The
anime is split between two different story lines. The first deals with the main character,
Haruto Kirishima moving from Hiroshima to Tokyo in the middle of high school to
chase after his distant girl friend, Yuzuki Eba. Previously, Yuzuki had moved from Tokyo to
live with Haruto’s parents in order to escape her aggressive younger step
sister. Haruto is resistant at first due
Yuzuki’s clingy and needy habits. But as
they spend more time together he begins to have feelings for her and eventually
they begin dating. The relationship
doesn’t last as Yuzuki inexplicably returns to Tokyo and eventually cuts off
all contact with Haruto. Hence why
Haruto has decided to move to the big city and live with his older sister. Through his sister, Haruto is introduced and
becomes friends with fellow classmates Asuka Mishima and Kyosuke Kazama. Asuka is Haruto’s sisters’ neighbor and is
initially gruff towards Haruto but soon enough they become friendly and you can sense
some growing affection for him. Kyosuke
on the other hand is more than happy to have a guy he can hang out with and
quickly takes him under his wing.
Eventually both of his new friends find out his purpose for moving
abruptly and try to help him find his lost love. Haruto does track down Yuzuki, who has become
cold towards him and tells him she has started to date someone from her
past. Unknown to everyone, that
boyfriend is Kyosuke. When the truth is
told and everyone realizes what’s going on Haruto challenges Kyosuke for
Yuzuki’s hand.
The
second part of the anime jumps into the future a year and a half. We find Haruto and Asuka as a happy and
comfortable couple, both attending college and somewhat planning a life
together, one step at a time. Trouble
for the happy couple starts to brew when Yuzuki's step sister, Rin, all of
sudden decides to try and hook Haruto back up with Yuzuki…through nefarious
means. At first Haruto is honest with
Asuka about what’s transpiring, but as he begins to examine his dormant
feelings for Yuzuki he starts to rethink his current relationship.
OK…way
back in 2009 I had started reading the manga due to my enjoyment of the Suzuka
anime and manga. It was ok, not too bad,
but at some point I had stopped reading it…and I can’t recall why. From the hazy memory of what I read some of
the information and events in the anime were familiar. The manga is still ongoing, and about 250 or
so issues into the story. Something
tells me that the anime ultimately diverges from the manga or only covers two
small story arcs. Either way I should
probably get back to reading it to find out what’s up.
That
said the anime kind of pissed me off.
The first half, while mostly familiar from the manga, seemed rushed and
haphazard. Plenty of things were left
out, like Rin being Yuzuki’s step sister.
The second part of the anime started off really nice. It was good to see Haruto apparently mature
and comfortable with his situation. Then
Rin steps in and starts to mess shit up.
For a while it still went smooth; characters having honest and upfront
dialog with each other is something that doesn’t happen frequently in romantic
drama anime. But as the story wrapped up
it started to fall into the usual patterns of deceit, self pity and lack of
compassion. The very end of the 11th
episode was awesome though and had me hoping for a really dramatic finish. Lo, the final episode was a bit flat…with the
tease of possibly more to come. There is
a 2 part OAV set that came out which is unrelated to the series in general and
deals with a secondary story line from before Haruto moved to Tokyo. I have yet to view it but may write a review
on that as well.
Anyways,
the series was disappointing; far from the quality I found in Suzuka and seemed
to diverge a bit from the manga. Perhaps
the anime can redeem its self in the future, or this may be an omen about how
the manga rolls.
Neither
the manga, nor the anime, have been licensed for release yet in North America.
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1 comment:
Kimi no Iru Machi :3
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