Rumbling Hearts: Volumes 1 and 2
Hawkeye
Rumbling Hearts is a tale of friendship, betrayal, and love. This story of four friends is aimed at an audience who loved American TV shows like Dawson’s Creek, Gilmore Girls, and One Tree Hill.
Haruka, Takayuki, Mitsuki and Shinji all attend the same school and are the best of friends. They think they’ll be together and happy till the end of time. Haruka and Takayuki even begin dating and things quickly turn serious between them. However, happy times fade when Haruka is in a horrible car accident and ends up in a coma. Takayuki is devastated and blames himself, but he does find comfort in Haruka’s best friend Mitsuki. Mitsuki has always loved Takayuki but never wanted to betray her best friend, but a year after the accident she can no longer deny her feelings, and she begins to date Takayuki. The real problem arises when Haruka wakes from her coma three years later and has amnesia. She has no sense of the time has passed. She still thinks it’s three years earlier and that Takayuki is her boyfriend. Everyone has to play along in order to keep permanent damage from happening to her brain. But can Takayuki’s and Mitsuki’s relationship handle Takayuki pretending to be Haruka’s boyfriend, or will it destroy it?
The art and animation was pretty good. They did some very realistic camera angles as well as clever placement to make the slower scenes seem interesting. The characters were a unique design and I really liked how the aged and changed their appearance over the passing of time. The background artwork was also excellent, providing lushness with a good level of detail that blended nicely.
The sound was fine, though Haruka’s voice was a little too sugary sweet. I don’t remember much about the music which means it wasn’t bad but also wasn’t great. The sound effects were well done at least, including background noise to make things seem more realistic. It really added to the atmosphere of the episodes.
I’m a fan of shoujo. I like a good romance with a splash of drama, but this was just too much for me. The plot was too dramatic and it didn’t have the sweet aspects to it that most love stories do. It was all one horrible event after another, it was a train wreck I couldn’t look away from. I couldn’t relate to the situations since they were so far fetched.
This anime is exactly like the midday soap operas you see on TV. I mean come on, it had a girl in a coma, while her boyfriend finds love and comfort in her best friend, a bad case of amnesia, and even a hot doctor who smokes all the time. Seriously, I’m just waiting for the evil twin to be revealed. It was a little too over dramatic and cheesy for my tastes but if you loved Days of Our Lives and similar titles this anime is for you.
Entertainment: 5
It was all just a bit too much.
Technical: 6
Sound and animation were fine but nothing too extraordinary. Also there were no extras.
