I’ll say it in the very first line: This is one of the most depressing thing I have ever watched!
Now let’s start chronologically.
The start of the Anime was really good. I loved it! A new cool looking guy comes and becomes friends with some people making the count in the group six. Three girls and three boys. Just perfect! I thought this will just be a typical school life Anime. How wrong I was!
So this new guy, Kakeru, dies (commits suicide) in the future. Everyone has regrets because they think it is their fault, “they should have saved him”. So, they send letters to their past selves ten years ago instructing them to somehow save Kakeru.
So, now the whole gang, Naho, Suwa, Hagita, Azusa and Takako, start trying to do things so that Kakeru remains happy and doesn’t commit suicide. Now, I have no problem with the Anime up to this point. If I was in their place, I would have probably done the same thing. BUT, did they even for one second think how there actions are going to influence the future? Say, they manage to save Kakeru but someone else from their group ends up dying instead! They just blindly started doing things to “save” him without any regards to themselves or each other! Even if Kakeru hurt them in any way, they don’t do anything and just keep it to themselves. If there angry at Kakeru, they don’t show it and just suppress it! I really don’t think that’s how friends should be! If you’re friends with someone you should tell them what you think even if it might hurt them.
The above isn’t even the most depressing and annoying thing about the Anime. It’s Suwa. In better words, they way he acted and handled the situation. He locked away his feelings from Naho so that he can save Kakeru. Really a difficult thing to do, but why? Think about it, if people stopped telling people their feelings for them because it may cause someone to die what is going to happen to this world?!? Suwa’s sacrifice was too great! I haven’t been in love so don’t know how easy or hard it is to suppress your feelings for someone but I doubt it’s fun.
Now why did the Anime hit me so strongly? Well, I was empathizing with Suwa’s character. As I progressed through the Anime, I started seeing myself in his place, and it hurt. I couldn’t bear it sometimes and had to talk small breaks from watching the Anime. The thing is, if something like this happened to me in real life and I was in Suwa’s situation, I would do what he did even if I have to regret it for the rest of my life!
Now don’t get me wrong here, the Anime is actually great. It managed to move me so much. Some people might feel what I did and others might feel what all of them did was the correct thing to do. The only thing I wanted was Naho and Suwa to be together in the end! Also, if Naho had been a little less timid and shy, it would have made things less harder trying to save Kakeru! In the end, it is much more fun when all six of them are together so I’m glad they managed to save him.
Some of my favourite scenes from the Anime:
Mohit Jain 