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Minnie: Hello everyone! This is Minnie or Dictator or Leader of HSA for the second day of the Winter Countdown of Underhyped Anime! Yesterday, if you guys haven’t read our founder Garrick’s entry on ~ef~ a tale of melodies, please read it here because well, it’s really good. Haha. Anyways, I am here with my own personal pick for what I believe is a very underhyped anime that needs more attention from the anime community. Why is that some shows that I rate 4-7 on MAL get so much love and fans while other worthier shows get the opposite treatment? It’s just so unfair! I’m so glad we have this countdown to give these anime the spotlight they deserve!

For those who know me or follow me for a long time, you know that I’m usually the romance/drama/comedy blogger of HSA. At least, I try to pick those anime to blog. I especially love to see and blog shoujo, just to see if they break away from the shoujo formula or is such a masterpiece that I don’t care if they do. One of the biggest breakthrough is of course the Skip Beat anime that is so shounen that makes me laugh. But anyways, the reason why I’m searching is because I want to see if there are any romance anime that is as realistic and heartwarming as Bokura Ga Ita. Yes, you heard me correctly. Bokura Ga Ita is the underhyped anime I will be talking about for the rest of this post! Why? I’ll put it in simple words:

Bokura Ga Ita is the first (for me) as well as one of the few shoujo anime that depicts love realistically.

Synopsis: “Nanami Takahashi welcomes the start of her high school life with great expectations of making as many friends as possible. There is much talk among the girls about a popular boy, Motoharu Yano, who has 2/3 of the girls in his middle school liking him. When Nanami asks Yuri Yamamoto, the girl sitting next to her, about Yano, the latter curtly replies that she dislikes him. Nanami is clueless of who Yano is until the day of the class nomination when she made a fool of herself by calling the name of her new friend wrongly. It turns out that she has actually met Yano along the corridors (unaware of his true identity) and he tricked her by providing a random name, resulting in the embarrassing incident in class. Nanami was initially mad at Yano but after a few encounters with him, she begins to find herself liking him.” (MAL)

“The start of high school life. To the girls, that also meant the start of their love lives. For brand new first year student, Takahashi Nanami (Nana for short), it was no different… She happens to end up in the same class as the incredibly popular Yano Motoharu, who rumors say that two thirds of all the girls are guaranteed to fall in love with. But will that hold true for Nana, who says that if she had to choose between like or dislike, she’d say she dislikes him!?” (Mangafox)

Minnie: When I look around for a romance anime, these are basically the summaries I get for Bokura Ga Ita. I remember that day, looking for a couple of good romances to watch for whatever reason. Notice how there are recommended anime on the bottom of MAL? That’s how I stumble onto Bokura Ga Ita since it is supposed to be “similar” to Lovely Complex. Guess what? That’s not really true. While Lovely Complex and Bokura Ga Ita both deal with relationships between two high school in love, they are completely different in many ways. For one thing, one is more tragic and one is more comedy. Both are masterpieces in what they deal with, but I digress. I’m only supposed to talk about Bokura Ga Ita right? Anyways, with those summaries alone, I assume this anime is going to be one of those really typical love stories and to an extent, it is and with quite a simple storyline, but it does it so well that I don’t care. You know sometimes cliche things can be extremely amazing just by its execution alone? This is what Bokura Ga Ita is for me and much more.

Before I go on with this anime, I like to say a couple of words before all of you waste your time reading my huge wall of text (because I love this anime too much?). As I mentioned in my review at Anime-Source, there is one major flaw with this anime- most people who watch anime are either young teenagers or young adults who haven’t been in love before. That’s a huge problem because this anime thrives off your empathy for these supposedly “stupid” characters who are all in love with someone. People who have been in love before can relate to these characters as well as the plot. For those who haven’t, the plot will look shallow and the characters will look stupid and annoying, unless you are willing to be open-minded and give this a chance. All in all, a must-watch for those who have been in love or still in love, while others should still give it a chance (so you can go through your love-life without making these same mistakes? Lmao).

The following paragraphs are taken from my Bokura Ga Ita review at Anime-Source with some much needed recent commentary from me:

Strengths

~Characters~

Nanami Takahashi: I like to think of Nanami as more main than Yano as a character even though he is the center of her atention. Nanami is like the Nanas in NANA in that she narrates her thoughts and feelings to you. She is the character I can most relate to in the story. She has feelings for Yano. 

Motoharu Yano: Yano is more stereotypical than Nanami in my opinion in that he’s the charismatic, pretty boy all the girl loves. The thing I like about Yano is that he has a lot of flaws and weaknesses to balance it out. Plus, he genuinely loves Nanami by his actions and words alone. We don’t get to hear his thoughts, but he’s in love with Nanami and has some leftover feelings for his ex Nana.

Masafumi Takeuchi: Take is the true underdog in the series in that he loves Nanami, but he also loves Yano as a best friend so he’s torn between the two. Take believes that once Yano  has hurt Nanami, he has the right to fight against his best friend and win her over, which he does a lot later in the story. He is the second male lead.

Yuri Yamamoto: Other than being the fourth person in the love square, Yamamoto is considered almost the antagonist of the series. She doesn’t fight or backstab Nanami for her love for Yano, but instead, she pursues his affection regardless of who he’s with or not. At the right times, she will bring back her dead sister into their lives

Minnie: I have a love and hate relationship with the characters. And that is why I gave the characters a 10. They made me love them and hate them according to the correct scenarios. All those scenes in which you hate Yano? The writers planned it. All those scenes in which you want to smack Yuri? The writers planned it too. All those scenes where you feel like you have to pause the video and cry? Yup, they were guilty too. By themselves, Yano and Nanami are not very special. Yano is a realistic, teenager boy full of angst and charisma. Nanami is also a realistic, teenager girl full of angst and jealousy. However, the two main characters are so realistic and so human that I feel like I can believe anything they say and have faith in anything they do. When I watch Bokura ga Ita, I don’t think of the characters as characters in an anime. I think of them as real people and for that I care for their happiness and that’s why this anime is so heartbreaking.

~Story~

Minnie: I almost did not give this anime a chance because of many synopsis on the internet, as I mention before. Such an amazing anime to receive such a poor synopsis. Anyways, this is a shoujo anime in which the lead girl Nanami Takashi falls for the lead boy Yano Motoharu. Eventually, Yano falls for Nanami too and they begin going out. That’s the easy part. Now, let’s add the fact that Yano’s ex-girlfriend died about a year ago and that his ex-girlfriend’s sister Yuri Yamamoto is in the same school as them. Oh, and she has feelings for him too. Need more complications? Yano has a best friend name Takeuchi who has feelings for Nanami. It’s a love square and most shoujo fans are familiar with this. Nanami and Yano’s love is so powerful that neither Take nor Yuri can deter them right? That’s how it goes right? Ah, but Bokura ga Ita adds so much more than that.

Bokura ga Ita is the first anime I’ve watched in a while that shows the real side of relationships in anime. Relationships aren’t always so happy and beautiful. When a person is in love, he or she becomes like a feverish child (a comparison from the Bokura ga Ita manga) who demands a lot from his or her partner and does a lot of stupid things to hold onto this love. A person in love does not see his or her actions as “right” or “wrong”. They simply do it because they feel like they must; there is no other choice in their heads. A lot of us may call either Yano or Nani stupid for their choice of words or actions but that’s because we’re the audience and not them. When you’re in their footsteps, would you have done the same? Differently? If you do not know, you may not have the right to criticize in the first place. People in love do not think before they do/say certain things. The ups and downs in a relationship. The good and bad days. The smiles and tears. The misunderstandings, the breakups, the miscommunications, and all the selfish sides of being in love. All of this and more are portrayed extremely well in this anime through Nanami and Yano.

So in the end, on the surface, it’s a simple plot that is very remiscent of most K-dramas with the love square, except with the twist of the dead girlfriend. But the dialogue and emotion are so well-played that it doesn’t seem cliche at all!

~Music~

Minnie: The OP is pretty and likeable. I wouldn’t download it or anything, but it really fits the early happier mood of the anime. The EDs are the real selling point though. They instead depict the heavy, sad, and darker mood of the later half of the anime. How fitting. Also, unlike most anime, this anime has multiple ending songs, which I believe the geniuses behind this anime pick according to the mood of the episode. Most of the time, I am very emotional by the end of an episode but the ending song ruins it. This does not happen in this anime however. Whenever I am sad by the end, the song kicks in and brings me to tears. Most of the songs are very fitting and almost too perfect for this anime. The background music really gets the job done with crucial scenes. The background music nails so many scenes. Without the magic of the music, I wouldn’t have spilled so many tears over this anime.

Only Weakness?

~Animation~

Minnie: The animation is the main reason why I cannot give this anime a full score on MAL or anyone else. There are times when half the face is missing or an odd drawing of the hands. There is a lot to nitpick in this anime in regards to animation. However, this average animation does its job well. And I have to remember that Bokura Ga Ita’s animation company is no KyoAni or Madhouse. For the most part, the animation is easy on the eyes and the dialogue is able to flow better thanks to the lack of distractions from the animation. I like the backdrop of many scenes though. It reminds me of Honey and Clover which is always a good thing.

Minnie Will Pick Apart a Bokura Ga Ita Episode

~Episode 12~

Minnie: This will be spoiling so beware. In this episode, the first half deals with Yano revealing to Nanami that he has slept with Yamamoto in the past. She finds him disgusting for sinking so low. Of course, Yano likes to think that past be past and that all is done and dealt with, but Nanami is not going to take that. Nanami is in love with Yano and to find out that the person she is in love slept with his ex’s sister is unforgivable. Understandably, she stops talking to him and rejects him completely from phone calls to dates. I can totally relate to her here. When I’m upset at someone I like, it is even harder to forgive than just any ordinary friend. It hurts 10x more too! It’s betrayal… and betrayals are never good. When Nanami forgives him though, she tells him that he’s not fair. And again, that is so true for lovers. Somehow… no matter how mad you are of that person… you can’t help but forgive them, even if you don’t want to.

The second half deals with the break-up between Nanami and Yano at the beach. It is Nanami’s decision to go to the beach together and they have fun for the most part before Yano remembers his ex and her similarity to Nanami. Nanami is stubborn and insists in Yano telling her his true feelings about his ex… if she were to come back right now, what would Yano tell her? Of course, since Yano still loves her, he tells Nanami that he’ll take her back no matter how much harm she has done to him because he loves her so much. I can totally hear the sincerity in Yano’s voice. But at the same time, it must be heartbreaking for Nanami to hear her man wanting to love another woman. God, if it were me, I would have been so bitter and angry. It’s sooo tough so I don’t blame Nanami for her decision to breakup at all. >___< There really is no choice! Man, this scene is making me tearing up again… T_T

I’m sorry if I’m rambling too much here since it is late over here and I want to finish this post before I go to sleep… still, as you can see, this is standard shoujo warfare, but Bokura ga Ita manages to take these characters and put them in these circumstances and have them react to them so realistically. They don’t do any weird sparkles or exaggerated speeches. It is just normal, in-love high school kids acting realistically to these circumstances that they themselves produce, not anyone else.

Last Ramblings

Minnie: Man, what more do I have to say really? I can’t believe my entry is this long. It’s been a while since I typed this much for a blog entry. Everyone who follows my usual fangirling entry should know how much “effort” I put into them. XD Oh well. This is special since it’s the winter countdown and winter countdowns are pure win. I love last year’s winter countdown on OP and ED.

Anyways, back on topic, like I said before, if you’ve been in love or currently in love, I believe this anime will strike a chord deep within you. It’s something you can totally empathize with and cry along with like I did. I watched this a few months after I broke up with my ex I believe so this anime spoke wonders for me. I have never watched an anime that is so realistic and powerful before. There are flaws, sure, in this anime, but for what it is and for what it’s aimed to do, I believe this anime is worth 26 episodes. It is worth 13 hours surely? For those who are not too keen on this, please give it a try at least. You’ll see from the very first episode that the dialogue goes by really fast and it’s soo normal! It’s like every day dialogue! Then, once you hit the heavy stuff, the dialogue will make even more of an emotional impact. I guaranteed it. The only people I would recommend staying away from this is action-centric and people who don’t care for romance in general, because this is exactly what it is. A drama/romance that has done the genres proud.

Last but not least, please check out TZM or Katt’s entry tomorrow on her personal pick for underhyped anime for Day 3! There will be more awesome series to read about so stick around until Christmas on our countdown, brought together by the HSA team of blog-writers. Again, thank you for reading this and please leave any comments. Flames or insensitive comments will not be tolerated and will be deleted on the spot. For others, let’s have a discrussion shall we?