Upon a friend’s recommendation, I’ve watched a few episodes of a new show called “True Tears”. I have to admit I was hesitant at first because it sounded like a generic harem title based on an dating sim game (which I dislike - a lot), but after a few episodes, it’s not quite that bad. Generally, there’s a few tests I apply to any slice-of-life/romance/drama anime. My first basic and simple law of anime is that “As the instances of pointless fanservice in an anime increase, the chances of said anime being one worth watching approaches zero”. In this regard, “True Tears” isn’t awful but it still succumbs to that tendency every now and then. The next is the H&C comparison test. Honey and Clover has, for better or for worse, raised my expectations of anime series in this genre. I have yet to really find a match for that series (outside of Ghibli anime), except, perhaps, for Nodame Cantabile which I enjoyed as well. “True Tears” is no H&C. Sure, it’s true that Honey and Clover had the usual relationship triangles and unrequited love but the way they were handled and directed seemed so….above…the usual fare. H&C felt like a real situation with real characters rather then just an anime. “True Tears” doesn’t really have that same feel, but I suppose I will watch the whole series before making a final judgment.
Getting ready for ef, eh? BTW, it has critically acclaimed score by Tenmon (albeit not classical).
Also, I think you needn’t make any excuses. I’m sure you saw hundreds of entries with “mecha sucks, but Vandread/08th Team/RahXephon …” And in fact eroge adaptations have fairly wide range as I discovered. Some are rather weak (e.g. Yoakena), yet most I saw had some redeeming points. So it’s not all that bad to like a show or two here and there.
Sure, I liked Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien as well. But in my experience a lot of these stories tend to be similar, where a bunch of girls like one guy for no apparent reason except a variety of fanservice.
But I’ve gotten up to episode 10 by now, and I would probably recommend True Tears.
Though I have no idea what you mean by “getting ready for ef, eh?”.
For some reason I assumed that since you’re into music you would have all composers at your fingertips and so you heard about Tenmon and ef. I don’t have a head for people, so Tenmon, Schenmon — it’s all the same for me. And for some reason everyone with a blog is head over heels over Tenmon’s work on ef. Bad assumption, sorry.