Thoughts on Kokoro Connect
I loved Kokoro Connect with all my heart. I thought it was kind of educational way though. Not the boring, monotonous way but because they discussed a lot of things about life and stuff. Even romance. KC is also one of my first good highschool romance anime. The only other one that comes to mind is Clannad, which I am not a big fan of. There’s mostly harem in it. Harem does not interest me in the romantic way but they sure are funny. I watched Clannad a long time ago, anyway. One of my very first anime. My anime friend was like, it’s not going to be that great and stuff, and I totally should’ve listened to him. But anyway, it added to my taste and experience. A thing to think about: how in the world does Clannad have such a high rating on MAL?
Getting back to Kokoro. They ventured over various things that you learn in life because there was this creepy guy called heartseed or something who messed around with their group. I couldn’t understand whether he was doing it to make all their lives better or just for his entertainment. It was entertainment for us anyway. So yeah, let me start from the very beginning. There are these five people: 3 girls and 2 guys who are the only members of the cultural club of their school. So yeah, one day they randomly start switching bodies. That’s why there’s genderbender genre for this anime/manga whatever. And the fun goes on. Heartseed makes his appearance then and tells them that he’s just fooling around with them for his entertainment. Except he sounds far more creepier. He is really strong so there is basically no point in fighting him. I mean there’s this karate girl among them and she throws a kick at him and he blocks it perfectly. KC is not ONLY genderbender stuff, that’s just the first arc. Every arc they all learn something and it has an important impact on each of their lives. Different magical things happen to them in the latter arcs, I wouldn’t spoil them for ya.
I would say Kokoro Connect is both character driven as well as plot driven. It sure is unique in the way it progresses and that’s one of the reasons I like it so much. Thing is, I never found myself liking all the characters a lot. There is a main character. But the rest of the characters in the group are developed nearly the same. It surprised me because I normally like at least one or two characters in almost every anime I watch. But I DEFINITELY like characters from a good anime. One of the reason is that they had to develop 5 characters in such a short time. Another thing is that throughout the series, there always was some kind of tension between one of two of them. Especially the final arc. If there was more normality in it perhaps I would have liked it better.
Kokoroco’s length is really perfect. The awesomeness didn’t get over too quickly nor did it get so long that it became boring. You know, some shows should really end right there, 17 episodes then FIN. Over. The End. It is silly of me to say such things though because I doubt I can even make a story half as good as this. Well, anyway KC ends at ep 13 according to MAL and some special called Michi Random starts which lasts for 4 epis. It is rare for a special to be so good. Even the Steins;gate special is good, and finishes the show tying all loose ends and all. Point is that the special was pretty good. Most tragic however.
Basically what happens in the story is that every one has some problem or the other, and the different magic heartseed casts on them helps those problems to surface and together they help that person become free of them. It’s not exactly ‘dark’ but you could say that apart from jokes that happen from time to time, the anime is pretty depressing overall. If you like serious kind of stuff you’ll enjoy Kokoroco.
PS: TaichixIori win!