Anime as part of my job has been a double-edged sword. I feel more pressure to watch shows — to find series that are rich — but that same pressure makes it difficult for me to immerse myself in a story. When you’re anxious to feel, it makes it difficult to know if your emotions are genuine. And after a long drought, I’m sort of desperate to be in an Anime relationship.
This in mind, I think I’ve fallen in love with a show again.
It takes two paragraphs of disclaimers to let me grapple with a bit of vulnerability, I guess.
The show is Bokura ga Ita, and it’s a shoujo romance set in high-school. The show’s look is water-colored and washed out, and the dialogue has a deliberate, patient pace. I watched some last night, and then again this morning … it feels like a quieter His and Her Circumstances, or a less comedic Honey and Clover.
If a show has a moment in the first few episodes that makes me gasp or sigh or nod in agreement, I figure I’ll watch it through to the conclusion. Bokura ga Ita gets additional kudos for sneaking into my heart and unsettling me without set-up.
The moment was this:
“He’s the worst.
But people will still come.
Because of Yano, everyone was cool with the play.
You know that type of person, right? The one that brings a soccer ball to recess, so all of the other kids cheer and go out to the field to play? And when that type of person leaves, everyone just gets bored and quits playing.
The type that has a really strong presence.
He’s one of those types and I … really admire that part of him.”
Imagine it with a simple, melancholy piano melody, and you have a scene that you could find in any shoujo series … but was just so well-executed here that I couldn’t help but smile.