Love triangles and myself don’t have the best relationship. They’re often predictable, usually get nowhere and really like to distract from the main point of a series. True Tears shows that things can be done differently, though. This series has really been built around a love-triangle, and somehow, it’s managed to avoid the pitfalls that has caused the demise of so many series.
The key is good scriptwriting. The series is originally based upon a visual novel, though the creators made the smart decision to just ignore the storyline and come up with their own. True Tears is a slow series, but because it’s slow, it’s able to really dive into the minds of its characters. The result delivers, because the characters in this series are deep.
This is one of these series where the characters and their intentions can’t be easily described in one sentence. A major theme of this series is sorting out your own feelings, and feelings like that aren’t that simple to describe. Shinichiro, our main male lead also keeps hopping from one girl to the other, making the viewer wonder about who he’ll end up choosing until the final episode. The side-characters also for once aren’t stereotypes. The best friend has an actual personality and his own problems, the main character’s father and mother play a big role in the series as well. There’s just one character whose role remains ambiguous throughout the series: Aiko. I’m still not sure what her purpose actually was.
The visuals are another reason to check out this series, because they look absolutely gorgeous. A lot of attention has been put in the animation, and you can see that this series has received a big budget to work with. Even though there are definitely better series, True Tears remains a worthy series of your time.