True Tears - Episodes 1-3

True Tears is an anime based on a dating sim. Except it isn't - Rather bizarrely, only the title is shared between anime and manga, otherwise every aspect of this show from character design down to the storyline has been altered. Having never played the game, I really can't draw any comparisons between the two, but what I can say is that, from its opening three episodes, I've really warmed to the True Tears anime.

As far as plot goes, True Tears couldn't be much more stereotypical if it tried - One guy, surrounded by three girls, all with very different personalities and all, it seems, with a bit of a crush on Shinichirō Nakagami, our hero. Of the trio thus far however, Noe Isurugi has largely dominated the story, mainly on account of that unbeatable combination of being both cute and weird. Then you have Hiromi Yuasa, who already lives with Shinichirō after her father died when she was younger, and Aiko Endō, who we know very little about thus far (aside from her cooking abilities). Oh, and there's some odd stuff about capturing tears going on somewhere too. Not to mention regular appearances of chicken feed.

From reading all that, it most likely seems hard to pick out anything that particularly makes True Tears stand out from the crowd of anime that follows similar situations. Yet somehow, despite all that, this series so far 'just works'. It's often quite beautifully animated, the main characters are all likeable yet mysterious enough in their actions and feelings to remain intriguing, and the whole show so far just gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling of enjoyment. Hopefully as this series continues I'll be able to put my finger a little more precisely on why it works as a whole (assuming it doesn't go off the deep end story-wise and end up disappointing), but for now you'll have to trust me on this one when I say that it's well worth checking out if you like gently-paced, relationship-centric anime.