So far, Ano Hana is my favorite show of the spring season. I think it’s something everyone can relate to— growing up and changing. The friends you once had as a child you grow apart from. The audacity of trying to bring your childhood friends back together makes for some interesting chemistry.

I really like the characters for both Anjou and Hisakawa. Hisakawa is just plain awesome, quitting school to fulfill his dream of traveling the world, believing in the ghost stories of his friend he hasn’t seen since they were children, and asking a girl to play Pokemon with him.

Anjou is leading a double life, which I really appreciate if the creators can pull it off convincingly. On one side, she hangs out with the “slutty girls” as Tsurumi calls them. But then she also works at a video game store, carefully organizes everything she owns in bins, has a crush on a guy who doesn’t go to school, and is happy to spend an afternoon playing Pokemon.  I think most people have multiple “personalities” of sorts to fit the occasion (at least I do) but most stories will simplify people into having a single face.  Anjou’s also a tsundere of sorts, but to an extent that’s believable in an actual person— getting mad at Jinta for not going to school and generally being an idiot, and turning bright red when they brush elbows. So she isn’t a Taiga or Louise, but has her moments.

The Nokemon certainly brought back some memories as well. It makes me feel old when she said that the Gold version was ancient. I had Blue and then Yellow, and was beginning to grow  out of it find other interests as Silver was coming out…