Quick summary:
Kimi ni Todoke is a beautiful coming of age anime that reminds us all how it felt to be a teenager.
Sawako has been misunderstood her whole life - having the appearance of Sadako (the girl from the horror Ring) meant that she couldn't make any friends - everyone was scared of her and excluded her from their activities.
That changed one day, when the popular boy Shouta Kazehaya begins to talk to her and Sawako suddenly makes friends, gets the love and attention she deserves and a real world opens up to her - leading to heartwarming moments of a girl that finally found happiness she deserved.
I am biased, but this is definitely a masterpiece that cannot be described.
Art: check; Goofiness: check; Manga bits: check
The anime itself had a great flow through it. Despite being "longer", you really go through episode incredibly quickly. They have this iyasheki feeling to them, like everything is going to be okay.
I appreciated the narrative aspect - Sawako was the one telling us the story of her friends.
The whole anime looks like painted in watercolors - which is not something that we usually see - and it works well. Also, the bubbles and sparkles that we always see in the manga were very very fun.
I will just say, that I enjoyed episode 23 the most. It was comedy gold and Sawako's VA did a great job.
Lovely MCs, lovely side characters, lovely villains
Take for example Kurumi-chan. We all knew she is a biach, ever since episode one we knew it. But in the end... if we all give her a chance to explain herself, we will realize that not everything she did was because she was evil. She was a simple girl that fell in love too hard to know what to do with it. She made wrong choices, but who didn't?
You just want to cheer on everyone - even though sometimes a decision has to be made.
It was heartwarming to see Sawako making friends and facing those happy, fuzzy feelings. (At times, she reminded me of Tooru Honda (Fruits Basket) at times - with her goofiness, her light weighted look on the world... she was a total sweetheart.
Ryu - a supporting male character, Chizu and Kazehaya's childhood friend was a great example, that even small roles can do big things for a story. Despite being blunt, bland and boring, he managed to grab my heart, hold it gently and become my prince. If I was in the story, he would be my love interest for sure. And I am telling you, this guy wasn't anything special!
Another not special character that was just lovely was Sawako's dad. His little gig with taking Kazehaya's present because he thought Sawako made it for him was really funny, and we can immediately tell that this person has the biggest heart in the game.
I know this is not important but I have to get it off of my chest. Ever since I realized that Daisuke Namikawa is the VA for our male MC I could not take him seriously!
Relationships are too complex sometimes, but thankfully we have friends!
Everything about the way they addressed the character's troubles was perfect. Despite not being a teenager for a few years, I felt heard and seen. The juvenal feelings set a great mood for the story that the authors decided to unravel in front of us. This kinds of feelings would not translate good if the characters were adults.
One of the themes, that was important for the story was bullying. Not only our MC, but some others went through it - some as kids, some a bit older. The constant bullying made my heart bleed, but it was a real depiction. Some things won't just disappear because you made a friend or grew older.
A bit of spoilers incoming:
Drama on repeat
We had the same twist of someone hearing half the story and being depressed about it at least twice. Someone asked Sawako if she saw Chizu and Ayane as her friends, and she couldn't reply to it, so she just said, she "didn't think of the girls like friend" but she loved them. Of course, Chizu and Ayane only heard half the story and became really sad about it.
Then, the same happened with Ryu who heard Chizu complaining about something not important.
I do have to mention that the girls were very mature about the situation and about the rumors that were being spread about them. I admired their strong spirits.
Conclusion: it's a must watch!
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