***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. Reader discretion is advised.***
Series Synopsis
Since starting high school Haruka Suzumiya (voiced by Minami Kuribayahsi) has had a crush on Takayuki Narumi (voiced by Kisho Taniyama). Yet her shyness always prevented her from talking to him.
To give her best friend a shot, Mitsuki Hayase (voiced by Tomoko Ishibashi) befriends Takayuki. This allows Haruka to spend time with her crush until she found the courage to speak her heart. At long last, Haruka and Takayuki became a couple.
Though the moment is a happy one, the past few years have led to an unexpected problem. Mitsuki also developed feelings for Takayuki. Out of respect for her friend she decided to not act on those feelings.
Then without warning, the unthinkable happens. The fun times of high school were now over. What is on the horizon is nothing short of heartache and pain. The line between fairness and what’s right becomes blurred. The right answers no longer seem to exist.
A once solid friendship will be tested to the ultimate degree. What is to happen could bring everything crumbling down to a bitter end.
Series Positives
Wow, okay…where do you start with this one?
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| Haruka |
In these circumstances, it’s best to get to the point. I liked it, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien was good. This show caught me by surprise. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. That’s more meaningful than it sounds since there were many assumptions on my part. I thought I had this show figured out.
What was most unexpected was the level of cruelty. Did you think I was going to use that word? I sure didn’t.
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| Mitsuki |
Kimi ga Nozomu Eien is a much harder watch than one might first think. In the opening episode, it established itself as a typical high school romance anime. I was looking forward to seeing that. I wanted a romance fix. Too bad the story used many of the frustrating tropes of the genre; jealous friendships, an indecisive nice guy, and a sudden love confession.
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| Takayuki |
Now love confessions are fine, but they tend to be stronger during end game. To do it, in the beginning, is difficult. It makes the couple in question hard to believe. This series, to its credit, made it work. I was into the idea of Takayuki and Haruka being a thing. They were cute and had mutual feelings for each other. How far are we in, episode one? Alright, kind of jumping the gun a little, but….
And then, what’s this? A sex scene. This show is based off an eroge, but that doesn’t mean anything. These moments are rare. I’ve seen ecchi anime with boobs everywhere and suggestive as s@#$ situations but never did they go full on sex.
Like before, there’s nothing wrong with a sex scene. Yet, they are so rare that they do carry a certain baggage. Like love confessions, they are often better served at the end. To have one early on is often a telling, and not a good, sign.
Watching all this, I got confused. I’ve seen this all before, but always as a result of the full story. I couldn’t help wonder, how in the hell is this show going to last fourteen episodes? And then it took a turn.
Oh…oh I see. That’s how we're going to play this game. Touché show, you got me.
I refuse to spoil this. So from this point on, I will be referring to this moment as The Event. And following The Event, this series got fascinating. Not fascinating in the sense that it was fun. It was fascinating because the show depicted a situation which sucked. This series started off as something generic but finished off as something unique.
The Characters
This isn't true for everyone, but the characters weren't as flat as their introductions suggested. There was a lot more going on. For the leads, the weight of the circumstance was clear.
Takayuki, in particular, felt torn. He never shrugged off what was happening. It affected him, and in parts, it affected him hard. He became a mess. On more than a few occasions, Takayuki fell to his knees. It’s difficult to say what he should have done in the situation he found himself in. Thus, his indecisiveness, a trait I normally hate, was excusable; if not expected.
Takayuki forced himself to carry much of the blame for The Event, even though it was out of his control. Yet if I was in his situation, I know I’d blame myself too. We’ve all been here, hopefully not this extreme. Had only we’d done something different, a lot of pain could’ve been avoided. Retrospect is twenty-twenty, but no one can predict when something is going to come and f@#$ your s@#$ up.
It wasn’t just Takayuki. Mitsuki’s handling of the fallout of The Event posed a dilemma. Her feelings for Takayuki were as strong as Haruka’s, but Haruka acted first. So whenever Takayuki and Haruka were together, Mitsuki was supportive but also sad. Had things just stayed as they were, I think she would have accepted the situation.
That’s how volatile The Event was. It made Mitsuki’s feelings even stronger, to the point where she could no long stand to the side. Was this a betrayal to Haruka? I can’t say no, but I also don’t think Mitsuki was in the wrong.
There's another character I want to talk about and believe it or not it’s not Haruka. It’s her sister Akane (voiced by Tomomi Uehara). If you want to talk about someone who took a hard fall, it was her. When introduced, Akane was energetic and friendly. She was the only comedic thing about this series which worked. After The Event, she changed. There was no way she could’ve stayed the same.
Akane became angry, vindictive, and she shut herself off to a lot of the people she once cared about. Did she direct her sadness to the right targets? Deep down she did, but again I would have done the same.
Many characters in this show had to climb out of a depression. Many of them dug their hole deep. Rock bottom hit and it wasn’t easy to watch.
A Decision
By the end of the show, I was ready to recommend it. Enough had happened to establish Kimi ga Nozomu Eien as a good romance. Or at the least, a different one. The ending would have had to have been pure garbage for me to shift my opinion. What it did instead earned my respect.
This is one of those stories that has many romantic options to take; all viable. It would have been easy to keep them as just that options. This is okay and a lot of good shows have done this. It is often the route taken by harem anime. This show is not a harem, but Takayuki ending up with either Haruka or Mitsuki was a difficult choice.
Both paths were right, but both paths were also wrong. There were fairness and unfairness. Someone would achieve happiness and someone would get crushed. This was a not an easy decision and sometimes stories will not make it. It is understandable why that would happen.
In a video game, like what the series is based on, the player can always try again. They can do things differently and get another ending. In an anime, it’s no longer that easy. Not impossible, Amagami SS proved that and it is a great show. Kimi ga Nozomu Eien was more conventional and had a single storyline.
And it made a choice.
Making a choice when all options are good takes balls. Making a choice when all options are possible takes guts. Making a choice when not choosing the other will suck to a heartbreaking degree takes a special kind of show.
But when that choice gets made, like in Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, it is impressive. Good on this series for doing that.
Series Negatives
Yeah, this show isn’t without problems.
For instance, characters would be talking to each other. These were serious conversations and they got heated. There was yelling, crying, and people dealing with a lot of frustration. These were well-done scenes and all, but it was distracting to have female characters be topless for no f@#$ing reason.
There was a lot of unnecessary nudity in this show. Some moments it worked and were effective in creating the scene. That wasn’t true all the time. Yes, the series might be based on an eroge, but damn it the story was strong enough on its own. Unlike an ecchi comedy that’s trying to be ridiculous, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien wasn’t taking that angle.
There’s a difference between intimacy and just showing boob. This series did both and it only needed to do the first one.
Unwelcomed Comedy
Holy crap, this show needed to end the slapstick. It was never funny because it always came at the worse possible place. They came out of nowhere. They did nothing, they added nothing.
Every time, every f@#$ing time the series cut back to the restaurant it went full silly. This was not a case of a show not knowing what it wanted to be, serious or comedy. This was an example of a show not knowing how to use humor.
Comedic relief is not bad. But when it happens for every single little thing that goes wrong, right after it goes wrong, it becomes a mood killer and a waste of time. There was never an instance when I wanted to hear a joke. I wanted the show to deal with the problem.
For example, after The Event in the next episode, this was a sudden comedy series. WHAT THE F@#$ WAS I WATCHING? You don’t go from holy s@#$ to let’s be funny. There were questions that needed answers. A stupid joke was beyond inappropriate.
Final Thoughts
The attempts at comedy in this series did piss me off, but this is still a good show.
Kimi ga Nozomu Eien is deceptive in its introduction. It makes you think it's going to go one way and then kicks you in the gut. The story is heavy. Things are not going to go right. The characters will need to deal with difficulties. There will be struggles and people are going to get hurt.
This is not a show to watch because you are bored. But it is a show that you should watch. I am still amazed by how much I ended up liking this series. Never, ever, judge a book by its cover.
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