichi while keeping in mind Inaba’s true feelings. It should help Inaba understand that real friendships are not as fragile as she thinks. It should allow Yui to be well on her way to a complete recovery from her phobia. It should help Aoki become closer to Yui and fix his own insecurities and his envy of Taichi.

Regression of Time: Making Amends with the Past

After the torment of instantaneous present desire being unleashed without filter, a phenomenon touching on the past is something relevant to the underlying theme of the things that comprise a person (time has no relation to the body-swapping so it’s unfortunate that as of yet there is nothing directly connecting it to its following phenomena). Time is an element that reigns on reality and dreams without discrimination. By means of its natural flow we are given solid ground to shape ourselves and everyone else. It stops for no one, and it looks back for no one, and it works for no one.

We can’t go back in time, but we look back and can pick up the things left behind in the past for us to do with it anything that could help us to move on from a relapse or stagnancy. There are keys to the future that we have missed due to an underdeveloped scope of vision after all.

This time around we have the CRC members reverting back to their younger selves of random age, with the exception of Taichi. To me it seemed like a wasted opportunity to be more attached to him as the main protagonist. That we do not know what affected his values growing up, unlike the rest of the group, is a pebble between the cogs which gradually compromises the overall performance of the device (which is already decaying by the episode). In a show that seeks “interesting events” Taichi is the oddball in that he is the only one who condensed who he is as a person as being “born like this” without any other explanation as to why he was rather emotionless and where he gained his set of values. I guess he’s had the most “normal” upbringing then, and his parents raised him to be others-centered, and he didn’t have an eventful life. I guess his being pitted together with others of notable past struggles is the “interesting” part. It failed to make it interesting to me though.

Anyway, they have no memories of what has happened during the time frame, but in turn, get to feel as if they have relived childhood experiences and sensations after going back to normal. Through this we have witnessed what happens when the unresolved past is strongly attached to the present. It creates moments of weakness, and stasis to evaluate what needs to be done.

Here the focus is on Aoki, Iori, and Yui once again.

I like the way Aoki confirmed his love for Yui by visiting Nana. It is a rational cause for doubt, and a blow to Yui’s self-esteem, knowing that she is practically a lookalike of the girl Aoki has dated before. A suitable initial reaction when a past truth is brought to the present would be a discrediting of whatever has transpired in the current age, which could happen not only to the receiver, but even to the doer. Therefore Aoki confronting Nana, armored with resolve, was nothing short of admirable. The awareness of the forgotten time haunting us without our knowing instills fear and uncertainty in our convictions. Aoki decided to stay true to what he was feeling and acted with considerable haste so that he could uphold his promise to live life to the fullest after his first encounter with death.

Such a lesson allowed him to not run away from his problems, something that Yui is stuck doing by pushing away Chihatsu and the weakness she reminds Yui of herself. Whatever she has been through cannot be trivialized whatsoever. This makes it a lot harder for her to continuously brave through every roadblock when every roadblock is fortified by the dangers she has encountered in the past. Therefore, I like the approach, however rough it was, that Yui had focus on every phenomenon thus far. Trauma is a tough nut to crack, but she has finally reconvened with a pivotal portion of her own self.

All that’s left is Iori and her family problems. It took all her life to finally say, “Please help me.” Indeed, that’s something hard to say even to your friends especially after being too accustomed to dealing with things on your own. There is shame; being helpless is crippling; her past with the second dad gives insult to injury. And to add, it’s a family problem, something that is expected to be resolved only by members of the household due to its complex nature. It’s highly private, it’s hard to ask for help in solving familial issues though it’s often the most difficult to solve. There is true power of friendship found within the Cultural Research Club proven by their willful involvement in this scenario. And just like Yui and Aoki, Iori faced her past head-on and denied Heartseed’s offer to change a time long gone.

Progress Report: The time regression phenomena should allow the club members to make peace with their past, now having unlocked the ability to balance the perception of present and past. It should help Taichi understand his friends’ characters more. It should help Iori be more vocal about her grievances and realize a single conversation is capable of tearing down any obstacle. It should help Inaba continue to continue watering her roots after feeling once again her misanthropic self. It should help Yui assess what she needs to do in order to overcome her weaknesses, and see clearer the value of her connection with Aoki specifically. Lastly, it should help Aoki stay true to his promise to live a carefree life.

Coda

Despite the range of reflection this review has traveled, Kokoro Connect lacks compelling attractiveness which can be attributed to the director’s storytelling approach. It has shown a bunch of lessons and reminders, yes, but their full potential has not been tapped due to inadequate emotional resonance where I could feel touched to the core and moved with the cast on mad waves. As a visual form of art, aesthetics matter much more. Although as a story it has extracted our imaginations in interesting ways, it falls short in supporting the contents.

Additionally, the length of the anime cannot properly contain the process of growth. Every arc directly plunges into another abyss without any breather. The viewers cannot see how far the characters have walked after all of the supernatural, extreme circumstances they have encountered as the show does not sufficiently present the nuances of each character’s development, which puts me in a spot that relatively sees the show as “conflict for the sake of conflict, with deficient substance”. Individually, the girls tick the boxes, but as a show with quite equal relevance to the five main characters, it doesn’t really work in conjunction with the bigger picture. With added time to flesh out the members of the club and space to view more of their sides and how the ordeals have affected them, attachment to the cast meets higher likelihood. A character-centered story needs to strive its best to paint the characters enchanting. At this rate, more than half of the cast stays bland.

And I just want to ask, do friendships or human interactions in general like this exist in real life? Because all of my life, I’ve never experienced nor do I have knowledge of friends shouting and screaming at each other. Does not limit to this series alone though; anime is filled with things like this. Despite that knowledge, I just think it’s blown out of proportion here. It’s not really that huge a gripe though.

I almost forgot to mention, where did the Heartseeds even come from? Including an antagonistic force without unmasking everything essential does not bode well at all.

Anyway, I have considerable faith that the light novel could ease my misgivings (though I have no plans to read it). Basically, Kokoro Connect needs to be more.

Thanks for reading! If you’re interested, click the image below to read the review reflection for the sequel OVA where we dive deeper into Iori, my favorite character of the series by far.