Anime of the Year 2012 (and All Years): Ano Natsu de Matteru (Waiting in the Summer)

Is this not reason enough?

Is this not reason enough?

Plot: S++

It’s a metaphor about fighting for love. Ichika asked Kaito, “What happens if we get in a fight?” Kaito responded, “We’ll make up. No matter what.” If you hit a rough patch with someone you truly love, you have to listen to them, compromise, and make things work. Nothing will happen without action, either from yourself or maybe someone you know. Kaito and Ichika’s determination, their friends, the MIB, etc. all symbolize that.

Characterization: S+++

Ichika is probably the most well-written female humanoid alien ever. Kaito isn’t your typical useless protagonist either. Maybe he needed some prodding from his bro Tetsuro, but when it comes down to it, his devotion to Ichika is unwavering.

From my second watch through, even Kanna has some redeeming qualities. She’s the one who inspired Ichika, after all. Lemon is obviously famous for her trollish ways, but in the shadows, she acts as a mother figure for Kaito and Ichika. Mio’s a nudist. That’s a new one, right?

Visuals: S+

See picture above.

Sound: S+

“Vidro Moyou.” That is all.

Overall: S++ (Fucking masterpiece).

Ano Natsu de Matteru (Waiting in the Summer) came out Winter 2012 and has remained my favorite throughout the year. Nothing else comes close, though there were still many great shows like Sukitte Ii na yo (Say “I love you”), Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (My Little Monster), and Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo (The Pet Girl of Sakura Hall). Everything else sucked.

This entry was posted by brainchild.

8 thoughts on “Anime of the Year 2012 (and All Years): Ano Natsu de Matteru (Waiting in the Summer)

  1. It wasn’t bad I suppose. I got five or six episodes further in than I expected to. The way the first episode whipped out the sci-fi shit was pretty cool, but after that nothing really stood out to me.
    AOTY is maybe Jinrui or Tsuritama, but it was a pretty weak year overall.

  2. Goddamn, that show was a complete mystery for me. I was surprised that I actually like JC Staff’s animation, but from there on everything went completely downhill.

    Fighting for love? Fuck that shit, couldn’t they find a more boring theme? And what of Kanna? Isn’t she supposed to fight for her love too? Heck, even she was badly written. I usually like characters like her, but in the end even the little development she had wasn’t good. So, this show was concentrated around the love story of the two main characters. The love story wasn’t much of a love story, because it didn’t rely on stacking different reasons and moments between them over the time, but on the fact that they loved each other from first sight, and then only to clear the bumps between them. The attribute to this story was the scifi part, which… was nonsensical. It felt added in just so that the anime has more to it. The main girl was some big tittied onee-san-type character, and that’s not my fetish, I admit. But I usually don’t have problems enjoying good characters that just happen to be outside my field of interest. Not in this case. The best comparison I can come up with is that she was like some kind of dinosaur. Has the looks, has the skills, but the mind doesn’t really live up to the rest. Not even a sign of quick wits. The attribute to her was that race backstory. And that wasn’t too bad, if it was not sidelined for most of the anime, and used only in the last episode. The main guy was your usual bored high school student that doesn’t notice anything around himself. That’s it, I am not even sure what else there was to his character. He was pretty much defined in the anime by his love for the main girl. There was one attribute to him more, truth be told: the camera. That was one of the reasons I had some hopes for this anime. And… no, I didn’t feel that love for capturing a scene on the video tape. It may have been intended to be there, but none got through. The camera was just an item to show how much is he interested in his “love”.

    In the end, Toradora is better, at least there I didn’t dislike the main characters so much.

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