Anohana

Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day (or "We still don't know the name of the flower we saw that day" in Japanese). A 2011 anime about a group of elementary school friends, who grew apart after one of them died, being reunited by the appearance of the ghost of the dead one.
==First watch (12th-19th August 2016)==
===Format===
At home, Japanese with subtitles
===Journal===
Episode 2
Accidentally watched episode 2 first without realising it, on August 12th, but it made sense nonetheless. Just thought they weren't going to explain the backstory just drop plenty of hints for you to piece it together, which I had no problem doing.
I didn't get anything out of it, and I found the Memna character to be super annoying (uncomfortable parallels to a real life present situation...) and I figured there wasn't going to be much to the series.
-1
Episode 1
Watched after episode 2 and it filled in the blanks I guess although I hardly needed it to, but it did make me care about the characters a little bit more actually.
0
Episode 3
It wasn't hard to watch, it's nice that it has such widely different characters and I quite liked the 'Jintan going back to school' little drama. Maybe I'll find the series okay. It's only 11 episodes anyway.
0
Episodes 4 and 5
I couldn't figure out why there would be more than one ghost or what the hell was going on and then... well. Now I still have no idea what's going on but I'm also wondering why I'm still watching this anime :P Only 11 episodes, only 11 episodes, only 11 episodes...
0
Episodes 6
Bored at this point. Wish it would go somewhere or do something, or the characters would stop being so weird or boring.
-1
Episodes 7-11
Finished on August 19th with the last couple of episodes in a row. Good god it was annoying. I'm glad I watched it because I want to know what sort of thing is out there and watching the whole thing gives me some perspective into this kind of anime.
I just found all the characters ridiculously pathetic. It was like some kind of emotion porn. A bit like 5 Centimetres Per Second but with mercifully less sick-inducing visuals.
I did enjoy the music and the characters (besides Menma) were actually okay and interesting for the most part. When they weren't bleating on about their childhood and weeping and when Menma wasn't around it was watchable.
Storywise, as a scifi/rational-fic fan I was tearing my hair out. The facts: Menma somehow reappeared, somehow visible only to Jintan, somehow able to interact with the environment enough to cook but not to be felt when she grabs people, somehow older and somehow still herself and sentient, and nobody was freaked out by any of this. Fine, I guess... but why did it take so long for her and Jintan to get around to proving she exists to everyone else? And why was nobody more curious about it? And why did they make up ridiculous schemes about how to send her to heaven, just believe they'd work, and get on with doing them without wondering if they're wrong? Argh. Stupid stupid stupid.
-2
===Rating===
-2
Category:Japanese TV series
Category:Anime TV series
Category:2010s TV series
Category:TV series watched in 2016
Category:TV series with -2 rating