Say “I love you” is based on the popular eponymous manga by Kanae Hazuki. Besides the anime, which was released in 2012, a live-action movie was also released in 2014 based on the same manga. Say “I love you” follows Mei Tachibana, she lets her youth pass her by without showing any interest in making friends or enjoying her high school years. She believes, thanks to an unfortunate experience in the past, that people can’t be trusted and that everyone eventually betrays you. One day she meets the popular Yamata Kurosawa and their relationship slowly starts to grow. He helps her see that friendship and love are worth her effort and that it’s important to open yourself up for them.
Mei Tachibana’s development during the anime goes pretty smoothly. She starts as a mistrusting person but slowly changes into someone who enjoys being around other people. What makes this believable is that she is still pretty insecure about her interaction with others. Slowly but surely she begins to trust her friends and starts to believe they won’t suddenly abandon her.
Yamato Kurosawa seems like a very happy go lucky popular guy at first glance, but is a well thought out character. His past slowly becomes clear, just like the backgrounds of other characters, which also helps show you how he’s developing as the story continues.
The personalities and experiences of their class- and schoolmates are also further elaborated on. This way there isn’t a focus on the two main characters only, but also on the people around them and their relationships.
The relationship between Mei and Yamato doesn’t always run smoothly. In a total of 13 episodes you see a lot of obstacles and tears. Both Mei and Yamato come across someone who tries to steal their partner from them. Aside from this there is also space for humor in this anime and it also has a lot of funny moments.
In my opinion this is definitely not a bad anime, but I would say that it is on the dramatic side. There are a lot of sad moments and just when everything seems to come together there’s another obstacle. I think it’s great that the characters are as thought out as they are, but herein as well lies a lot of drama as they all have pretty tragic backgrounds.
This anime is definitely worth watching, but it’s not advisable to watch it when you’re down. It’s most likely not going to cheer you up. If you want to know how the story continues after the anime then I recommend you read the manga. It is still ongoing and there are currently more than 50 chapters released.
Studios: Zexcs
Started airing: 6th of October 2012
Number of episodes: 13
Rating: 60/100
