[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I never really saw the scene as serious, Ohana's narration of her first encounter with Minko kind of killed the possibility of that for me.

I took the scene as serious because Minchi had a legitimate reason for being ticked off there. She was ticked off because Ohana was pulling out her plants, which was in fact a pretty impulsive and thoughtless thing for Ohana to do given that she had just arrived at a brand new place with complete strangers to her living and working there. Minchi's angry reply of "Die!" is, yes, a bit over the top, but because she had a legitimate reason to be peeved (i.e this wasn't like your classic tsundere "jumping to conclusions" misunderstanding leading to slapstick comedy) it felt serious to me.

It did kind of make me feel for Ohana and want to give an "Ohana fight-o!" kind of cheer though. This anime throws a lot at her - especially that first arc - but she's always struck me as plucky enough to deal with it. She did get pretty upset at the end of episode one but she's the "get mad, get even" type.

I agree with you here at least. But I guess to me "plucky enough to deal with it" translates as "strong enough to overcome daunting situations" and that's almost as dramatic/serious as it gets for me.

Originally Posted by acejem

Whilst I personally (only my opinion) consider Toradora to be one of Okada's weaker involvements (of the slice-of-life orientated genre), it did what it perceived to do well because in essence it was a romantic comedy first with some drama elements splashed in. This anime? After another episode-3 like episode, I really don't know what's going on anymore, which is why I half-jokingly called it the "Angel Beats" treatment to a friend of mine. If the anime stuck with the mid-ground that was episodes 4 to 6 I would have a fair idea of what was going on.

I very strongly agree with this. This is precisely my own take as well.

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Angel Beats was cursed with having to stuff everything it wanted to do in 13 episodes. This show runs at twice that, and we're just at halfway of the run that Angel Beats had, or 1/4 of this show's entire run. I'd say that's much too short to make a convincingly all-encompassing conclusion to the show, and would likely be only premature.

After 7 episodes of any anime, of any length, viewers should have a pretty good idea of the balance between drama/comedy, dark/uplifting, and serious/lighthearted that the anime is aiming for overall, imo. Of those three scales, the only one I feel confident on making "a call" on is dark/uplifting - Hana-Saku Iroha is clearly aiming more for uplifting than dark.

And I'm perfectly fine with and supportive of that. Indeed, it's now the main reason why I continue to watch this show - its generally happy presentation and sentimentality is something I appreciate.

And again I'd like to echo one of our sentiments that life isn't always hell on earth, nor is it always sugar raindrops and sunshine.

I don't see what that has to do with serious drama vs. lighthearted comedy.

Serious drama can be quite uplifting overall. I mean, seeing characters rise to overcome difficult challenges is inherently dramatic and uplifting, in my view.

To reference a recent anime that's like this, I point to Moshidora.

I favor a life full of it's ups and downs, shifting from the middle of the spectrum and back and forth through its ends, rather than one that's always running through life's gauntlets or life's sunny fields.

Sure, that's fine. And I agree with you on this.