[Ascaloth] True Tears, Episode 13 at Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

[Ascaloth] True Tears, Episode 13

(8 votes, average: 3.38 out of 5)

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Popularity: 11% [?] Published by Ascaloth April 1st, 2008 in Ascaloth, Anime

After Noe’s attempt to take flight ended prematurely with a crash landing into what was fortunately soft snow, minimizing her injuries to a broken leg, Shinichiro and Jun take the opportunity to have some boy’s time on top of the hospital roof (like, where else?). During that time, the guys finally acknowledge the end of the backroom deal that had no business being made in the first place, and the way is finally open for things to be fixed. After flip-flopping for so long, hurting everybody around him in the process, this is Shinichiro’s last chance to redeem himself. Can he get over his indecisive ways?

Yeah, I know I’m somewhat late again, especially considering that LianYL had already published an excellent overall review on it; a literary feat which I have not the skill to emulate as yet. Nevertheless, I shall go ahead and wrap things up anyway, and doing so, complete the entirety of my coverage duties of the Fall 2007/Winter 2008 season. Therefore, with this article, I hereby complete a coverage which I first started with a Trial Run this January, and was impressed enough with it to upgrade it to a full-fledged coverage by the 5th episode.

True Tears, episode 13, the series finale.

The relationship between the both of them should have deteriorated by now, no doubt because of Jun’s belief that Shinichiro is breaking his word, but at least they’re being civil to each other. This is the point I think where Jun finally decides to stop perpetrating the fraud he started in the first place.

And honestly, although I’ve never liked him because of his too-smooth ways and his too-easy acceptance of questionable backroom deals, I can respect him in the end for that. If a guy’s willing to own up to a mistake and either stop perpetrating it or rolls his sleeves up to set it right, I’m not going to hold it against him forever. Everyone screws up sometimes; what matters is what one does from that point onward.

I like cats, too.

One of the things that True Tears still does so well is body language; we can still infer quite a bit just from Hiromi merely widening her eyes in realization. Sometimes, it’s just hard to catch oneself from acting in a less-than-ideal manner before it is too late.

The wise advice dispensed by one who has been there before. You know, it’s not until this moment that I realize just what was Shinichiro’s problem all along. If only it had been more obvious earlier, instead of it looking like him jumping from one to another with the next moment, perhaps I would have not been so harsh on him.

Hiromi, for her part, finally screws up the courage to face the fact that trying to keep a conflicted Shinichiro forcibly by her side is only going to end in vain, and that the right thing to do is to let him go, so that he can be free to do whatever needs to be done. If he’s meant to be yours, he’ll come back to you eventually.

…..urgh. I can’t believe that cliche just felt out from my tongue.

I just really like this shot of Hiromi staring out the window, as she watches Shinichiro disappear out the front gate. There’s just such a melancholy feel to this scene, like she knows that perhaps she’ll never see him again.

With all the dirty laundry now out in the open, the atmosphere between Shinichiro and Noe was just awkward. As I thought it would be; that backroom deal was never going to lead to anything good, but I guess Shinichiro had to learn that the hard way for it to sink in.

Anybody else was thinking, "Oh, Raigomaru finally got to fly"?

Quite a few people have picked out how Kanae, from the way she’s treating Hiromi nicely now compared to before, probably understood what Hiromi is going through right now, and in fact treated her badly before because she perceived Hiromi to be playing the role of her mother, only to realize later on that Hiromi was in fact playing the same roles she once did herself. Now, if only this point was expanded a bit further during the transition from the first part of the series to the second, instead of the ‘poof’ we got during Episode 9.

And if only it was shown earlier, even a couple of episodes earlier, that Shinichiro was behaving the way he does because his heart was wavering. That, despite his best intentions, he did indeed have real feelings for both Noe and Hiromi. See, this is where I felt this series failed in the end; it had a great story, the beauty of its world is comparable to anything Kyoto Animation could possibly come up with, the music was a nice selection as well, but it’s the characterization that’s a let-down in the end. We don’t really understand each character’s motivations fully until the very end, when it’s too late to matter.

And I’ve said before that I couldn’t help but want to punch Shinichiro a good one in the face before, but with him looking this wretched, I can’t help but let him off for the time being. Certainly, it must not be easy having one’s heart torn in two, much less forcing oneself to make a decision and sticking with it. I still wished there was more indication that he was undergoing such a difficult decision, though.

"I wanted to wipe away your tears. Now, I can finally do that."

And the choice is made, the confession sealed. Hiromi ended up with him after all; I’m still not sure it’s a wise decision, but for her sake, I hope it pays off. It’s all too easy for the vicious cycle of what-ifs to perpetrate itself all over again if they aren’t careful.

Fast forward to the near future, and we get to see one last glimpse of everyone. Aiko is well on her way to becoming comfortable with being in Nobuse’s company, and while they still remain friends, it’s now an untainted relationship between them. Although it’s good to see them getting on with their lives, in the end I still didn’t get an answer to the question, "why was Aiko even in the story in the first place?" I mean, sure there’s probably plenty of explanations for that, and many have already sounded out on their thoughts about why her presence isn’t a total waste….I just think she should have either contributed more to the main story, or just gotten the hell out of the way as it is.

While Noe doesn’t look like she changed much since then, there’s some subtle difference which I can’t quite pinpoint. Though even so, I still think it made her a lot more beautiful, somehow. I’m not sure why, but I kind of like the subdued, pensive Noe a lot better.

And with that, we get a parting shot of Noe reminiscening about the recent past as the final scene of True Tears. It’s been 13 weeks, and now it’s over.

The thing about True Tears is that it started out so strongly. I have to say that I was quite impressed by P.A. Works‘ debut solo in the beginning, so much so that I was willing to start a blog coverage of it despite already having a CLANNAD (TV) coverage, and despite having my own school work to deal with. Despite that, this series was excellent stuff for a good part of its run, with such skillful use of subtlety in telling the story that I was hooked to keep watching week after week.

Somehow though, it all seemed to go wrong at Episode 9, which by now everyone would have known is the episode which I described as everything going ‘poof’. The momentum just bottomed out from there, and although there was a pick up for the next couple of episodes, it never really returned to the previous level that got me so impressed. If I were to say just what was the downfall of this series, I would say that, in a sense, True Tears was trying to be too ambitious; the way I see it, it was a shot at being an anti-harem. It’s a series that tries to portray the message that having several ladies pursuing an interest in oneself is not all that it’s cracked up to be. It’s a situation that WILL hurt oneself, as well as the ones around oneself, quite badly. That it is, far from being a paradise, a complicated situation, one that will only continue to hurt everybody if it is not resolved in time. Yet, in this aim, True Tears was doing almost everything right….except the characters.

The failure is that Aiko didn’t even look like being part of the scene despite supposedly being the third wheel around which things are supposed to revolve. The bigger failure is that Hiromi’s angst drowned out the underlying motivations behind that angst. The even bigger failure is that Noe’s eccentric manner of dealing with her own angst is also drowning out her underlying motivations underneath the angst. The biggest failure is that Shinichiro’s angst over being torn between the two loves of his life is just not obvious enough. To summarize it all up simply, True Tears just ended up being too subtle for its own good. And that is why the series ended up generating a shipping shitstorm amongst its viewer base, something which I think was never intended in the first place; the themes it was trying to put across was just so subtle, it flew over the heads of quite a number of people. Characterization was what prevented this series from being a truly great experience.

Well then, this series is over. While it still remains a good series worth recommending, it could have been so much more.

Ascaloth of RIUVA, signing out of the coverage of True Tears.

Popularity: 11% [?]

9 Responses to “[Ascaloth] True Tears, Episode 13”

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1 hashihime 31 comments Apr 2nd, 2008 at 1:53 am

Great review, but I wouldn’t be so hard on true tears. Yes, things became somewhat confused after ep9, but not enough to detract that much from the overall impact of the show. It was over-subtle, perhaps, but not so much so that it didn’t work, at least for me. I, at any rate, felt long ago that Shin had feelings for Noe as well as for Hiromi. And that Jun was a good guy underneath his manipulativeness.

And I think the “shipping shitstorm” was intentional. Nishimura Junji had shot himself in the foot with Simoun, a great anime that just had too many elements to put off the ani-ota audience. In this show, he was determined to give the audience something it could understand. And from the number of threads on 2channel, the strategy appears to have worked.
2 Sorrow-kun 26 comments Apr 2nd, 2008 at 10:18 am

I agree with this review more than I agree with most of what’s being said on AnimeSuki. For all the creativity and good execution this series had, it’s only flaw was characterization, but what a big flaw that is. Drama of this nature needs sympathetic characters, and I didn’t feel these characters were sympathetic. Confused and conflicted, yes. That justifies their angst. But not sympathetic.

As far as the shipping was concerned, I hate to think that it was intentional. My natural disposition towards that whole thing is that the less meaning a series has, the more susceptible it is to rampant shipping. The only way I can reconcile this disposition with the amount of rampant shipping True Tears had is that it either had a lot less meaning than I initially thought, and I was reading too much into it, or the shippers are conveniently ignoring what meaning there is to this anime and appreciate and understand it even less than I do. In other words, either I don’t get this anime, or they don’t. Nonetheless, if there’s one thing I loathe about the AnimeSuki forums at the moment, it’s shipping. It’s a sad reflection of how endemic the cliches of shounen romance are (one of the most consistently bad genres in anime) that people can’t appreciate a romance series where the “who will he choose” isn’t the point.

I hate the idea that Nishimura was trying to sacrifice meaning and storytelling to appeal to the 2ch crowd. Let the 2ch crowd occupy themselves with Shuffle! or Da Capo whatever, I want to see more romance anime like Bokura ga Ita.
3 dsong 2 comments Apr 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 am

Actually, “Who will he choose” question was pretty critical to the show and it greatly affected people’s ability to appreciate and understand the show. There was significant contrast between the three girls and Shin’s choice largely depended on whether he valued the past (Hiromi), present (Ai), and future (Noe). In addition, Noe represented his wings (and his desire to fly), and the source of his true tears.

In all honesty I felt the most important themes in the show (including the titular one - which is kinda important if you ask me) were centered around Noe, which is why Noe was the logical choice to not only end up with Shin, but have the greatest influence in Shin’s character as well (symbolized by his picture book, writing “I like you” with stones, etc.). Shin seemed to go backward whenever Hiromi was involved - playing the role of an unproductive indecisive wuss that he eventually embraced at the end of the show. It was telling that Shin managed to finish the entire book with Noe, while he flopped badly using Hiromi as an inspiration.

But what really killed the show in my eyes was Hiromi’s unsympathetic and selfish nature. Such characteristics make for an excellent villainess but a lousy heroine. Her so-called turnaround was made out of desperation, not because of any fundamental shift in her character or unselfishness. And the way she constantly used and manipulated others was truly sickening. I hope I will never have to encounter anyone like her in my lifetime.
4 monster_throttle 1 comment Apr 3rd, 2008 at 6:23 pm

I don’t blame the writer for losing momentum. Writers are not god, as a result they may lose momentum and unable to write a perfect script without any flaw. I also feel the momentum slowing down, but still satisfied with the final outcome. Real love is like true tears, in the beginning there is strong passion. As time passes by, the passion cools down and you will feel like losing momentum.

In the beginning of the story, Shinichirou is chasing after girls. This is the most interesting stage of a romance. It’s like a hero in an RPG starting his journey, full of hope, full of unknown, full of curiousity, full of adventure and full of uncertainty. After episode 9, the momentum slow down because Shinichirou has become certain about his love towards the girls. It’s like the RPG, the hero know his destiny is to defeat villians A,B,C and D. The uncertainty and adventure feeling dies down, so there is a slow down in momentum.

When a person is asked about his or her love, he or she will say the beginning of a romance is the most interesting and memorable. I even read an article before that say a girl keep breaking up with her current boyfriend and find new lovers just to keep experience the beginning and most interesting stage of a romance. I understand your feeling of a loss of momentum, it’s because the beginning of a romance story will have the strongest momentum.
5 asdf 3 comments Apr 5th, 2008 at 12:53 pm

so… what was the theme of this series?
6 Thejuggernaut 14 comments Apr 5th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

The theme was how not to nice boat a perfectly clean and enigmatic story line….
also how to explain the duality of one’s self….

damn gotta watch The Revolver again…
7 Profen 3 comments May 18th, 2009 at 2:56 am

To subtle? Maybe for someone with mild to massive retardation. Just because you’re too inept at readingn peoples feelings/actions/body language doesn’t mean the show was “too subtle”.

It only makes you look bad for admitting you didn’t get it.
8 Profen 3 comments May 18th, 2009 at 2:57 am

And fuck typos!

1 THAT Animeblog - How does personal bias affect anime blogging? Is it good, bad, or just inevitable? Pingback on Apr 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm

Do not use any < and > for your own sake. It will end the comment there and then. Also, there is an automatic IQ filter which weeds out comments made by those who accidentally got transported from the stone age.

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