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ao haru ride
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ANIME REVIEW: Ao Haru Ride
9:18 PM
My Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Synopsis: Yoshioka Futaba has a few reasons why she wants to "reset" her image and life as a new high school student. Because she's cute, she was ostracized by her female friends in junior high, and because of a misunderstanding, she couldn't get her feeling across to the one boy she has ever liked, Tanaka-kun.
Now in high school, she is determined to be as unladylike as possible so that her friends won't be jealous of her. While living her life this way contentedly, she meets Tanaka-kun again, but he now goes under the name of Mabuchi Kou. He tells her that he felt the same way as she did when they were younger, but now things can never be the same again. Will Futaba be able to continue her love that never even started from three years ago?
Title: Ao Haru Ride
Episodes: 12
Genre(s): Comedy, Drama, Romance, School, Shoujo, Slice of Life
Air Date: July 8, 2014—September 23, 2014
Producers: Production I.G, Movic, Sentai Filmworks, Sony Music Entertainment, TOHO animation
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I watched Ao Haru Ride back in October/November and finished it in November. This review is a shorter review, simply because I know a lot of what goes on in the manga (I've been reading the manga for...four or five years now? I lost count) and didn't want to include any spoilers by accident. I will tell you, to start with, though, this is one of my all-time favorite manga. The anime was great, but I definitely want to sneak in a little persuasive "go read the manga" nudge to all you readers!
While I'll say I recommend it to anyone willing to watch, and the manga is my all-time favorite manga, I can't say the anime is my favorite. Don't get me wrong, I loved it.
For starters, I loved the art style (for the anime and the manga - that's actually what draws me to the author, I've read more of her work) and the coloring was beautiful. The presentation of the scenes were great, too. I like newer anime simply for the fact that they're trying out new angles and such to make it more realistic. Ao Haru Ride definitely had all of that new-and-modern anime appeal. The voice actors chosen were perfect for the characters, in my opinion.
And, of course, the plot line is perfect. That's what has always drawn me to Ao Haru Ride, is the plot. It's not your typical shoujo - at least, not in my opinion. Usually most shoujo I've seen have a girl pining after a guy they can't have, or the guy helping the girl in some way and the two falling in love and having all these obstacles. Well, this starts completely differently. There's a guy and a girl, and they liked each other. Which I think is a new approach. And I love the concept of it and how they go about the relationships from there. I was disappointed that you don't get a clear view of that in the anime as you do in the manga - but, I mean, it's only the first season. I'm not sure if a second season is planned, but I would sure hope so considering where the anime ended. They introduced two important characters in the last two episodes.
Which, speaking of important characters in the last two episodes - I felt as though the producer of the show switched half way through. I don't keep up with all the anime news, so I don't know if this is true or not. But Ao Haru Ride is cheesy in it's own respect, but also very deep - aspects of it that I love and was looking forward to in the anime. The last few episodes, however, got really cheesy and it lost some of its appeal to me. I enjoy secondhand embarrassment, but only to an extent. Now talking of cheesy, I will admit there's a bit of character development in the anime, but I'm really hoping for a second season so we can see more. With all that happens in the manga, it'll be amazing to see the deeper development in the anime.
Also, the ending seemed a bit rushed.
I suppose my hopes were really high because I love the manga so much. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't completely let down. Just toward the end of the anime it seemed to be lacking. I'm still hoping for a second season, and if anyone knows if there'll be one you should tell me ^^
I definitely, 120% recommend the show, though, despite the little flaws at the end!
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