Reviews for Kimi ni Todoke (7.94)

Kimi ni Todoke first came to my attention when I saw it was runner-up for Best Newcomer 2009 in the Anime Reactor voting. KnT is pretty much the definition of a competent, yet wholly unspectacular, shoujo high school coming of age story. It has tons of flaws and never rises above its genre roots and tropes. So don't expect some kind of eternal classic. But that also doesn't mean it is wholly without merit and lacking in entertainment value. I don't expect every book to be War & Peace and I don't expect every anime to be a groundbreaking timeless classic. KnT is one of those anime (like BECK) where the whole is more than the sums of its parts.

The animation seemed a bit below average for a modern show of its length. Part of that is due to its setting: a bunch of high schoolers just doesn't offer a lot of scope for the kind of flash animation that catches the eye. The color palette is 'realistic' but also unfortunately a bit bland. School uniforms, beige school walls. And lots and lots and lots of close ups of faces. There is also a metric fuckton of stereotypical shoujo sparkles and whatnot all over the frame. But there's not much detail beyond that. Almost anytime a face is shown that isn't a closeup it looks all weird and skewed to me.

The music -- intro, outro, and various incidentals -- are all pretty decent but after 25 episodes of them you get worn out. It happens with virtually every series so I'm not knocking KnT too hard on this one. If the series had been half the length I might have bumped this up to a 7 but it still only ever seemed "okay but not great". The character voices all seemed pretty appropriate and are generally kept out of the melodrama range, which is a plus in my book. But -- and this goes along with the general lack of character development I'll talk about below -- none of the characters seem to have much range. Ryu is the most obvious example but hardly but Chizu gets to stretch their voice acting chops much.

The story is little different from thousands of shoujo stories that have come before it. Arc where girl makes friends. Arc where misunderstandings and DRAMA threaten to destroy friendship but everyone comes out even closer. Arc where rival is introduced. Stalling arc where side characters romance plot is dealt with. Season ending arc that finally gets back to primary romantic interest. The basic hook is a little different -- Kuronuma is deeply unpopular as a freshman and essentially a complete social retard because she has been ostracized by her peers in school for years. A lot of the focus is on her "becoming a normal person". It helps explain away some -- but by no means all -- of the slow pacing.

Unlike many other shows in its subgenre you won't find tons of "misunderstandings" and people acting incredibly stupidly. The plot moves more slowly than I would prefer but at least I never felt like throwing things at my TV. (Compared to, say, Kimi Kiss Pure Rouge, which was garbage.) The problem is, without all those misunderstandings and retardedness, it becomes hard to understand why the main love relationship would progress so slowly.

The anime ends in the middle of the manga. Rather than attempt any kind of resolution and provide any closure things just...stop. If there is a second season they could address that but -- let's be realistic here -- there is a 99% chance the ending is going to be a letdown anyway since it usually is in anime. And you'll have to watch another 15-25 episodes to get to it. Unless you enjoy the voyage more than the destination you may want to cut your losses here after 25 episodes.

The characters are what kept me from abandoning the series. KnT is in that sub-genre of "everyone is nice" anime. There are no real villains -- which also means you don't get quite the same level of dramatic tension that many other anime provide but that usually isn't the point in these kind of anime. Everyone is KnT is just so damn decent you wonder why Kuronuma never had friends before. That core decency -- and the lack of stereotypical stupid behaviour by all the characters (with a minor exception for Chizuru) -- made it easy to watch episodes.

But the characters are a bit marshmallowey. Easy to eat but, at the end of it, not really all that much substance. Yano is the most interesting one but she gets shamelessly little use through the series. A rival is introduced -- and developed over several episodes -- before disappearing entirely for the last half-dozen episodes. It's a common pattern in much anime -- side-characters who get their mini-arc and are then never used again -- and KnT does the same thing. But even the main characters aren't much better. After 25 episodes I learned that Kazehaya plays baseball and he doesn't like amazake. That's about it. For the main love interest that's pretty shameful. Kuronuma is awfully sweet but late in the series Kazehaya asks her what her hobbies are...and I realize that I don't know either and I've just spent 9 hours of my life with her.

Despite its numerous flaws and its total lack of originality, KnT is still entertaining. I give it a low Value because, in my opinion, three or four years from now no one is going to be downloading this off of trackers to watch it. But if you're looking for some TV today -- and you don't totally hate the shoujo genre -- then this will do all right by you. Just be prepared to be even more disappointed than usual with a Bullshit Anime Non-Ending Ending(tm). Maybe you'll be clamoring for another 20 episodes to see a real conclusion or maybe you'll be ready to move on to another series. But if you get a couple hours of half-decent entertainment from this, like I did, then you can't complain too much.