I don’t see it that way. I see it as someone who’s honest and speaks with their mind (rare in reality) vs. someone who holds things in and hides what she really feels a lot of the time (common in reality). So Shin x Hiromi is realistic while Shin x Noe is idealistic. Call me a dreamer than. :P

The whole motorcycle scene pissed me off because Hiromi didn’t die (lolz jk), Hiromi was so nonchalant about the motorcycle burning and uses it to WARM HER HANDS. Unlike what other people have said, I don’t think that’s cool; I think that’s just rude. I applaud Jun for having patience though in order to keep Noe and Shin’ichiro together, although their relationship (at the time) did not rely on Hiromi x Jun.

@ beowulf: I actually agree with most of your comments on the characters. I didn’t even think about a Noe/Haruhi comparison until now.

Is it just me, or is Noe almost like a Haruhi ripoff with a darker personality? She’s got the eccentricity, the friendlessness, the fall-in-love-with-the-first-guy-who-accepts-her, etc. However, unlike Haruhi she does show her more feminine side at home, in private. I actually liked her character quite a bit; it’s a refreshing change to the typical harem lead, which is invariably the girl next door, the tsundere, or a combination of the two.

Hiromi’s character…it was almost hate at first sight. Disregarding the fact that she’s almost a Nanaka-clone from Myself; Yourself (long hair, childhood friend, tragic past, tsundere, “ice-queen”, etc.), her character doesn’t really make sense. Her parents die and she’s adopted by her father’s best friend? Does that sort of thing even happen in real life? And she’s been living with Shin for a year and he’s never been in her room, even though they’re childhood friends? Unless the next several episodes give us a valid reason for her behavior towards Shin, I’m going to write her off as a failure. Too much tsun-tsun and not enough dere-dere in such characters defeat the purpose of the “tsundere” character in the first place.

Miyokichi’s character is the only flawless one I can see in this anime. Not much to say here, except I can’t imagine a happy ending for him. Shame. Although some guy over at AnimeSuki did speculate that he’ll hook up with Tomoyo, hahaha.

Which leads us to Aiko. IMO, she is the most poorly designed character in this anime. Okay, so she’s a childhood friend of Shin. Why does she automatically have to like him? She seems like a plot device placed into the anime just to make it more melodramatic than it already is. Her character would have been put to much better use as a regular girlfriend for Miyokichi, and as a older-sister-type sounding board for Shin when he has problems. I don’t think she really has a chance with Shin, which is a relief. It’ll be interesting to see how her character will resolve when the series comes to an end though.

Jun. The mysterious brother. A little too mysterious for my taste though. As mentioned before, what was up with his reaction after the bike crash? “Oh, my bike’s on fire…you got money for a taxi? Yea? That’s cool. But it’ll be a bit difficult to call for one. Bummer.” Unless he too has some tragic history that turned him into what he is, I don’t buy that attitude. And the sister complex…please please please don’t turn this into another Myself; Yourself incest animu when Noe inevitably is rejected by Shin. Although there is speculation that he’ll end up with Hiromi and Shin with Noe, I think it’s unlikely. Again, I’ll pass final judgement when the anime is complete.

Last but not least, Shin. He’s one of the more likeable porn game/harem/romantic leads to come out for awhile (No Makato-kun here, thank you very much). However, his nice-guy persona takes away some of that special…something when you see someone like Takayuki from KgNE screw up for the fifteenth time. I think it’s safe to say he’ll get a happy ending here. My one criticism of him is his relationship with Noe. Throughout the first eight episodes we’re led to believe that he genuinely likes her, but as soon as he finds out about Hiromi not being his sister he promptly dumps Noe. He’s just lucky the anime’s name isn’t School Days. Otherwise, he’s kinda screwed.

The animation and music in True Tears is above average. Nothing like Byousoku 5cm or Haruhi Suzumiya no Yuutsu, but that’s to be expected of the run-of-the-mill tv-series based of a visual novel. It’s nice that some of the secondary characters are given personalities (wow, Shin actually has parents! I’m looking at you, School Days), although it’s still somewhat disappointing that Aiko is still somewhat one-dimensional, considering she’s a potential love-interest.

One last thing. I don’t know about you guys, but it seems that not much has happened throughout the 9 episodes. No startling revelations (except the false sister alarm), which may be a good thing since this anime is striving to be a somewhat realistic slice-of-life drama, but I can help but think I spent three hours watching…not much substance at all. I mean, so far all we’ve found out is:

-Noe like chickens and all related paraphernalia
-being a nutcase, she’s also given away her tears, whatever that means
-Hiromi likes Shin, but due to some traumatic event in the past cannot bring herself to tell him so
-she even resorts to lies about ol’ number 4
-this is probably because of some trauma she suffered in her youth, which is somehow related to Shin’s mother
-Shin had introduced Aiko to Miyokichi, but she secretly likes him; no one knows why Shin is so special
-Noe likes Shin, but Shin may or may not like her back; the plot’s really quite unclear on this point

I think that this anime has the potential to redeem itself in the next four episodes. I eagerly await episode 10, what with the probably Aiko breakup and emu Noe.