This is a weird anime to look back on and analyse – a contrived supernatural element vs some excellent character work.
But move past that and you find something wonderful. There’s
a lot to learn from this anime as to how to develop proper characters and
relationships. The contrived element only hurts when its pointed out through
the ‘alien’ who’s manipulating the entire situation.
Let’s come to the character first. They together make up the
‘student cultural society’ – a club with apparently no solid purpose other than
to gather the five people who for various reasons didn’t join a club – which is
apparently mandatory at their school.
Taichi is the guy with the ‘must-help-everyone’ complex,
Inaba is rigid and the den mother of the society, Yui is a little defensive but
a good fighter while Aoki is mostly a blank slate besides his love for Yui.
But the main heroine of this story (if you can put forward
someone like that in this ensemble) is Nagase. Bright and cheerful and ready to
greet the world – but hiding a lot.
Over the series though, we see how complex each character is
– as well as how flawed. Not only that, the series manages to push ancillary
characters into positions where they become more well rounded than their
initial roles.
Heartseed the alien
puts his spotlight on this weird society of friends and manipulates with them
in various manners though it seems to actually help them grow as individuals
and friends – but in a very painful manner. Growing pains it seems.
First, is a personality swap where two people swap bodies.
This leads to a lot of revelations as skeletons come out of the closet. Both
Inaba and Yui have trust issues, though while the latter has a foundation based
on an attempted rape – Inaba is the more interesting of the two. If you don’t
have any trauma to make you who you are, are you broken by birth? Taichi proves
to be the stable nerve center of the group and helps both the girls to move
forward – one by accepting who she is and the other by helping her move past
the incident at great personal cost.
Actually near the end of the first phenomenon, Taichi’s
issues come out as well – as a confession of love from him to Nagase leads to
Heartseed taking over her body and throwing her into the river, leaving her in
the hospital. His self-sacrificing nature comes from a place of deep
selfishness – to ensure none of his friends ‘hurt’ and are okay. Messiah
complex is a tricky issue, leading him to say he’ll die in Nagase’s body even
without taking into consideration what Nagase’s opinion is.
Next up, after Nagase survives, is desire liberation where
what you want comes un-repressed in the biggest form possible. Inaba’s troubles
start as it is revealed she loves Taichi as well while Yui’s trauma seems to
still be in effect after she brutalizes a group of boys for going after some
girls of her school. There is a sea change in Inaba during this arc – as she
comes to terms with the fact that she can’t decide who goes out with whom to
ensure the friends circle stays together. This leads to a love triangle forming
at the end with Taichi, Inaba and Nagase – which in a refreshing manner,
remains just competitive and not relationship breaking. There is a nice moment
where Inaba kisses Taichi to confirm she loves him – which parallels nicely to
Nagase kissing Taichi in Inaba’s body when they thought she was going to die.
First kisses!
A second heartseed shows up and starts the next phenomenon –
reverse aging. She demarcates Taichi as an observer given his ‘role’ as the
helping element in the group but warns him not to say anything to his friends.
So from 12 pm to 5 pm every day, they meet up at an abandoned soon to be
demolished building and wait out the consequences. Aoki falls into the
spotlight in this as it is revealed Yui looks like a girl he once dated when he
was younger. We come to know a close friend died when he was younger and he
decided to stay carefree given he knew there may not be a tomorrow. This leads
to a lot of soul searching within him as to whether he truly loves Yui and
after meeting Nana, the girl he loved – he is able to finally confirm his love
for Yui.
This all ends when Nagase, who is revealed to keep up
appearances to suit the situation so that her mother can have a happy life,
confronts her mother and both reveal that they kept themselves in check to
ensure the others happiness – after the first heartseed ends the phenomenon and
asks Nagase whether she wants to redo her life from another point, which she
firmly denies.
The final phenomenon of the series is when the five friends
are able to listen to each other’s thoughts and feel the emotion behind them.
Nagase is hit the hardest, as it is revealed how much of a mask she has put on.
Amidst concern that the society may be disbanded because of their advisor
possibly leaving, Nagase leaves the group and removes all pretence of being
cheerful.
This costs her dearly – as she spurns a boy in the jazz band and the
girl who actually likes him ensures that all the preparation for the final
presentation goes to waste by roughing up the cultural society room.
Inaba comes across the delinquents who roughed up the room –
but they kidnap her and its only through the emotional transference that the
group is able to save her, backed up by a repenting Nagase’s acting. Taichi
though is hurt protecting Inaba from one of the delinquents’ attack, landing
him in hospital. There he and Nagase resolve their romantic issues and while
both stay grateful for loving each other, Taichi decides to move on and accept
Inaba’s feelings.
The series ends with the cultural society surviving and
Heartseed seemingly having disappeared.
As a lot of people can attest, friends circle – especially one
mixed, can have a lot of difficulties. Just because you love the people around
you doesn’t mean you don’t have unresolved issue or are a ‘good’ person. In
fact, I would say there is no such things. We are all flawed and in more than
one way have bad habits and thoughts. Through these multiple phenomena, the
group is able to confront both the good and bad sides of their self and come
out stronger. We all wear masks and need to sometimes to exist in society, but
we need to understand who we are behind those as well.
It would be remiss not to mention four characters. First is
the ‘love god’ of Class 1-3, the class representative fujishama who harbour a
love both for the class and Nagase in particular. She’s not ashamed of her
advances and the show doesn’t stereotype her – making her out to be very
perceptive and helpful even to Taichi who she considers a rival in love. Next
up is Rina, Taichi’s younger sister. The others tease him about their
relationship a lot but Rina shows how much of a good person Taichi really is
beyond his friends. The brother sister duo though is sadly not giving as much
of a screentime as I personally thought was warranted.
Then is Mr Goto, or Mr
Go, the advisor and laidback teacher. He’s mainly a pain but does give wise
counsel sometimes. Though it is mainly as a human vessel for Heartseed that he’s
seen – given his laidback nature, he was chosen as he doesn’t care about gaps
in memory. Finally, a girl comes into focus at the end Karou Setochi, who
becomes a villain of sorts in the final arc after a falling out with Nagase –
but becomes friends with her at the end.
Kokoro connect does use a forced catalyst, but the
interactions and character exploration as well as growth fascinate a lot. It’s
unfortunate the events beyond this series have led to a stoppage of it – it could easily have got another season or
more given the light novels from which this was taken.
But I’m glad to have had seen Kokoro Connect. It truly touches
some genuine points about what it is to be a friend, a lover and a human being.
As long as such anime come out, we will always be able to find reflections of
ourselves in there and ask questions we should have answered but were always
afraid to.
So, I give it 9.0 out of 10.
+Great character studies
+Flawed and relatable characters
+Visually competent
-Forced supernatural plot device
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