Anime Review: Aoi Hana

Review Aoi HanaWritten by WarpshadowRating good

With little to make this show work as either a slice of life show or a drama interest in Aoi Hana will ultimately doom it to be nothing more than an affirmative action pick.

Fumi Manjome is just entering her first year of high school at Matsuoka high. As luck would have it she runs into her long lost childhood friend Akira Okudaira, although she goes to Fujigatani girl’s academy instead. Unbeknownst to Akira or anyone else Fumi is just coming off a romantic relationship with her cousin Chizu (note Chizu is a girl) who left her for another man. As the two old friends reconnect with each other what sorts of things will happen to them?

In theory Aoi Hana is a show that I should like. After all it’s nice to have a yuri show that isn’t fan service and to have a girly show when the attraction to girls isn’t throwing a bishonen into the show. In practice this show isn’t that great. The main problem is that it’s a character driven show with characters that don’t have enough volition to make a show work. The result is a bunch of characters crying a lot over very little without much in the way of variation in tone to make things interesting. There are a few good things like one of the secondary characters, Kyoko (who incidentally as the biggest name actress of the main characters) who giving this show its reputation for subtlety. Overall though this is a cross between a slice of life and drama that is too depressing to work as a slice of life and has too little to work with for a drama.