Kokoro Connect - Reviews

From the very first episode, this anime gripped me and I couldn't stop watching it. Every phenomenon that happened was just so interesting to watch! 

Kokoro Connect has quite a few different themes. I found it quite funny at times because of how the characters would behave and say things. But it also could get very deep and emotional. For me, good anime have a good mix of themes which is definitely Kokoro Connect. 

The characters are amazing and very relatable. You grow to understand each character and why they behave in certain ways and why they value different things due to their pasts being explained. 

Throughout the anime, characters have ups and downs, but each time something was resolved, it made me feel really happy. Seeing the friendship develop between the 5 main characters is so heartwarming. 

I would honestly recommend this anime to anyone who likes a bit of drama, comedy, romance and slice of life. 

Kokoro Connect isn't really bad, but whether or not you think it's actually good is going to depend primarily on your own emotional maturity. If you're a younger person, struggling to make sense of things - as is the duty of the young - then Kokoro Connect will likely seem to be a very deep and compelling exploration of the human experience. On the other hand, if you've experienced life for a while then you should be prepared for "First World Problems: Anime Edition".

The plot revolves around a group of misfit teens who have formed a school club: three harem members, one author avatar, and one token foil. A cosmic troll with mysterious powers decides to shake them up a bit and see what happens, so he subjects them to all manner of bizarre circumstances, such as randomly timed body swapping, sudden and total loss of inhibition, and so on. The teenagers immediately react to this by pouring out their inner reserves of pent up, angsty drama, and things get very soggy. Be prepared for the power of love (or in this case, adolescent tummy butterflies) to solve all the problems by doing everything except for actually dealing with reality.

Nevertheless, the show is amusing enough even for the elderly "jaded  jerk" crowd, if only for the pretty visuals and to see how the space-troll goes about torturing the cast for kicks.

I'm torn when it comes to reviewing Kokoro Connect. It does so many things right, so perfectly correct, but then it tops off this power house of great quality by sucker punching me and laughing at my look of betrayal. 

The show centers around a group of five people who are chosen by a deity-like being to undergo a series of team-building exercises. And by that, I mean that a bored god puts them through a series of strange scenarios, purely for the sake of his entertainment, in what I like to call the "up yours" style of plot development. So this is how the group finds themselves randomly switching bodies with each other, among several other very embarassing, revealing, and otherwise possibly traumatic scenarios, designed to spark as much popcorn-crunching drama as possible. 

Of course, a plot like this could get away with a few cardboard-cutout characters, but Silver Link had bigger dreams than that. Each of the five characters feels so complex, having their own secrets, that are slowly brought out over the course of their endeavor. By the fourth episode I was so drawn into these characters, and their stories, and was so ready to see what came next. 

And then the first arc ended. And everything went sour. See, the first arc involved some interesting character development, that was built up a ton, and but never quite brought to it's conclusion. Which makes sense, it's the first arc, you can't have characters undergoing their full arc in the first few episodes. But then the second arc came along, and all the development that was built up is suddenly gone, and we're doing essentially the same arc over again, but with body swapping switched for a different oddity. It's like preparing a fantastic cake, mixing together the ingredients, baking it, watching it rise, absorbing the wonderful aroma as you take it out of the oven, and then, just as you're ready to take your first bite, realizing that you suddenly have a fork-full of flour. And no cake. 

Whether or not I recommend Kokoro Connect is honestly trivial. Much as I complain, it's a really well made show, and SIlver Link did an amazing job making an interesting story. I just wish they didn't realize this, and just decide to repeat that story two more times, instead of writing some new stuff. 

Kokoro Connect is a very entertaining series, and brings the viewer along as a group of teenagers are forced on a psychological journey.  Make sure you watch until after the last credits have rolled, in order for the journey to be fully put into context!

The art is good, and the characters all easy on the eye.  I'm not sure if I agree with the oft repeated assertion within the anime that Nagase is the prettiest of the three girls, but none of them are ugly.  It is generally easy to tell visually when characters are not who they appear to be: in my opinion this is critical to a willing suspension of disbelief from viewers of this anime.  The OPs and EDs are also good quality, and didn't have me want to scroll forward, so I wouldn't have to watch them.  Watch them carefully as they might contain some hints to what is really going on...  Or maybe not?

As I mentioned above, this anime is all about the characters, and the story cannot be judged apart from them.  The ditz, the sporty one, the smart one, the casanova, the otaku:  while these titles do apply to each character, they don't define them.  We are presented with other facets of each teen's personality over the course of the series, as they are forced on a journey to confront themselves and help each other grow.  The journey itself is not all cliches either, with some situations and decisions which might surprise viewers.  The decision not to show viewers every occasion when something happens, means we have to trust the characters implicitly when they recount them to their club colleagues.  I still can't decide if I do or not... and for me that is the real strenght of this anime, and what puts it above the average.