we found love

Long story short I watched Ano Hi Mita no Hana no Namae wo Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai and ran out of tears.

I knew when I watched the OP in the first episode and started tearing up that AnoHana was eventually going to kill me and hey what do you know? It's just such a perfect recipe. You have childhood friends drifting apart *twinge* and a first love *twinge* that ended in tragedy *twinge*. The various characters and relationships are already shaping up pretty clearly, even without some of my spoilers. What's also pretty clear at this point? No matter how they end this series it will end with me in tears.
I'm so Genre Savvy. Who needs feels anyways?

This 11 episode show was lovely in so many ways. They had a plot that didn't stray off-track, without resorting to things like the daily hijinks of living with a ghost girl kind of thing. It had beautifully smooth animation and I loved the OP and ED, not to mention the rest of the soundtrack. But without a doubt what made it such a soul stealing series was its cast.
You have the always bittersweet set up of childhood friends who have grown up and drifted apart. There's just something about that that people can relate to because we've all grown up and in the process left a part of our childhood behind. And it all started with the passing of one of the main people in their group, Menma. One thing I also love is how they slowly revert back to using each other's nicknames, because it's all about rediscovering and reconnecting. And it's beautiful.
Menma is childish and silly but she's just so full of love, and what I liked best was that the series didn't totally zoom in on her and Jinta but also incorporated the fact that she loved everyone. What made the ending so emotional was because she loved Jinta, and she was happy with him, but what she wanted even more was to be together with everyone.
Jinta is just a great character. He starts off reclusive and directionless, but you can see the 'leader' he was before and it comes out more and more throughout the series. He's gathering these people together and finding himself thanks to this silly ghost of a girl he loved.
Anaru is very lost too. She's had this unrequited love, and all the jealousy and hurt and painful feelings that come with it. But she hates herself for these ugly feelings, and she's lost and drifting, not sure where she should be. (I didn't like how they portrayed her friends as suddenly a lot more likeable in the last episode though)
Yukiatsu was a bit too creepy yandere for me. He's had an unrequited love too, but he deals with it all inside and it makes him all that much easier to snap. He's kind of extreme and crazy cross dresser but more importantly how dare you when Tsuruko was by your side all that time aldsfjasdfayou.
Tsuruko dealt with her feelings as best she could. And I loved when she revealed that she was jealous of Anaru, and when the whole thing made her cry. She's always composed and logical, and she's always standing by Yukiatsu, doing what's best for him. And all that time she was probably hurting, but it wasn't until everyone started coming together that she finally cried.
You mix that in with the feelings of families, and parents. People dealing with loss, of their childhood, of their innocence, of a dear friend, of a family member. What happens after. Everyone changing yet staying the same. And Menma appears before them all, not as some all knowing spirit, but as a girl who's wish was just for everyone's happiness.
The last episode when everyone's in front of the shrine is one of my favourite scenes, and I was just sitting there sobbing 'youbastards' at the screen. Because they all have their flaws, even Jinta, they all had their own selfishness and their own pain and he realizes that he's not alone. They realize they're all using their old nicknames, and Yukiatsu tells 'leader' to get their sixth member there. It's beautiful and I'm running out of synonyms for weeping profusely and losing all my feels.

When you grow up, you change little by little and those days and those dreams drift into the past. People are separated, whether by time or by loss. We might still not know the name of the flower we saw that day, but we move on, we say goodbye properly this time, and maybe find each other again.