AnoHana 6-8: How to get over someone

paying their respects

 So AnoHana is pegged by ANN at 11 episodes. We're now on the 8th episode and our gang isn't even anywhere close to fulfilling Menma's wish. Ahhhh, but I'm so enjoying this show.

Yukiatsu lecturing about the high cost of fireworks

Now, my real problem is how to blog this series. Because each episode is so beautiful and nuanced, it feels like a crime to floss over all the details by bulk-blogging (that is, blogging two to three episodes at one time). The plot is going along steadily: our gang is still trying to fulfill Menma's wish by first figuring out what that wish is. They think it's the fireworks but we learn in episode 8 that that isn't it at all. Now, I could bore you to death about the extent Jinta and friends go through to make the said fireworks canon for Menma but I'd be barely scratching the surface of this beautiful series. The thing is, that isn't all that AnoHana is about. It's about characters, too, not just the gang, but also about all the others left behind.

Anaru's confession...ten years too late

In the end, don't we all owe something to our past? Don't our memories deserve more than a quick glance through a dusty photoalbum, a few scathing remarks about the stupidity of youth? We've done things. We've said things. And maybe they are stupid and laughable and entirely silly now, but they weren't then. No. Because then, they were moments in time. They were real. And maybe you really can't relive the past but you can honor it, even if it means being silly and acting out for a few seconds of every day. What is a few seconds? They make up your entire life.