Bokura ga Ita wasn’t one of the series I was actively following as it was being aired, but an abundance of time over the winter break led me to catch up and the final episodes were subbed yesterday. Bokura ga Ita is a romance/drama anime that, unlike the majority, features an early confession and relationship. Instead of concentrating on the events that lead up to the final kokuhaku, the series is based on the events after the drama, the reality and hardships of being in a relationship.

If I had to compare Bokura ga Ita to another anime out there, I would say it’s a union KareKano and Honey and Clover with the angst pushed to overdrive. The plot circumstances are reminiscent of KareKano whereas the retelling and style is similar to that of Honey and Clover. Spoilers ahead!

The series begins with high school ichinensei Takahashi Nanami, your typical highschool girl, full of hope and ideals for the future. Soon after settling in to highschool life she learns that Motoharu Yano, whom 2/3 of the girls in elementary school fell for, is in her class. First impressions lead her to hate him initially, however that would make for one boring plot, so they promptly fall in love and start dating.

The rest of the series is dedicated to the many moments of happiness and the numerous more moments of pain in the lives of this newly formed couple. Everything from the typical date to heart wrenching breakups and even some competition for both sides is covered. Bokura ga Ita is a much needed break from seeing the 100th typical indecisive harem lead falling face first into the boobs of countless haremettes.

In my opinion (isn’t everything?) the depiction of the relationship was a nice balance between harsh reality and ideal fantasy. As most relationships start out, the two are inseparable at first, spending countless hours together whether it be in loving embrace or just enjoying the other’s presence. This is what many refer to as the “honeymoon” phase of the relationship. After a couple months, the two settle in and become accustomed with the idea of “going out”, this is where problems start. As they struggle to balance the need to understand each other, respecting personal space and remain loyal, fights become common, often over seemingly insignificant triggers.

The final episodes of the series introduce even more angsty drama as Yano has to move to Tokyo, separating him and Nana for an entire year. This decision throws their relationship into uncertainty while they desperately think about whether they can survive as a couple. The anime ends with the assurance that they will both remain faithful to each other no matter how long the wait.

Thoughts

While I do think the relationship between Yano and Nana was well constructed to mirror how real life relationships often go, I still think they went WAY overboard with the drama. The amount of fighting that these two went through compared to the amount of time that they spent happily together was horribly balanced. Though the fights may have been spaced out over time in real time, they seemed to happen back to back from my perspective. This resulted in me becoming more and more annoyed with the couple, Nana in particular.

The numerous fights that were a direct result from the two not being able to act maturely and say what’s on their mind, instead opting to be childishly evasive or stubborn, were ridiculous. In the latter half of the series, we hardly went half an episode without having to see Nana cry or Yano go emo over immature pride.

In terms of character, both Yano and Nana were hypocritical and contradictory in their thoughts and actions. Yano comes off as valiant in his efforts to protect dead-Nana from her abusive boyfriend, yet is undeniably jealous and overbearing. He masks this with his genuinely gentle side and that smile of his.

Nana isn’t much better, she claims to want nothing but Yano’s happiness and stands ready to sacrifice anything. But in reality she is just as scared of pain, betrayal and abandonment as Yano is. Despite her desire to want to understand Yano better than anyone else, she is completely unable to see that her persistence in discussing dead-Nana was only causing him to become more defensive and distant. Nana is selfish, but I don’t fault her for this, all humans are selfish by nature, it’s natural to avoid pain and seek out happiness.

However, beyond their exteriors, the two underwent significant change over the course of the anime. At the end Yano was finally able to stop blaming his problems on others and builds the resolve to set his own course in life. And Nana FINALLY manages to have faith in Yano, setting aside her self conscious doubts in the dying moments of the anime she sets herself second and tells Yano to do what he feels is best himself, rather than forcing her ideals of happiness on to him.

The side characters, Takeuchi and Yamamoto, seemed to be plot advancements more than individual characters. Moreso Yamamoto than Takeuchi, but they seemed like they had very little chance of prying Nana and Yano apart and were instead used to incite jealousy and more lovers quarrels.

On a side note, I found Yamamoto extremely unbelievable as a character. She spent so much time resenting Yano for what he did to her sister and her, yet we suddenly realize she had been harboring feelings for him the whole time? She didn’t act on them before, but as soon as Nana stepped into the picture she started to become determined to win over Yano, going as far applying to a university in Tokyo to chase him. Again, might be the reality vs viewer perspective of the timeline, but I found that reversal much to fast to be believable.

HOWEVER! All that having been said, I LOVED the way Bokura ga Ita handled character development. The fact that the series could generate such feelings from me makes it clear how much I identified with the characters. Except those other random characters, Nana’s two friends and that girl from the hook-up party that dated Takeuchi for like…a day. They sucked, so much so that I’m too lazy to even look up their names so I can properly bash them.

The ending of the series left me kind of disappointed, it’s rather cruel to leave the viewers hanging and expect them to create their own ideas on what happened after the two become separated. This was slightly offset by Triad’s release of the manga chapter that the anime series ended on. From what I saw, Yano and Nana don’t manage to keep their promise and don’t see each other for three years, despite Nana having made it into Tokyo University. I want to read the manga T_T.

Technical aspects of the series were average to above average. As mentioned above, the animation style is similar to that of Honey and Clover’s, though not as good in my opinion. The character designs are simplistic and fit the feel of the anime perfectly, the regular changes in clothing were a huge plus in my books. However, beyond that, there was nothing special animation wise, the backgrounds were often half drawn, leaving a heavy lighting technique to blur the rest of the screen.

The music was exceptional but soooo repetitive, that ED track was spammed like no tomorrow. Though I can understand why, almost every episode past the halfway point ended on a depressing cliff hanger, for which the ED is the perfect backing track. The OP was often uncharacteristically cheerful, but still a nice song. Ambient music was minimal at most times, used only to create a sense of surreal calmness.

Overall a great anime, edges out KareKano ever so slightly in my books, but that’s mainly due to the superior animation, I liked the storyline of KareKano better than Bokura ga Ita’s. Honey and Clover still stands atop both, but I highly recommend watching any of the three for great examples of slice-of-life romance dramas.

~ Shirukii ~